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Ethnographic and Sociological Research in East Africa: A Review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Extract

A good deal of ethnographic and sociological research has recently been undertaken, or is planned or currently in progress, in the four East African Territories of Uganda, Tanganyika, Kenya, and Zanzibar. This research is being and has been carried out under a number of different auspices. These include, as well as the East African Institute of Social Research at Kampala (which has organized and directed a large part of the research so far undertaken), universities and other sponsoring bodies in England and the United States (such as the Colonial Social Science Research Council, the ‘Scarbrough’ Committee, and the Goldsmiths' Company in England, and the Ford, Fulbright, and Carnegie foundations in America), Makerere College, the East African Statistical Department, and the territorial Governments themselves.

Résumé

LES RECHERCHES ETHNOGRAPHIQUES ET SOCIOLOGIQUES EN AFRIQUE ORIENTALE: UN COMPTE RENDU

Cet article est basé sur une note préparée par l'Institut Est-Africain de Recherches Sociales et présentée à la Conférence des Sciences Sociales de la CCTA, tenue en août 1955. Son but est de fournir un exposé général des recherches ethnologiques et sociologiques en Afrique Orientale qui sont en cours ou ont été récemment achevées, ou sont envisagées pour l'avenir. L'auteur traite à tour de rôle des quatre territoires de l'est africain: l'Ouganda, le Tanganyika, le Kenya et le Zanzibar, et donne, sous chacune de ces rubriques, un exposé sommaire des renseignements actuels — tant en ce qui concerne des études ethnographiques générales que des monographies et des articles portant sur des problèmes déterminés — suivi d'un résumé des travaux en cours, des études ethnographiques de peuples définis, ainsi que des études comparatives de l'organisation politique dans diverses régions, des études de populations urbaines et des communautés asiatiques en Afrique Orientale. Sous la rubrique ‘Recherches futures’, de brefs exposés sont présentés de projets déjà établis, avec des indications des lacunes dans les renseignements existants, qui pourraient, et devraient, être comblées par des études supplémentaires. En plus des quatre sections, dont chacune traite ‘d'un des territoires de l'est africain, une cinquième section examine des recherches ‘inter-territoriales’ — c'est-à-dire des projets qui entraînent des recherches dans deux ou plusieurs territoires. Ceux-ci comprennent une étude sociologique comparative des peuples bantous habitant la région des lacs, qui s'effectue actuellement sous les auspices de l'Institut Est-Africain de Recherches Sociales. Cette étude s'intéresse plus particulièrement à une comparaison des systèmes politiques et comprend des analyses des bases d'après lesquelles les chefs et autres fonctionnaires sont actuellement nommés, ainsi que de leur statut. Un autre programme compréhensif de recherches est le ‘Leadership Scheme’, qui est patronné par la Corporation Carnegie, et qui s'effectue actuellement dans l'Ouganda et le Kenya.

L'auteur estime que notre connaissance ethnographique fondamentale des peuples des quatre territoires est-africains, bien qu'elle enregistre un certain progrès, n'est pas encore suffisante pour nous permettre de formuler un grand nombre de problèmes sociologiques théoriques généralisés. Malgré le fait que certains problèmes spécifiques, par exemple, la structure des communautés asiatiques et islamiques et les conditions sociales dans les villes africaines, ont besoin d'être étudiés d'urgence, il semble que le plus grand besoin est d'avoir des renseignements récents et suffisants d'un caractère essentiellement ethnographique.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1956

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References

page 265 note 1 This paper is based on a memorandum prepared at the East African Institute of Social Research for the C.C.T.A. Conference on the Social Sciences held at Bukavu in the Belgian Congo during August and September 1955. That memorandum was seen and commented on by the four East African Governments, whose general concurrence with its content and recommendations may accordingly be assumed.

page 265 note 2 Useful bibliographies are to be found in Stanner, W. E. H., Report on social science research in Uganda and Tanganyika, 1949 (unpublished)Google Scholar, and Schapera, I., Some Problems of Anthropological Research in Kenya Colony, International African Institute Memorandum xxiii, 1949.Google Scholar For certain peoples, the relevant sections of the Ethnographic Survey of Africa, published by the International African Institute, under the editorship of Daryll Borde, provide a summary, analysis, and bibliography of existing information. Other volumes of this survey are in preparation. Though in what follows I make no detailed references to the two Reports cited above, the extent to which this review is based on them will be obvious to anyone who is acquainted with them. Most of the suggestions for future regional research were included in the recent quinquennial programme of the East African Institute of Social Research. I wish, in particular, to acknowledge the assistance, in preparing this paper, of Dr. A. I. Richards, C.B.E., and of Dr. L. A. Fallers, both of the East African Institute of Social Research.

It should, perhaps, also be said here that whether or not any particular field study is referred to in the following account, and, if it is referred to, the terms in which it is characterized, reflect the limitations of my personal knowledge at least as much as, if not more than, they reflect any valuational bias.

page 266 note 1 Op. cit.

page 266 note 2 An African People in the Twentieth Century, London, 1934.

page 266 note 3 Cambridge, 1954.

page 266 note 4 Land Tenure in Buganda, East African Studies No. 1, 1954.

page 266 note 5 Report of an enquiry into African heal government in the Protectorate of Uganda, Wallis, C. A. G., Entebbe, 1953.Google Scholar

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page 266 note 8 The Family Herds, P. Gulliver, London, 1955.

page 266 note 9 Bwamba: A Structura-functional Analysis of a Patrilineal Society, Winter, E. H., Cambridge, 1956.Google Scholar

page 267 note 1 e.g. ‘Working Groups in a Plural Society’, Sofer, C., Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. viii, no. 1, 1954Google Scholar; Jinja transformed: A social survey of a multi-racial township, Cyril, and Sofer, Rhona, Kampala, 1955.Google Scholar

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page 269 note 1 Good Company, London, 1951.

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page 269 note 8 Malcolm, D. W., Sukumaland, an African People and their Country, London, 1953Google Scholar; Cory, H., The indigenous political system of the Sukuma and proposals for political reform, East African Studies No. 2, 1954Google Scholar; Cory, H., Sukuma Law and Custom, London, 1953.Google Scholar

page 270 note 1 Report on Fertility Surveys in Buganda and Buhaya, 1952, by A. I. Richards and P. Reining (Part IV of Culture and Human Fertility, F. Lorimer and others, UNESCO).

page 271 note 1 Op. cit.

page 271 note 2 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘Luo Tribes and Clans’, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute Journal, 1949Google Scholar; Southall, A. W., Lineage Formation among the Luo, International African Institute Memorandum xxvi, 1952.Google Scholar

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page 271 note 4 ‘The political structure of the Nandi-speaking peoples of Kenya’, Africa, xiii, 1940.

page 271 note 5 Peristiany, J., The Social Institutions of the Kipsigis, London, 1939.Google Scholar

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page 271 note 7 Wagner, G., The Bantu of North Kavirondo, vol. i, London, 1949Google Scholar; vol. ii is now in the press.

page 272 note 1 e.g. The lineage principle in Gusii society, International African Institute Memorandum, 1949, and ‘Gusii Initiation ceremonies’, J.R.A.I., 83, Jan.–June 1953.

page 272 note 2 e.g., Routledge, W. S. and Routledge, K., With a prehistoric People: the Akikuyu of British East Africa, London, 1910Google Scholar; Kenyatta, J., Facing Mount Kenya, London, 1958Google Scholar; Lambert, H. E., The Systems of Land Tenure in the Kikuyu Land Unit, Capetown, 1950.Google Scholar

page 272 note 3 Lindblom, G., The Akamba of British East Africa, Upsala, 1920.Google Scholar

page 272 note 4 For a summary of information see Prins, A. H. J., The Coastal Tribes of the North-eastern Bantu, London, 1952.Google Scholar

page 272 note 5 To be carried out by M. Ruel.

page 273 note 1 For this study Phillips's, A.Report on Native Tribunals (Kenya, 1944)Google Scholar affords an invaluable ‘base-line’.