Dennis D. Cordell

Polygamy, disrupted reproduction, and the state: Malian migrants in Paris, France

For Malian women, migration from West Africa to France has disrupted widely shared understandings of marriage and reproduction. In response to restrictive immigration policies, men and women routinely confront the challenges of polygamy, public disapproval of high fertility, and biomedical messages promoting contraception. Although many Malians continue to be strongly pronatalist, within a family, spouses may experience contradictory pressures and objectives regarding reproduction, particularly in polygamous marriages. Because women are more likely than men to interact with nurses and doctors in the context of maternity and child health care visits, they are systematically confronted by encouragement to contracept. French population policy is contradictory in this regard, as it has been strongly pronatalist throughout the 20th century, yet is equally strongly anti-natalist with regard to immigrant populations. Recent anti-immigrant policies such as the Pasqua law prohibiting polygamy have emerged as influences shaping mens and womens contested reproductive goals. Men tend to oppose contraception, citing Islamic doctrine while women increasingly justify contraceptive use in response to government policies and biomedical encouragement. In contrast, polygamy also may generate pregnancy rivalries as wives strategize to enhance their reproductive careers and thus to retain immigrant status.

Historical Demography and Demographic History in Africa: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations*

The authors examine the nature of African historical demography with respect to the objectives of demography and the reasons for studying African demography in particular. The variety of available data sources and the methods for African historical demography are reviewed (SUMMARY IN FRE) (ANNOTATION)

African Historical Demography in the Years since Edinburgh

The study of African demography, unlike the study of populations in Europe, North America, and even Asia, has been remarkably ahistorical. The absence of historical understandings of the facts and dynamics of African populations based on focused, local research has led to the creation and perpetuation of notable myths about African populations in the past. Perhaps the most powerful of these stereotypes is the Malthusinn and neo-Malthusian belief that, whatever the historical era and whatever the social and economic contexts, African populations have invariably sought to maximize births. In 1977 participants at the first conference on African historical demography, convened at the African Studies Center in the University of Edinburgh, argued for a more historicized analysis of the evolution of African populations. Papers presented at Edinburgh in 1977, at a second seminar there in 1981, and in a respectable number of conferences, seminars, and panel sessions in the last two decades, confirm in a variety of time periods and social and economic contexts just how historical research contributes to our understanding of the pasts and presents of African societies. This paper surveys research in African historical demography by demographers and by historians “in the years since Edinburgh,” concluding with a mention of a variety of demographic topics—fertility, nuptiality, mortality, migration, and family history—to show how such research has added depth and complexity to our appreciation of social history in Africa, and how various were the ways that African societies sought to ensure their demographic survival.

La mobilisation de la main-d'oeuvre burkinabé, 1900–1974: Une vision retrospective

AbstractThe history of Burkinabe migration since 1900 has been reconstructed mainly from colonial administration documents. This article endeavours to recreate that history from retrospective infor...

The Pursuit of the Real: Modes of Production and History

The mode of production debate is multifaceted, raising questions about the concepts scope, nature, and application. The concept directs attention to the economic activity of a society (society or social formation are used interchangeably in this essay). A strict or minimalist (depending on the value judgement attached) interpretation focuses on the resources available to a society in a particular setting, and the way they are appropriated and transformed to ensure survival. The mode of production of a society is hence composed of two sets of phenomena: the forces of production [resource endowment and technology], and the social relations of production [the way the work force(s) is (are) organized, and power distributed]. Other interpretations of the concept are broader, including the institutions and ideologies that reinforce and legitimize the patterns of material production. This essay uses mode of production in the former, stricter sense, reserving the term superstructure for the essential, but not inherently economic, elements that support a given pattern of social relations and forces of production.

Central Africa to 1870: Zambezia, Zaire and the South Atlantic

List of maps Preface 1. Priests and farmers in the later Iron Age 2. Kings and merchants in the Atlantic era 1600-1790 3. Ivory and guns in the nineteenth century Bibliographical note and further reading Bibliography Index.

Historical Dictionary of the Central African Republic

Updated to incorporate developments since the 1980 first edition. Identifies people, events, and places of significance to the former French colonys history. Includes a chronology, 1800-March 1991; maps; and a historical overview. Most of the scholarship about the country is in French, which the fa