Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T13:42:10.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Class, Endogamy, and Urbanization in the “Three Towns” of the Sudan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Richard A. Lobban Jr.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The geographical context of this article is the Sudanese Three Town agglomeration embracing Khartoum, Khartoum North, and Omdurman. The main social content is that of the socio-historical process of class formation and urbanization. In an effort to measure effects of this process in this region a focus is made on changing patterns in the institutions of marriage as barometers of wider social change. The basic hypothesis to be tested is that the rise of more complex systems of class stratification is associated with a decline of former patterns of endogamy.

The data presented here are analyzed within the epistemology of dialectical and historical materialism which assumes, inter alia, that (1) there is an integration of the component parts of society, (2) that changes in the material (empirical) basis of the organization of society will have effects in other social spheres, and (3) that the cumulative effects of social change eventually lead to qualitative changes in social relations. Another theoretical assumption unifying this research and analysis is (4) that data must be viewed in a processual rather than in a mechanical, synchronic, or ahistorical functionalist manner. Nevertheless the empirical studies of the urban anthropologist only permit the researcher to segment a portion of social reality for closer scrutiny taking maximum care that the living, changing society is kept in the fertile medium of history and in the context of changing political and economic relations. Finally it is assumed that (5) a measure of class differentiation is essential inasmuch as urban patterns of socio-cultural variation have a class content.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , December 1979 , pp. 99 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

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

REFERENCES

Abu-Lughod, Janet and Hay, Richard Jr. (eds.). (1977) Third World Urbanization. Chicago: Maaroufa Press.Google Scholar
Arrighi, Giovanni and Saul, John S.. (1973) Essays on the Political Economy of Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Balamoan, G. Ayoub. (1976) Migration Policies in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 1884 to 1956. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Center for Population Studies.Google Scholar
Barclay, Harold B. (1964) Buurri Al Lamaab: A Suburban Village in the Sudan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Barth, Fredrik. (1965) The Tuti Community, Sudan Society, 3:1–20.Google Scholar
Barth, Fredrik. (1970) Father's Brother's Daughter Marriage in Kurdistan, in Sweet, L. E. (ed.), Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, vol. 1, pps. 127–136. Garden City: Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Basham, Richard. (1978) Urban Anthropology: The Cross Cultural Study of Complex Societies. Palo Alto, California: Mayfield Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Berger, Benigna Rose-Marie. (1967) Der Wendel sozialer Rollen in Tunesien, eine Untersuchung uber die tunesische Industriearbeiterin. Freiburg.Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice (ed.). (1975) Marxist Analysis and Social Anthropology. London: Malaby Press.Google Scholar
Cornforth, Maurice. (1953) Materialism and the Dialectical Method. New York: International Pulishers.Google Scholar
Durrani, Lorna Hawker. (1976) Employment of Women and Social Change, in Stone, R. A. and Simons, J. (eds.) Change in Tunisia: Studies in the Social Sciences, pps. 57–72. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Eickelman, Dale F. (1976) Moroccan Islam, Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Fakhouri, Hani. (1972) Kafr El-Elow: An Egyptian Village in Transition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Gait, Anthony H. and Smith, Larry J.. (1976) Models and the Study of Social Change. New York: Schenkman Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Godelier, Maurice. (1977) Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gouldner, Alvin W. (1970) The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Granqvist, Hilma. (1931) Marriage Conditions in a Palestinian Village. Helsinfors.Google Scholar
Gutkind, Peter C. W. and Wallerstein, Immanuel (eds.). (1976) The Political Economy of Contemporary Africa. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Hale, Sondra and Hale, Gerry A. (eds.). (1971) Sudan Urban Studies, African Urban Notes, special issue, VI(2).Google Scholar
Hale, Sondra. (1972) Nubians in the Urban Milieu, in El-Bushra, El -Sayed (ed.), Urbanization in the Sudan, Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Philosophical Society of the Sudan. Khartoum: Khartoum University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard (ed.). (1975) The Political Economy of Africa. New York: Schenkman Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Hart, David M. (1970) Clan, Lineage, Local Community and the Feud in a Rifian Tribe (Aith Waryaghar, Morocco), in Sweet, L. E. (ed.), Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, vol. 2, pps. 3–75. Garden City: Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Hart, David M.. (1976) The Aith Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rife, an Ethnography and History, Viking Fund Publication, No. 55. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Holy, Ladislav. (1974) Neighbors and Kinsmen, A Study of the Berti People of Darfur. New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Kelle, V. and Kovalson, M.. (1973) Historical Materialism: An Outline of Marxist Theory of Society. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Lees, Francis A. and Brooks, Hugh C.. (1977) The Economic and Political Development of the Sudan. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Lenin, V. I. (1908) Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Peking: Foreign Language Press (1972 edition).Google Scholar
Lobban, Richard A. (1971) The Historical Role of the Mahas in the Urbanization of Sudan's “Three Towns,” African Urban Notes, VI(2): 24–38.Google Scholar
Lobban, Richard A. (1973) Social Networks in the Urban Sudan, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Evanston: Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Lobban, Richard A. (1975) Alienation, Urbanization, and Social Networks in the Sudan, Journal of Modern African Studies, 13(3): 491–500.Google Scholar
Lobban, Richard S., Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, and Zangari, Linda. (1976) “Tribe,” A Sociopolitical Analysis, Ufahamu, VII(1): 143–165.Google Scholar
Lobban, Richard A. (ed.). (1977) African Urbanization: Class Formation. International Journal of Sociology, special issue, summer.Google Scholar
Marx, K., Engels, F., and Lenin, V. I.. (1972) On Historical Materialism (selected works). New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Murphy, R. F. and Kasdan, L.. (1959) The Structure of Parallel Cousin Marriage. American Anthropologist, 61(1): 17–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osipov, G. (1969) Sociology: Problems of Theory and Method. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Politzer, Georges. (1976) Elementary Principles of Philosophy. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
El-Bushra, El-Sayed. (ed.) (1972) Urbanization in the Sudan. Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Philosophical Societyof the Sudan. Khartoum: Khartoum University Press.Google Scholar
El-Bushra, El-Sayed. (ed.) (1976) An Atlas of Khartoum Conurbation. Khartoum: Khartoum University Press.Google Scholar
Skinner, Elliott P. (1974) African Urban Life, the Transformation of Ouagadougou. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Szentes, Tamas. (1976) The Political Economy of Under-Development Budapest: Akademiai Kiado (third edition).Google Scholar
Winters, Christopher. (1977) Traditional Urbanism in the North Central Sudan. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 67(4): 500–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zghal, Abdelkader. (1967) Modernization de l'Agriculture et Populations Semi-Nomades. The Hague: Mouton Press.Google Scholar