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Time and Village Structure in Northern Unyamwezi: An Examination of Social and Ecological Factors affecting the Development and Decline of Local Communities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2012
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In October 1974 I returned to the Kahama District of Tanzania for a further period of research in northern Unyamwezi where I had previously worked between late 1957 and early 1960. The present paper arises from a consideration of the implications of two facts which impressed me strongly on this second visit. The first of these was that a substantial number of the homestead heads who had been my neighbours in the village of Butumwa for the larger part of my first fieldwork were still alive though some of them had moved to other parts of the District and beyond. The second was that those who had remained, along with many others from surrounding villages, had been moved as part of the Tanzanian Government's national resettlement programme into a new large nucleated village shortly before my return there. These two facts have led me to pay further attention to the nature and functions of pre-1974 settlement patterns and to examine the relation between these and the form of the new scheme. One of the main points which will emerge from my discussion is the need, in trying to understand these settlement patterns, to take careful account of how villages change and develop over time as part of a complex combination of social and ecological processes. This processual aspect of village organization in the area has, I may add, not previously received sufficient attention in my own and other accounts of the situation there.
Résumé
CADRE TEMPOREL ET STRUCTURE DES VILLAGES DANS L'UNYAMWEZI DU NORD
Le présent article a été rédigé à l'issue d'une seconde visite effectuée dans l'Unyamwezi du nord en 1974, peu après le transfert d'une proportion importante de la population dans des villages nucléés de grande taille nouvellement construits. L'article est divisé en cinq parties. Après une discussion préliminaire, on indique les changements qui avaient eu lieu, avant le processus de réinstallation, dans la composition d'un village Butumwa entre 1959 et 1974, et qui découlaient d'une migration dans les deux sens ainsi que du vieillissement des individus. On présente certains cas de migration et l'on met en contraste la répartition selon l'âge des chefs de famille avec celle que l'on trouve dans des implantations méridionales plus récentes. La troisième partie offre un schéma plus général des processus de développement des villages avant 1974, de leur saturation et de leur dépérissement ainsi que de leurs rapports avec certains facteurs tels la fertilité du sol, la mortalité infantile, le divorce et autres traits du cycle de développement des groupes familiaux. Vient ensuite une analyse du rôle des structures normatives du village et du système politique en général dans la mise en place d'un cadre institutionnel favorisant les processus décrits plus haut. Dans la dernière partie, on examine les nouveaux villages postérieurs à 1974 et la divergence radicale qu'ils présentent par rapport aux modes d'implantation antérieurs. L'article souligne la nécessité, dans tout effort de compréhension de l'implantation dans cette région, de tenir compte du mode de développement des villages dans le temps, développement qui s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une combinaison complexe de processus sociaux et idéologiques.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © International African Institute 1977
References
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