An impressive feature of modern Africa is the rise of many new towns. The problems of urban unemployment, education, planning, development, and social welfare hold the attention of many Africans and Africanists; there is a wide range of urban topics worthy of study. My purpose here, however, is to speculate on the location, the growth, and the modernization of new African cities. To be brief, and to exclude cities like Cairo and Cape Town which have existed for centuries, I shall deal only with middle Africa.

It is well known that there were only a few urban centers in middle Africa in pre-colonial times: Ibadan and other Yoruba towns in Nigeria, Sudanic centers such as Kano and Timbuktu, Aksum and later Ethiopian towns, East Coast trade centers like Mombasa, and vanished cities like Zimbabwe are examples (Steel 1961).

One result of European contact and colonialism was the establishment of small coastal trading centers. Some were temporary trading posts, others surf ports that flourished for decades or centuries before declining. And a few persisted and grew into modern cities. Often a decision as to which would be an administrative center, a starting point for a railway, or the site for an improved harbor started a process of rapid growth for the favored centers and of eventual decline for the others.

The bulk of research on African political institutions has been conducted by political scientists trained in the precepts of Western culture, and thus an appreciation for the uniqueness of the contributions of African society is lost. Many Western scholars even go so far as to insist that Africa offers no new theoretical problems since human beings are the same and political problems similar the world over. This is false for two reasons. First, man is a direct product of his environment and his problems are defined meaningfully in terms of that environment. Second, environmental and procedural conditions in Africa differ significantly from those in Europe and, by extension, the United States. In Africa social processes do not represent, as they do in Europe, static, readily identifiable forces and interests. They tend rather to defy neat and convenient type-casting and classification.

Let me cite three examples. The average Western scholar looks for institutions in discussing governments. He normally asks, what type of government is this? Unitary, federal, or confederal? Yet the African government is personal, not institutional. To the African, what matters is not the formal function assigned to an institution by its name, but the phases of the flow of policy to which the institution and its personnel contribute. If we look first for institutions and then ask what functions they perform, we may see a less comprehensive picture of the African world than we would by first identifying the political process and then asking which sub-systems contribute to its various branches.

The newly independent nations of the Maghrib inherited many political problems from their former imperial ruler. Of these, the question of frontiers was potentially the most explosive. The Algerian-Moroccan hostilities in the fall of 1963 provided clear evidence of this fact. Another territorial dispute pitted Tunisia against Algeria in a diplomatic crisis. In each case, the government in Algiers disputed claims based on the historic rights of Morocco and Tunisia. In contradiction to the ancient claims of its neighbors, the Algerian thesis was that it now owned all territories that had been controlled by the French administration of colonial Algeria (“Algerian-Moroccan Border Conflict…” 1963). In order to judge these contradictory allegations, it is thus necessary to look back to French colonial policies. Such a study inevitably leads to the conclusion that France was largely responsible for this great divisive question in North Africa. The blame might well be mitigated, however, for beyond selfish French colonial interests lay varying concepts of statehood and long-standing historical problems.

When the French conquered Algiers, they had no plan to take all of Algeria. Nor was there an Algerian state in the European sense, or an Algerian consciousness. Nationalism was apparently born out of opposition to French rule. When, about 1837, France decided to take all of the “Regency of Algiers,” no one knew exactly what the term included. French expansion in North Africa, however, quickly brought the colonialists into direct conflict with the ill-defined empires of Morocco and of the Beylik of Tunis as well as with so-called Algerian dissidents.

One of the most attractive and stimulating features about research in African history has been its eclecticism. Grounded particularly in the extensive and fertile field of social anthropology, Africanists have explored the implications of cultural relativism and the techniques of structural-functional analysis. Now, when some of the basic assumptions which have undergirded social sciences are being questioned, historians might re-examine their own orientations toward the men and societies about which they write.

Claude Lévi-Strauss has suggested that Westerners have been taught to identify subjectively with the “we” of the West, in subconscious opposition to the “other” of the rest of the world. European historians have often encompassed basic contradictions within the Western heritage by opposing that heritage, as a package, to historical experience elsewhere (Lévi-Strauss 1967, p. 258 f.n.). Intensive studies in local history throughout the world, on the other hand, can contribute immensely to reaching a fuller understanding of various ways in which men have related to one another. According to Lévi-Strauss,

That research by expatriates in Africa should henceforth more obviously point toward the solution of African problems hardly needs restatement. Indeed, merely to restate it may damage further the already strained credibility of American Africanists' desires to conduct research in Africa that is responsive simultaneously to theoretical concerns and to Africa's real needs.

Moreover, even a genuine demonstration of dedication to problem-oriented research is not guaranteed to silence the critics. Real accomplishments may, in the present climate, have no more impact than pious declarations of intent. African studies as conducted by American scholars is presently under such impassioned attack from so many quarters and for so many reasons that even tangible accomplishments may not be given much weight by those who feel only anger and indignation when they consider African studies. Whatever the record may show, critics of both the left and the right in recent months have interpreted African studies in the United States as biased either in one or another direction and as lacking the essential, if ill-defined, quality called “relevance.”

Thus, in Montreal in October 1969 a coalition of African and Afro-American critics dismissed the totality of African studies in the United Sates as irrelevant to Africa. Virtually the entire enterprise was labeled the willing tool of capitalist, neo-colonialist, white racist ideology. Presumably, the record of American Africanists elicited this attack.

The major services afforded by local authorities in Kenya are primary education, health, housing, roads and water supplies. Local authorities finance these services from taxes (graduated personal tax, land rates and cesses), school fees, other fees and charges, and government grants. Significant variation in per capita government services in urban and rural areas and the difference in the relative importance of revenue sources of Municipal and County Councils are the dominant features of the expenditure and revenue systems of local authorities in Kenya.

Municipalities spent L8.8 million in 1966 as compared to Lll million spent by County Councils in Kenya. However, more than 90 percent of Kenya's population live in rural areas. The per capita expenditures of Municipalities are more than ten times higher than the per capita expenditures of County Councils. It would be expected that per capita local government expenditures would be higher in Municipalities because per capita government expenditures are directly related to population density and Municipalities have a greater variety of services to provide. The wide variations that exist in per capita expenditures of Municipalities and County Councils in Kenya may reflect also the difference in the fiscal abilities of these major local authorities.

County Councils in Kenya have only one major tax source, the graduated personal tax, and derive only 29 per cent of their revenue from taxes. Municipalities, on the other hand, collect 55 per cent of their revenue from taxes and have two major tax sources, graduated personal tax and land rates (taxes levied on the site value of land).

The current interest in the production and use of educational films by Africanists emphasizes the need for a methodology by which films on Africa may be critically analyzed and evaluated. Until recently most academics have been overly cautious in their attitudes toward educational films. They have been quick to criticize factual and interpretative weaknesses, but at the same time they have felt it professionally declassé to be directly involved in writing scripts or in film production. Furthermore, the need to recover production costs has only too frequently meant a lowering of standards and a popularization of content. As a result, subject specialists have been reluctant to participate in film-making ventures. As for film usage, limited opportunities for preview, leading to random projection of bad or irrelevant material, and difficulties in obtaining films have discouraged many instructors. In short, for whatever reason, academics have had low audio-visual “literacy.”

Ideally, a film should be used in a particular teaching situation because of its ability to convey an idea or a series of ideas better than any other means at the instructor's disposal. Every film is a synthesis of “all the sensory data presented visually, aurally (or emotionally?) by the film and its accompanying sound-track” (Columbia University 1951, p. 2). The anticipated effect of this, the film's unique identity or content, on students at defined levels of understanding should determine whether it is a “good” or “bad” film.

Speculations as to what methodological approaches should be taken in academic endeavors such as African studies are bound to be controversial. Given the wide spectrum of the disciplines involved, ranging from art forms such as the dance and music to the “dismal science” of economics, obviously there are numerous differences of opinion as to the nature of research, not to mention its purposes. Internecine warfare is almost inevitable, and the claims of contending factions, even within a single discipline, are boundless. In some disciplines questions of methodology are paramount, as appears to be the case for political scientists and sociologists, while for others such as economists, the issue of method is less significant than are the policy implications of economic theory for the African scene. This difference may well reflect the greater abundance of economic data, for in some areas of inquiry the development of adequate data is the foremost problem. For some the productivity and pragmatism of results are the test of good research; for others, if research stands the test of criticism, it matters not the method. But for some, method itself provides the only criteria for judging the feasibility or value of research efforts.

In this Symposium on Methodology, the Editors of the Review are pleased to publish the reflections of six social scientists as to the issues of research methodology in African studies, two each in the areas of anthropology, political science, and psychology.

The unit which is the focus for investigation obviously has an important impact on the results of the investigation, and these resuls are further influenced by the concepts and theories which the investigator employs in formulating and carrying out his work. The choice of units for study and other conceptual and theoretical considerations has further implications, and among these are the ones directly pertinent to area studies and their status and value. A brief discussion of this point will make it clear.

In classic structural-functionalist studies the unit for study, or within which the study is to take place, is patent. The anthropologist sets out to study the Ganda, the Yoruba, the Rjonga, or some other tribe. Just what constitutes a tribe may not be, and need not be, meticulously defined (and with such groups as the Ibo, Chagga, or Balante it will not be sharply delimited) ; but it does provide a guide for the smaller-scale unit (a village, a lineage, or whatever) within which the collection of data is actually carried out. Sometimes data taken from specific kinship or territorial units are used to make generalizations about the tribe as a whole, as when there are studies of witchcraft among the Pogoro or economic organization among the Pangwa, and sometimes the studies concern characteristics of the unit's organization, as when investigations are made of Rjonga lineage structure or Chagga settlement patterns. In all cases the boundaries of investigation are taken as given, and what is variable and to be examined is what goes on within those boundaries.

I had imagined that the central issue of this symposium would be the contrast between nomothetic, or generalizing, research and idiographic, or particularistic, research in Africa. To what extent are the conclusions of research carried out in Africa limited to a geographic or cultural area: to sub-Saharan Africa, to the Bantu, to the Southeastern Bantu? To what extent are the conclusions generalizable to a certain type of society, no matter where it is found? Such a contrast of approaches would have raised the issues of the culturally distinctive qualities of African cultures and of the unique historical influences upon them. This emphasis is clearly evident in the writing of many anthropologists who have worked in Africa, particularly those with humanistic interests. It stands in contrast to another strategy of research which seeks, not the unique qualities of African cultures, but the general principles, exemplified by African societies as well as by all other societies.

The literature on political and administrative behavior in sub-Saharan Africa has proliferated at an unprecedented rate in the past decade. But notwithstanding an impressive output, Africanist political scientists of all persuasions—“institutionalists,” “behavioralists,” and so forth--have tended to ignore or treat lightly various methodological problems confronting the social sciences in general and their own discipline in particular. It is appropriate here to distinguish between methodology and preocedure. Methodology refers to the philosophy of science, to problems associated with the logic of systematic social inquiry; among the problems which are essentially methodological are classification, comparison, concept formation, theory construction, and nomothetic vs. idiographic inquiry. (Various methodological probems are examined by Brodbeck 1968, Hempel 1965, Kaplan 1964, Nagel 1961, and Natanson 1963.) Procedure, in contrast, refers to the application of specific techniques in research. While research techniques inform the day-to-day activity of systematic social inquiry, they are extraneous to the logic of that inquiry (Fleron 1968, p. 316).

The extent to which political scientists are attentive to methodology is often reflected in the quality of their research, Not surprisingly, therefore, the quality of research on political and administrative behavior in sub-Saharan Africa has been negatively affected by the tendency to dismiss or de-emphasize methodological considerations. For example, there appears to be little awareness of a cardinal principle of logical classification: that there must be “a mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive set of classes for the domain under consideration” (Kalleberg 1966, p. 72; Hempel 1952, p. 51).

Even a casual survey of the literature on African politics reveals that it has only occasionally been influenced by contemporary social science methodology and technology. Alvin Magid is certainly correct in asserting that “Africanist political scientists…have tended to ignore or treat lightly various methodological problems which confront the social sciences in general and their own discipline in particular” (1969, p. 1). This is not, of course, a new charge. In 1955, for instance, Roy Macridis asserted that the vast majority of so-called comparative studies were noncomparative, descriptive, parochial, and static. He argued, “The general dissatisfaction experienced by students of comparative politics with the nature of their discipline and more particularly with its methodological orientation, indicates the need for a more thorough conceptualization for the purpose of comparative analysis and the development of theories at the various levels of generalization for the purpose of organizing and studying empirical data” (1955, p. 23). Indeed, similar changes have been made at one time or another in almost every discipline from anthropology to zoology. So what I have to say should give all of us a sense of dejavu.

It would be a mistake to assume that only at the level of methodology are students of African politics failing to take advantage of contemporary developments in the social sciences. Indeed, our literature becomes a bad joke juxtaposed with a statement such as the one Bernard Gelbaum and James March have recently made: “Within the past two decades, mathematics has become indispensable to the student of human behavior.

Psychological explanations of social behavior are currently unfashionable in the “institutional” social sciences of economics, history, sociology and social anthropology--though political science is something of an exception--and it is these disciplines that dominate African and other area studies. Received opinion has it that psycho-social studies of the “culture and personality” or “national character” type were discredited during the 1940's and early 1950's when a number of undisciplined studies claiming to account for the cultural and political patterns of modern nations and nonliterate peoples alike on the basis of child-rearing determinants were published and revealed the fallacious nature of their theory and methods.

On close examination this view may be seen to have several flaws. First, a logically sound theoretical position is not discredited by inadequate empirical studies carried out in its name; insofar as the studies are badly done they do not provide evidence for or against the position. In the case of culture and personality, the pioneering theoretical formulations of W.I. Thomas, Sapir, Linton, and Hallowell have never been refuted on logical or empirical grounds, and in fact their ideas have been extensively used by recent social theorists of the structural-functional school (Parsons and Shils 1951, Parsons 1964, Inkeles and Levinson 1954, Inkeles 1963, Spiro 1961), indicating at least an enduring plausibility in some quarters. Furthermore, it is quite common in intellectual history for the early adherents of a position to make excessive claims for it and to exaggerate the evidence in its favor, but this hardly justifies rejection of the position itself.

While I am in accord with Professor LeVine's defense of culture and personality studies and agree that it would be unfortunate if the psychological dimension of social research in Africa were to be ignored as a result of the “bad press” given to culture and personality research, I would prefer to have seen Professor LeVine emphasize sources of psychological theory other than those which played such a major role in that discredited enterprise. Over the years many new developments have occurred in psychological research which constitute a far better reason for social scientists to attend to psychology than the fact that culture and personality studies have been unfairly discredited. Happily, LeVine himself cites some recent work which underlines my point. Thus, the work of Gay and Cole derives from theoretical concerns with cognitive development. These concerns originate in a tradition in psychology having virtually nothing to do with the psychoanalytic tradition which served as the sole psychological foundation for culture and personality research.

To me the most interesting part of Professor LeVine's paper is that dealing with the inadequacies characteristic of psychology itself when its practitioners turn to research in Africa. In my opinion, it is precisely one of psychology's so-called “strengths” that has produced this functional inadequacy. Graduate students in psychology are still taught that the only satisfactory mode of operation is to design a study well in advance of carrying it out, articulating the hypothesis that the study is designed to test, specifying exactly which measures will test that hypothesis, and preparing in advance the analysis of those measures with a clear understanding of the significance of all possible outcomes.