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National Commitment Among Local Élites in Western Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Philip Silverman
Affiliation:
Professor of Anthropology, California State College, Bakersfield

Extract

As part of a broader study concerned with tribal–national relations in modern Zambia, the research reported here deals with a complex, indigenous state, the Barotse Kingdom, in which adjustments to post-colonial arrangements have been fraught with difficulties. Here I deal with the results obtained by analysis of interview schedules collected during 1966–7 among a sample of local élites in one of the Districts of the then Barotse Province (now called Western Province). Employing a conceptual framework which emphasises the distribution of information — what Theodore Schwartz calls a distributive model of culture — the analysis focuses on several factors considered crucial in understanding how local groups become incorporated into the nation-state. Finally, the influence of traditional attachments on this process is explored.

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

page 153 note 1 This research was made possible by a grant from the Social Science Research Council, New York.

page 153 note 2 Schwartz, Theodore, ‘The Size and Shape of a Culture’, in Barth, Fredrik (ed.), Scale and Social Organization (Oslo, 1978), pp. 215–52.Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 Turnbull, C. M., ‘Tribalism and Social Evolution in Africa’, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (Philadelphia), 352, 1964, pp. 2232.Google Scholar

page 154 note 2 Kahane, Reuven, ‘Strategies of Legitimizing Cultural Change: an Indian example’, in Studies in Comparative International Development (Beverly Hills), 10, 3, 1975, pp. 88100.Google Scholar

page 154 note 3 Historians have provided detailed studies of the Barotse, or Lozi, the name for the dominant tribe in the Kingdom. See especially Mainga, Mutumba, Bulozi Under the Luyana Kings: political evolution and state formation in pre-colonial Zambia (London, 1973),Google ScholarCaplan, G. L., The Elites of Barotseland, 1878–1969 (Berkeley, 1970),Google Scholar and Prins, Gwyn, The Hidden Hippopotamus — Reappraisal in African History: the early colonial experience in Western Zambia (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar

page 154 note 4 Since I wish to focus on a particular problem, there is no attempt here to present ethnographic details on the Lozi and other Barotse peoples. To mention only two of the better-known sources, Max Gluckman has contributed excellent descriptive and analytic accounts of the Kingdom: ‘The Lozi of Barotseland in North-Western Rhodesia’, in Colson, Elizabethand Gluckman, Max (eds.), Seven Tribes of British Central Africa (London, 1951), pp. 199,Google Scholar and The Judicial Process Among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia (Manchester, 1955).Google Scholar Aside from the impact of the nationalist movement and the political changes wrought by the coming of independence in 1964, as outlined herein, there existed substantial continuity in Lozi culture from the time that Gluckman did his fieldwork during the 1940s and the 1960s, when the material for my study was collected.

page 155 note 1 Cf. Fallers, L. A., ‘Political Anthropology in Africa’, in European Journal of Sociology (Paris), 4, 2, 1963, pp. 311–29,Google Scholar and Weingrod, Alex, ‘Political Sociology, Social Anthropology and the Study of New Nations’, in British Journal of Sociology (London), 18, 2, 1967, pp. 121–34.Google Scholar

page 155 note 2 Scarritt, James, Modernization, Political Development, and the Theory of Culture Change (Boulder, Colorado, 1971).Google Scholar

page 155 note 1 Deutsch, K. W., ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’, in The American Political Science Review (Washington, D.C.), 55, 3, 1961, pp. 493514.Google Scholar

page 156 note 1 A similar construct is employed by DeLamater, John, The Study of Political Commitment (Washington, D.C., 1973), p. 5:Google Scholar ‘[The ideology]…justifies the existence of the system, defining the role behavior appropriate to members, specifies the conditions under which such behavior is required, and legitimizes certain attitudes and values. This ideology will be built in and manifested by political institutions, communicated by those holding high positions in the system, and transmitted to individuals through the mass media and other agencies of socialization.’

page 156 note 2 Boulding, K. E., The Image (Ann Arbor, 1956).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 156 note 3 Bateson, Gregory, ‘Information, Codification, and Meta-communication’, in Smith, A. G. (ed.), Communication and Culture: reading in the code of human interaction (New York, 1966), pp. 412–26.Google Scholar

page 157 note 1 For a discussion of the various ways of identifying leaders, including the positional and reputational techniques used in this study, see Freeman, Linton C., Patterns of Local Community Leadership (Indianapolis, 1968), pp. 49.Google Scholar

page 157 note 2 The small number of Coloured and European respondents were excluded from the analysis when consideration is given to traditional, ethnic commitments. Interviews were conducted in both Silozi and English. Protocols in both languages, and details on other aspects of this study, can be found in Silverman, Philip, ‘Local Elites and the Image of a Nation’, Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1968.Google Scholar

page 158 note 1 For the advantages of, and difficulties in, using content analysis for studying the values, attitudes, and beliefs of political élites, see Welsh, William A., Leaders and Elites (New York, 1979), pp. 54–5 and 179–82.Google Scholar

page 158 note 2 The respondent was asked: ‘What does freedom mean to you?’ The word for independence and freedom in Silozi is the same, tukuluho. If the response indicated freedom from colonialism, this was judged as consistent with the image content of the national system output.

page 158 note 3 If the respondent did not recognise any changes, this was judged to be inconsistent with the image content of the national system output. If the respondent recognised changes but did not approve of them, then this was judged as a lack of commitment to the national system.

page 159 note 1 Ashby, W. R., Design for a Brain: the origin of adaptive behavior (New York, 1960 edn).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 159 note 2 Ashby offers two definitions of the law of requisite variety: (1) ‘if a certain quantity of disturbance is prevented by a regulator from reaching some essential variables, then that regulator must be capable of exerting at least that quantity of selection’, in ibid. p. 229; (2) ‘only variety in R (regulator) can force down variety due to D (inputs), only variety can destroy variety’, in Ashby, W. R., An Introduction to Cybernetics (New York, 1958). p. 207.Google Scholar For a sociological treatment of similar notions, see Cadwallader, M. L., ‘The Cybernetic Analysis of Change in Complex Social Organizations’, in Smith, A. G. (ed.), Communication and Culture: reading in the code of human interaction (New York, 1966), pp. 396401.Google Scholar

page 160 note 1 To devote whatever you have to the national unity. To rely on national feelings. To be a nationalist, as I consider myself to be one, is to follow the policies and principles of the Government and implement these in the right way. It is not only politicians who are nationalists. (Civil Servant)

page 160 note 2 When I hear Kaunda [President of Zambia] and his friends talk about it, I think it means the unity of tribes put together to make up one Zambia, one nation. To a certain extent it has been a good idea. But then there are some little points that make me doubt. Sometimes this one Zambia, one nation is just verbal. For example, we have little in this Province, but we do have forests, game, and other things, and it is hard to see the central Government get all the profit and from it. What does Bembaland [in eastern Zambia] contribute? Nothing! They have no forests and no fish, but they get all the development projects and the best jobs. (Teacher)

page 162 note 1 Chance, N. A., ‘Acculturation, Self-Identification, and Personality Adjustments’, in American Anthropologist (Washington, D.C.), 67, 1965, pp. 372–93.Google Scholar

page 162 note 2 Barrows, Walter, Grassroots Politics in an African State: integration and development in Sierra Leone (New York and London, 1976).Google Scholar

page 162 note 3 Smith, D. H. andInkeles, Alex, ‘The OM Scale: a comparative socio-psychological measure of individual modernity’, in Sociometry (New York), 29, 1966, pp. 353–77;Google ScholarSchnaiberg, Allan, ‘Measuring Modernism: theoretical and empirical explorations’, in American Journal of Sociology (Chicago), 76, 1970, pp. 399425;Google Scholar Michael Armer and Robert Youtz, ‘Formal Education and Individual Modernity in an African Society’, in ibid. 76, 1971, pp. 604–26; and Armer, Michael and Schnaiberg, Allan, ‘Individual Modernity, Alienation and Socioeconomic Status: a replication in Costa Rica’, in Studies in Comparative International Development, 10, 3, 1975, pp. 3547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar