The author first traces the successive approaches to African chieftaincy in the course of the 20th century, contrasting the dualistic and the transactionalist models. He then examines the thesis... Show moreThe author first traces the successive approaches to African chieftaincy in the course of the 20th century, contrasting the dualistic and the transactionalist models. He then examines the thesis of the resilient chief by considering a case from western central Zambia. He shows that the power base of local chiefs and their room for manouvring is weakening and that the chiefs are experimenting with new strategies in order to survive. They are driven into the arms of new actors on the local scene, against whom they are rather defenceless. One such new actor is an ethnic voluntary organization, the Kazanga Cultural Association. This NGO has been amazingly successful in bridging indigenous politics and the State in a process of ethnicization. Gradually, the revival of chieftainship which this NGO has brought about, is turning out to lead not to resilience but to impotent folklorization. Chiefs who are unable to link their symbolic capital - their ceremonial functions - to the experimental worlds of the urbanites, find themselves locked into a position of declining significance. Show less
The current discussion on democratization in Africa tends towards Eurocentrism in that it pays insufficient attention to the analytical and methodological implications of cultural imperialism,... Show moreThe current discussion on democratization in Africa tends towards Eurocentrism in that it pays insufficient attention to the analytical and methodological implications of cultural imperialism, localization, wrongly claimed universality, and the social price of relativism. Conceptually, formal constitutional democracy is only one variant of democracy among others, and besides, it is an item of political culture which has only relatively recently been introduced to Africa. Recent developments among Nkoya peasants of Kaoma district, Zambia, and working-class townsmen from Francistown, Botswana, most of whom identify themselves ethnically as Kalanga or Tswana, suggest that the democratization movement is only another phase in the ongoing political transformation of Africa. In the course of this process, by an interplay of local and national (ultimately global) conceptions of political power, indigenous constitutional, philosophical and sociological alternatives of political legitimacy are tested, and subsequently accommodated or discarded as obsolete. The author carried out anthropological fieldwork among the Zambian Nkoya in 1972-1974, and in Francistown in 1988-1989, and in both cases has made repeated return visits since. Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
This paper explores the cultural dynamics of ethnicity in the context of a postcolonial African State, Zambia. The opening sections define ethnicity and pinpoint its central dilemma: while... Show moreThis paper explores the cultural dynamics of ethnicity in the context of a postcolonial African State, Zambia. The opening sections define ethnicity and pinpoint its central dilemma: while unmistakably constructed and thus selectively empowering the brokers coordinating the construction process, ethnicity nonetheless tends to pose as unchangeable, innate and inescapable. The paper then presents an analysis of the Kazanga festival which has been taking place since 1988 among the Nkoya in western Zambia. As an instance of ethnic self-representation vis-…-vis the national State, the annual festival brings out the extent to which cultural reconstruction in ethnicity radically transforms local historical cultural forms into a global idiom of performance, inequality along class and gender lines, and commodification or folklorization of culture. Yet such transformation is shown to have a revitalizing effect on local expressive culture and on the historic kingship, and is argued to be a survival strategy for local cultural forms in a globalizing world. The author attended the Kazanga festival in 1989, and again in 1994. In a postscript he outlines changes which have taken place since 1989. Show less
De auteur stelt dat het einde bereikt is van een vrij lange periode waarin cultuurdynamiek in Afrika in hoofdzaak vanuit een Marxistisch geïnspireerde politiek-economische optiek werd bezien. Een... Show moreDe auteur stelt dat het einde bereikt is van een vrij lange periode waarin cultuurdynamiek in Afrika in hoofdzaak vanuit een Marxistisch geïnspireerde politiek-economische optiek werd bezien. Een nieuwe benadering van de dynamiek van Afrikaanse culturen begint zich af te tekenen waarin een viertal thema's centraal staan: globalisering, 'verwaring' (commoditificatie), 'belichaming' (de rol van het menselijk lichaam), en de rol van de staat. Daarnaast blijft het thema ongelijkheid een aandachtspunt. Naast een paradigmatische strijd speelt zich een strijd af over de waardering van de transformatieprocessen die zich thans in Zuidelijk Afrika voordoen. Deze argumentatie wordt geïllustreerd aan de hand van een etnografisch voorbeeld: de culturele vereniging 'Kazanga' in westelijk Zambia en met name het jaarlijkse Kazangafestival, waar een zo compleet mogelijk overzicht gegeven wordt van Nkoya zang, dans en ritueel. Show less
Etniciteit is bij uitstek geschikt om in veranderingsprocessen te bemiddelen tussen fundamenteel verschillend gestructureerde sociale verbanden, en met name tussen het plaatselijk niveau enerzijds... Show moreEtniciteit is bij uitstek geschikt om in veranderingsprocessen te bemiddelen tussen fundamenteel verschillend gestructureerde sociale verbanden, en met name tussen het plaatselijk niveau enerzijds, de staat en wijde economische structuren anderzijds. Om deze stelling te illustreren geeft de auteur een beschrijving van een ceremonie, genaamd 'Kazanga', die elk jaar op 1 juli plaatsvindt in Shikombwe, Kaoma District, in het westen van Zambia. De beschrijving is gebaseerd op waarnemingen tijdens het festival van 1989. De inwoners van Shikombwe, een koninklijke residentie, beschouwen zich als Nkoya. De auteur bespreekt de ontwikkeling van de Nkoya tot zelfbewuste etnische groep en het ontstaan van de 'Culturele Vereniging Kazanga', die het propageren van de plaatselijke 'Nkoya' cultuur, door middel van het gelijknamige festival, als belangrijkste doelstelling heeft. Eerst houdt de auteur zich bezig met het officiële gedeelte, waarin 'Kazanga' verschijnt als bemiddeling gericht op de nationale staat. Vervolgens gaat hij na hoe het festival door zijn organisatorische vormgeving de plaatselijke cultuur selecteert en transformeert. Ten slotte wordt aandacht geschonken aan de specifieke aard van symbolische productie die het festival kenmerkt en waarin zijn bemiddelend karakter het meest tot uitdrukking komt. Show less
In deze bijdrage verkent de auteur de problematiek van chaos en domesticatie in het kader van ruimtelijke verplaatsing bij twee samenlevingen waar hij onderzoek verricht heeft: de Nkoja op het... Show moreIn deze bijdrage verkent de auteur de problematiek van chaos en domesticatie in het kader van ruimtelijke verplaatsing bij twee samenlevingen waar hij onderzoek verricht heeft: de Nkoja op het platteland van Zambia en de inwoners van Francistown, een middengrote stad in Botswana. Nkoja dorpen zijn tijdelijke conglomeraties van betrekkelijke vreemden die zich in hun onderlinge betrekkingen voortdurend bewust zijn van het optionele aspect van hun samenleven en strategisch uitzien naar mogelijkheden om, vooral door intra-rurale verhuizing, hun persoonlijke zekerheid te verbeteren. De chaos van hun individuele strevingen wordt getemd door het besef dat men gebruik maakt van dezelfde hulpbronnen, hetgeen co”rdinatie en overleg noodzakelijk maakt. Francistown is een centrum van verplaatsing. De toestroom van stedelijke migranten leidde tot een jaarlijkse groei van c. 8 procent in het laatste decennium. De spontane 'squatter' wijken zijn vanaf het eind van de jaren 70 gesaneerd en een deel van de bevolking is overgebracht naar nieuwe 'site-and-service' wijken. Losgeweekt uit hun eerdere sociale verbanden, worden zij hier geconfronteerd met een sociale chaos die zich vooralsnog moeilijk temmen laat. Noten Show less
This text of "The history of the Nkoya people" keeps as closely as possible to the original manuscript as written in the 1950s-1960s. (An English translation is included as part 3 in Wim van... Show moreThis text of "The history of the Nkoya people" keeps as closely as possible to the original manuscript as written in the 1950s-1960s. (An English translation is included as part 3 in Wim van Binsbergen's 'Tears of rain: ethnicity and history in central western Zambia', published in London in 1992 by Kegan Paul.) Show less
Using a structuralist-inspired approach the author analyses a collection of oral historical data from central western Zambia, namely 'Likota lya Bankoya', ('The history of the Nkoya people'),... Show moreUsing a structuralist-inspired approach the author analyses a collection of oral historical data from central western Zambia, namely 'Likota lya Bankoya', ('The history of the Nkoya people'), compiled by the first Nkoya Christian pastor, J. Shimunika, in the 1950s-1960s. He focuses on mutative transformations that mark two types of discontinuity: 1) deviations, in the Likota text, from contemporary Nkoya cultural practice; and 2) inconsistencies, in the text, within the pattern of oppositions by which a particular past episode is evoked. These transformations are shown to converge on the same pattern of changes in gender relations in the process of State formation. In conjunction with the contemporary ethnographic evidence on Nkoya society, these mutative transformations indicate that the 'feminist' message in the Likota text is not an historically irrelevant statement concerning a static cosmological order, but a reflection of an actual historical process relegating women in central western Zambia to inferiority in the political, ritual, economic, and kinship domains. Show less
The author argues that Zambian rural anthropology is on the decline, and that this decline is related to the reliance, among anthropologists, on the tribe and ethnic group as the basic unit of... Show moreThe author argues that Zambian rural anthropology is on the decline, and that this decline is related to the reliance, among anthropologists, on the tribe and ethnic group as the basic unit of study in the past; that the one way to escape from the tribal model on the analytical plane without sacrificing the subjects' own organization of their experience, is to try to explain this experience as a form of consciousness emerging out of the dialectics of political incorporation and, even more fundamentally, the penetration of capitalism, in other words, the articulation of capitalism and a non-capitalist mode of production. The chapter is based on research among the Nkoya of western Zambia, an earlier version of it was published in 'Journal of Southern African Studies', vol. 8, no. 1, (1981/82), pages 51-81. Show less
Nkoya is an ethnic and linguistic label applying to about 50,000 people inhabiting the wooded plateau of Central Western Zambia. The author discusses the valley as the effective rural community... Show moreNkoya is an ethnic and linguistic label applying to about 50,000 people inhabiting the wooded plateau of Central Western Zambia. The author discusses the valley as the effective rural community and the villages as the main constituent social units within the valley and finally indicates the place of Nkoya society within the context of Central Africa as a whole Show less
The alternative proposed here for the tribal model as a unit of study is not another, better unit of study (e.g. a mode of production, an expanding social formation, or a well-defined spatio... Show moreThe alternative proposed here for the tribal model as a unit of study is not another, better unit of study (e.g. a mode of production, an expanding social formation, or a well-defined spatio-temporal portion of reality), but a growing awareness of possible problems and interrelations, informed by insights from history and political economy. Thus this paper is an exercise in the interaction of anthropology and history in the analysis of a specific set of data: Introduction - The end of rural anthropology in Zambia? - The unit of study - Studying the Nkoya - Ethnicity, history and the Nkoya experience - Nkoya ethnicity and the dialectics of consciousness - Conclusion: beyond the unit of study. Show less
V.W. Turner's theory of ritual symbolism among the Ndembu Lunda (1958) is analysed with regard to its applicability to urban ritual. Main purpose in this paper is not to provide a thorough summary... Show moreV.W. Turner's theory of ritual symbolism among the Ndembu Lunda (1958) is analysed with regard to its applicability to urban ritual. Main purpose in this paper is not to provide a thorough summary and evaluation of Turner's work, but to consider only one limited portion of it, use it to introduce some of the major theoretical problems which both Turner's and the author's own work are facing, then move away from Turner's work and proceed to indicate the direction from which a part solution may be expected in future. The results of the analyses are brought into the context of the experience gathered by the author during fieldwork among the Nkoya (some 250 km. away from the Ndembu). Manipulation of ritual concerning illness and death seems to provide a major basis for power in the social structure of the village, particularly between members of different generations. The same situation obtains among urban Nkoya. The Nkoya data demonstrate weak spots in the body of establishe theory and suggest an alternative approach. Understanding of the non-ritual basis of ritual may well provide a lever for change. Ref Show less
Paper read at the University of Zambia/ University of California Los Angeles conference on the history of Central African religious systems, Lusaka, 16 pp, 1972
