Aidan Southall

The Segmentary State in Africa and Asia

Segmentary state was the concept coined to fit Alur society into the theory of political anthropology of the 1940s. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard made the first giant step in the comparative analysis of African political systems, but supposedly centralized states and stateless segmentary lineage systems were the only ones to receive full consideration. Nadel had already distilled the voluminous Eurocentric literature on the theory and philosophy of the state, overburdened as it was with Hegelian growth, to produce a precise empirically oriented and workable definition of the state for anthropologists. Alur society did not fit or even approximate anywhere within the range of the model provided. But the model formulated in 1956 under Alur inspiration was an awkward and cumbersome derivation of Nadels rather than a clear model in its own right. It would be simpler and better to define the segmentary state as one in which the spheres of ritual suzerainty and political sovereignty do not coincide. The former extends widely towards a flexible, changing periphery. The latter is confined to the central, core domain.

The Illusion of Tribe1

‘.IONTROVERSIAL though the matter is, the most generally acceptable characteristics of a tribal society are perhaps that it is a whole society, with a high degree of self sufficiency at a near subsistence level, based on a relatively simple technology without writing or literature, politically autonomous and with its own distinctive language, culture and sense of identity, tribal religion being also coterminous with tribal society. Some would insist on further differentiation of the tribal level of social and cultural organization, on the one hand, from the very small scale band level characteristic of hunting and gathering peoples without agriculture, and on the other, from state or state-like organizations found at the upper limit of scale and complexity within the range of non-literate societies. Thus, Sahlins (1961, 323) speaks of the ’tribal level,

General Amin and the Coup: Great Man or Historical Inevitability?

I have come to the conclusion that General Haji Idi Amin Dada is not a bizarre or maverick intrusion upon the Uganda political scene, 1 but deeply and significantly entwined in it. I wish to present what appear to me to be the most important interrelated factors in the conventional functional sense, but to do so diachronically, so that they become continuous themes or forces, 2 in which successive events have causative effect on one another. 3 This raises all kinds of interesting theoretical and epistemological questions which I shall not be able to dispose of at the same time. I shall also be forced to be selective, without being able to justify each choice and step of the argument as it deserves. Central to my interpretation is the fact that General Amin is a Nubi, and that the history of the Nubi is important for the understanding of contemporary events. The present regime is more and more dominantly a Nubi regime, and its core strength is a Nubi strength.

Social Disorganisation in Uganda: Before, During, and After Amin

The defeat of Amin and the liberation of Uganda by Nyereres Tanzania is the most significant African event of the last decade. With it Africa came of age, able to criticise itself, no longer determined to support the honour of corrupt rulers against the world simply because they are black. Amins buffoonery at last grew tiresome with surfeit. He was a clown who lived his life of power, self-indulgence, and tyranny to the utterance, making himself and his country a total jest, so that all the world must recognise the basic absurdity and iniquity of post- uhuru military regimes in Africa.

Small Urban Centers in Rural Development: What Else is Development Other Than Helping Your Own Home Town?

In our original perspectives and hypotheses on Small Urban Centers in Rural Development in Africa, we stated that these small centers are “the most strategic key to problems of Rural Development…points of articulation between the national systems of marketing, distribution and policy development on the one hand and the interests and productivity of the rural poor on the other.” They are “points of articulation of incentives for greater productivity…at which local rural interests are aggregated and expressed to government and party…sources of new ideas and belief systems…what some would call ‘modernizing centers,’ sources of innovation, politicization, mobilization and national integration” (Southall, 1979: 371). As knowledge grew, our hopeful optimism was punctured and this rosy, positive picture faded. We had recognized the stagnation of the rural sector, the over-centralization and over-bureaucratization of goverments, increasing the fiscal burden, weakening popular local institutions, benefiting mainly elites and even resorting to counterproductive coercion (Southall, 1979b: 375-7). In short, we had recognized that rural development efforts so far have been disappointing and that hypotheses on rural development “must take the form of assuming conditions which do not now prevail.” None the less, with hindsight, we see that our propositions tended to state aspirations as facts, in the wrong tense and the wrong mood. We now recognize in them the same flaws that we still recognize in many other grant-seeking documents. We had also entertained the hypothesis that a three-tiered structure of local points of concentration, somewhat analogous to the Chinese three-tiered commune-production brigade-production team hierarchy, was likely to emerge if positive small center development took place; it was a valid model even without the Maoist ideology (Southall, 1979:377).

The anthropological dilemma of the small town: A review article

Jonathan Baker (ed.). 1997. Rural‐Urban Dynamics in Francophone Africa. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. 201 pp.

Ethnicity, political development and modernization in Africa

Nelson Kasfir. The Shrinking Political Arena: Participation and Ethnicity in African Politics, with a Case Study of Uganda. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976. xvi + 323 pp. Tables, bibliography, and index.

W. D. Hammond-Tooke, (ed), The Bantu Speaking Peoples of Southern Africa. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974. xxii + 525 pp., figures, maps, plates, tables, bibliography, indexes.

23.50.

26.25 (cloth). (Second ed. First ed., 1937)

Sidels found this aspect of health care in China perhaps the most difficult for Western physicians to understand. Critical to the understanding of the Chinese view of mental health is the Chinese belief in the patient’s &dquo;ability to change, given a sympathetic environment and ’education and reeducation&dquo;’ (p. 156). Chinese methodology for treating most varieties of mental illness focus on ten approaches: collective help, self-reliance, drug therapy, acupuncture, &dquo;heartto-heart talks&dquo;, follow-up care, community ethos (mass organization), productive labor, and the teachings of Chairman Mao. The results of this personalized treatment have been successful enough to warrant serious investigation on the part of Western practitioners. The Sidels are careful, however, to stress the unique aspects of Chinese culture and society which contribute to this particular approach to mental health. The final chapter charts the administrative organization of health care in China and examines the current role of medical research. A summary of the book and several appendices follow, rounding out what is likely to be the most readable and informative study of medical care in China for some time. It is hoped that as relations between China and the United States continue to

Book Reviews : Nigel Heseltine, Madagascar. New York, Washington, London, Prager Pub lishers, 1971, pp. x, 334,

national law, a primacy which is affirmed in the majority of African constitutional documents, especially as they relate to African unity. His reference to the Constitutions of Ghana and Cameroon, among other Constitutions which contain provisions dealing with African unity, is illustrative. The author deals at length with Africa’s attitude of reserve toward the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which has developed as a result of the