Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T22:54:30.974Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Introduction: the urban–rural connection: changing issues of belonging and identification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Peter Geschiere  and
Josef Gugler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since the 1960s researchers have emphasised the continuing importance of rural–urban connections as a special aspect of urbanisation in Africa. It is clear that since then, in many parts of Africa, the involvement of urbanites with their ‘home’ village has increased rather than decreased. Four of the articles in this issue were originally papers presented at two ASA panels (Toronto, 1994) which set out to explore these rural–urban connections. The content of the exchanges and the moral involvement of city people and villagers in such relations vary greatly. The variations have important implications for regional differences in, for instance, the development of new modes of accumulation or the cementing of ethnic networks. The other article (by Dickson Eyoh) addresses the effects of recent political changes in this context—a theme also raised by the other articles. In many parts of Africa democratisation seems to evoke an obsession with ‘autochthony’, origin and belonging. The increasing role of elite associations, as an alternative to multi-party politics, makes the rural connection of vital importance to urban politicians. Hence ‘the village’, and more generally the region of origin, acquire new importance as a power base in national politics.

Résumé

Depuis les années 60, les chercheurs soulignent l'importance constante des liens entre la ville et la campagne dans le processus d'urbanisation en Afrique. II est clair que depuis cette période les liens que les citadins entretiennent avec leur village natal ont augmenté dans de nombreuses régions d'Afrique. Quatre articles publiés dans ce numéro sont des papiers qui ont été présentés devant deux commissions ASA (à Toronto en 1994) chargées d'étudier ces liens entre la ville et la campagne. Le contenu des échanges et la part morale jouée par les citadins et les villageois dans ces liens varient considérablement. Les conséquences de ces variations sont importantes quant aux différences régionales observées dans le domaine, par exemple, du développement de nouveaux modes de rapprochement ou de consolidation des réseaux ethniques. L'autre article (par Dickson Eyoh) évoque les conséquences des changements politiques récents dans ce domaine, thème également soulevé par les autres articles. Dans de nombreuses régions d'Afrique, la démocratisation semble susciter une obsession pour l'“autochtonie”, l'origine et l'appartenance. Le rôle croissant des associations élitaires comme substitut du pluripartisme politique donne aux rapports avec la campagne une importance vitale aux yeux des politiciens urbains. Le village, et plus généralement la région d'origine, revêt ainsi une nouvelle importance en tant que base politique nationale.

Type
Introduction
Information
Africa , Volume 68 , Issue 3: The Politics of Primary Patriotism , July 1998 , pp. 309 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anker, R., and Knowles, J. C. 1983. Population Growth, Employment and Economic–Demographic Interactions in Kenya: Bachue-Kenya. New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Aronson, D. R. 1971. ‘Ijebu Yoruba urban–rural relationships and class formation’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 5, 263–79.Google Scholar
Aronson, D. R. 1978. The City is our Farm: seven migrant Ijebu Yoruba families. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman.Google Scholar
Barkan, J. D., McNulty, M. L., and Ayeni, M. A. O. 1991. ‘“Hometown” voluntary associations, local development, and the emergence of civil society in western Nigeria’, Journal of Modern African Studies 29 (3), 457–80.Google Scholar
Carrier, J. C and Carrier, A. H. 1989. Wage, Trade, and Exchange in Melanesia. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chassard, P. E., Ecrement, M., and Lecomte, B. 1972. Extrait d'une étude de reconnaissance des sociétés locales de développement (Côte d'Ivoire). Document de travail pour le colloque de Yaoundé, Paris: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. W., and Atieno, Odhiambo E. S. 1992. Burying SM: the politics of knowledge and the sociology of power in Africa. London: Currey/Heinemann.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. W. 1995. Opportunity and Obligation in Nairobi: social networks and differentiation in the political economy of Kenya. Neiträge zur Afrikaforschung 6, Münster and Hamburg: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Dandekar, H. C. 1986. Men to Bombay, Women at Home: urban influence on Sugao village, Deccan Maharashtra, India, 1942–82. Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies University of Michigan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devisch, R. 1996. ‘“Pillaging Jesus”: healing Churches and the villagisation of Kinshasa’, Africa 66 (4), 555–87.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt.Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 1982. Village Communities and the State: changing relations among the Maka of south-eastern Cameroon since the colonial conquest. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 1997. The Modernity of Witchcraft: politics and the occult in postcolonial Africa. Charlottesville, Va., and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P., and Konings, P. (eds). 1993. Itinérates d'accumulation au Camerounl Pathways to Accumulation in Cameroon. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Gugler, J. 1971. ‘Life in a dual system: eastern Nigerians in town’, Cahiers d'études africaines 11 (3), 400–21.Google Scholar
Gugler, J. 1996. ‘Urbanization in Africa south of the Sahara: new identities in conflict’, in J., Gugler (ed.), The Urban Transformation of the Developing World, pp. 210–51. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gugler, J. 1997 (1991). ‘“Life in a dual system” revisited: urban–rural ties in Enugu, Nigeria, 1961–87’, World Development 19 (5), 399–409; reprinted revised in J., Gugler (ed.), Cities in the Developing World: issues, theory, and policy, pp. 62–73. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gugler, J., and Flanagan, W. G. 1978. Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa. Urbanization in Developing Countries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gugler, J., and Ludwar-Ene, G. 1995. ‘Gender and migration in Africa south of the Sahara’, in Baker, J. and Aina, T. Akin (eds), The Migration Experience in Africa, pp. 257–68. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Hart, K. 1971. ‘Migration and tribal identity among the Frafras of Ghana’, Journal of Asian and African Studies 6, 21–6.Google Scholar
Laite, J. 1981, Industrial Development and Migrant Labour in Latin America. Manchester: Manchester University Press; Austin, Tex.: Texas University Press.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. 1994. ‘Home, death and leadership: discourses of an educated elite from north-western Ghana’, Social Anthropology 2 (2), 149–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lentz, C. 1995. ‘“Unity for development”: youth associations in north-western Ghana’, Africa 65 (3), 395–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Monga, C. 1995. ‘Cercueils, orgies et sublimation: le coût d'une mauvaise gestion de la mort’, Afrique 2000 21, 63–72.Google Scholar
Mossbrucker, H. 1997. ‘Amerindian migration in Peru and Mexico’, in J., Gugler (ed.), Cities in the Developing World: issues, theory, and policy, pp. 48–61. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Munachonga, M. 1988. ‘Income allocation and marriage options in urban Zambia’, in D., Dwyer and J., Bruce (eds.), A Home Divided: women and income in the Third World, pp. 173–94. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Connor, A. M. 1983. The African City. London: Hutchinson; New York: Africana.Google Scholar
Potts, D. 1997. ‘Urban lives: adopting new strategies and adapting rural links’, in C., Rakodi (ed.), The Urban Challenge in Africa: growth and management of its large cities, pp. 447–94. Tokyo, New York and Paris: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
Smock, A. C. 1971. Igbo Politics: the role of the ethnic unions in eastern Nigeria. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tostensen, Arae. 1991. ‘Between shamba and factory: industrial labour migration in Kenya’, in Coughlin, Peter and Ikiara, Gerrishon K. (eds), Kenya's Industrialization Dilemma, pp. 291–308. Nairobi: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Trager, L. 1988. The City Connection: migration and family interdependence in the Philippines. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Van den Bersselaar, Dmitri. 1997. ‘Creating “Union Ibo”: missionaries and the Igbo language’, Africa 67 (2), 273–95.Google Scholar
Van Binsbergen, W. M. J. In press. ‘Globalisation and virtuality: analytical problems posed by the contemporary transformation of African societies’, in B., Meyer and P., Geschiere (eds), Globalisation and Identity: the dialectics of flow and closure. Special issue of Development and Change (The Hague); Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Van Velsen, J. 1960. ‘Labour migration as a positive factor in the continuity of Tonga tribal society’, Economic Development and Cultural Change 8, 265–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidal, C. 1991. Sociologie des passions (Côte d'lvoire, Rwanda). Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Warnier, J-P. 1995. L'Esprit d'entreprise au Cameroun. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Weisner, T. S. 1972. ‘One family, two households: rural–urban ties in Kenya’. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Woods, D. 1994. ‘Elites, ethnicity, and “home town” associations in the Côte d'Ivoire: an historical analysis of state–society links’, Africa 64 (4), 465–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar