Man in Africa.
01 Mar 1970-Vol. 5, Iss: 1, pp 146
TL;DR: Banton Darwinism and the Study of Society (1961) Hb: 0-415-26391-3 Beidelman The Translation of Culture: Essays to EE Evans-Pritchard (1971) as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Banton Darwinism and the Study of Society (1961) Hb: 0-415-26391-3 Beidelman The Translation of Culture: Essays to EE Evans-Pritchard (1971) Hb: 0-415-26392-1 Cohen Urban Ethnicity (1974) Hb: 0-415-26393-X Douglas and Kaberry Man in Africa (1969) Hb: 0-415-26394-8 Hirst and Reekie The Consumer Society (1977) Hb: 0-415-26395-6 Hymes Foundations in Sociolinguistics (1977) Hb: 0-415-26396-4
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the evolution of the macro-processus de l'organisation sociale en Afrique, i.e., de la signification of certains concepts-cles comme les concepts de groupe domestique, de lignage, de famille.
Abstract: Evolution depuis une vingtaine d'annees des themes et des approches des recherches sur l'organisation sociale en Afrique. Etude detaillee de la signification de certains concepts-cles comme les concepts de groupe domestique, de lignage, de famille. Les nouvelles tendances de l'etude des macro-processus de l'organisation sociale. Revue de la litterature sur la stabilite matrimoniale et la polygynie comme exemple des possibilites de comprehension de problemes particuliers dans le contexte de processus historiques plus vastes.
417 citations
TL;DR: For example, a longitudinal analysis of the cumulative effect of female extramarital sex indicates that matrilineal inheritance is most advantageous for women and would be more accurately considered a grandmaternity strategy.
Abstract: In most cultures, extramarital sex is highly restricted for women. In most of those cultures, men transfer wealth to their own sons (patrilineal inheritance). In some cultures extramarital sex is not highly restricted for women, and in most of those cultures, men transfer wealth to their sisters' sons (matrilineal inheritance). Inheritance to sisters' sons ensures a man's biological relatedness to his heirs, and matrilineal inheritance has been posited as a male accommodation to cuckoldry—a paternity strategy—at least since the 15th century. However, longitudinal analysis of the cumulative effect of female extramarital sex indicates that matrilineal inheritance is most advantageous for women and would be more accurately considered a grandmaternity strategy. That is, if the probability that men's putative children are their biological children (ρ = probability of paternity) is less than 1, the probabilistic degree of relatedness between a female and her matrilineal heirs is higher than her corresponding relatedness to her patrilineal heirs. The same holds true for men only if ρ is very low (< 0.46). The upshot is that for moderate levels of female extramarital sex, matrilineal inheritance, relative to patrilineal inheritance, is highly advantageous for women and disadvantageous for men. Consideration of female variance in reproductive success beyond the first generation, and of a man's network of obligation to the inclusive fitness of his relatives, suggests that although the establishment of matrilineal inheritance may require extremely high levels of female extramarital sex, once established, it is likely to be maintained at levels of ρ that reasonably characterize many societies in the ethnographic record. New analysis of previously published data shows a strong association between matrilineal inheritance and moderate to low probability of paternity, and an even stronger relationship between patrilineal inheritance and high probability of paternity.
216 citations
TL;DR: The food crisis in Africa is mainly a result of lagging or insufficient agricultural production or whether it is part of a larger crisis of economic management, reflected in chronic balance of payments deficits, rising foreign indebtedness, inflation, low productivity, corruption, waste, and deteriorating standards of living for all but a privileged few as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Recent assessments of the performance and prospects of African economies portray a deepening economic crisis centered on the problem of food supplies. During the last ten years, a rapidly rising number of Africans have had an increasingly difficult time getting enough to eat. By all accounts, domestic food supplies are falling further and further behind domestic needs; both governments and consumers face serious problems in procuring the kinds and quantities of food they want at prices they can afford to pay. Chronic hunger and malnutrition are spreading, escalating quickly into famine at times of environmental or financial crisis. Covering food deficits from foreign sources has also become more difficult in the last decade. World prices of grains have risen; soaring petroleum prices have put heavy strains on many African countries' balances of payments and worsened their terms of trade; and agricultural exports have not increased sufficiently to cover rising import bills. Food aid to Africa has grown at unprecedented rates in the last decade, but it is neither adequate to meet shortterm needs, nor is it a solution to the crisis in the long run. The question to which this review will be primarily addressed is whether the food crisis in Africa is mainly a result of lagging or insufficient agricultural production or whether it is part of a larger crisis of economic management, reflected in chronic balance of payments deficits, rising foreign indebtedness, inflation, low productivity, corruption, waste, and deteriorating standards of living for all but a privileged few. For the most part international agencies, from the OAU to the World Bank, have attributed the crisis to declining or stagnant agricultural production brought about by government policies which discourage or inhibit agricultural growth. The analysis walks on two legs. First, aggregate production indices compiled by African governments and/or the international agencies themselves suggest that, in most of sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural output per capita has stagnated or even declined in recent years. Second, studies of development policy in several Asian and Latin American economies (Little et al., 1970) showed that strategies of import-substituting industrialization (widely practiced in the 1950s and 1960s) tend to discriminate against agriculture. After independence, African governments frequently adopted similar policies with, it is argued, similar results: in Africa's largely agrarian economies, the resulting decline in agricultural output (or growth) not only led to food shortages and mounting balance of payment deficits, but also undermined the entire process of economic development.
188 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that the Intellectualist theory did not account adequately for variation in the concept and cult of the supreme being in settings uninfluenced by Islam and Christianity and suggested that, although the evidence was probably insufficient for a decisive verdict, the Theory appeared to give a rather good account of religious dynamics in such settings.
Abstract: In the first part of this paper I began by dealing with those of Fisher's objections to the Intellectualist Theory which seemed to me to require short, sharp, and destructive answers. I then went on to consider an objection which seemed to require a longer and more constructive answer. This was the objection that the Theory did not account adequately for variation in the concept and cult of the supreme being in settings uninfluenced by Islam and Christianity. I suggested that, although the evidence was probably insufficient for a decisive verdict, the Theory appeared to give a rather good account of religious dynamics in such settings. A demonstration of its plausibility in this context was, as I pointed out, an important preliminary to my main argument. For it was crucial to the credibility of the thesis that Islam and Christianity were more than anything else catalysts for changes that were ‘in the air’ anyway.
150 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose that matriliny can arise from daughter-biased investment by parents and/or grandparents, and they show that daughterbiased investment is adaptive if the marginal benefit of wealth to sons (compared to daughters) does not outweigh the risk of nonpaternity in sons' offspring.
119 citations