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The Meaning of the Working Class in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

V. L. Allen
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Extract

The purpose of this article is largely methodological, in that it aims to sketch an analytical approach to the question of differentiation rather than to provide an empirical analysis. There are clear reasons for approaching the issue in this way. We need to know what the term ‘working class’ means, whether there are divisions within it which significantly influence the behaviour of those affected by them, and the forms which these divisions take. In other words we want to know whether it is stratified. To assume that it is so is to take as given the answers to questions which should be asked. We need to know whether social relationships in any situation are arranged into strata and, if they are, whether they have consistent relationships and are ranked in terms of superiority according to some pre-selected criterion. It is because these questions are not usually asked that studies of social stratification largely consist of fitting empirical data into a predetermined mould. To start by questioning the existence of differentiation is a very modest, cautious approach.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , July 1972 , pp. 169 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 170 note 1 Perhaps I should point out here that there is no theoretical difference between empiricism and any variant of systems analysis. A structural-functionalist, therefore, who studies differentiation in an African township, uses exactly the same analytical tools as an empiricist who is anti-theory. I have illustrated this connection in ‘La Doctrine de l'empirisme et l'étude des organisations’, in L'Homme et la société (Paris), XV, January–March 1970, pp. 221–39.

Page 170 note 2 Pons, Valdo, Stanleyville (London, 1969), p. 16.Google Scholar

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Page 172 note 1 Gould, Julius and Kolb, William L. (eds.), A Dictionary of the Social Sciences (London, 1964), p. 649.Google Scholar

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Page 174 note 2 The conference papers were published as The City in Modern Africa, edited by Horace Miner (London, 1967).

Page 174 note 3 Robert A. Levine, Nancy H. Klein, and Constance R. Owen, ‘Father–Child Relationships and Changing Life-Styles in Ibadan, Nigeria’, ibid. pp. 215–55.

Page 174 note 4 Aidan Southall, ‘Kampala-Mengo’, ibid. p. 329.

Page 175 note 1 Leo Kuper, ‘Structural Discontinuities in African Towns: some aspects of racial pluralism’, ibid. pp. 134–5.

Page 175 note 2 This article, published in Revolution under a pseudonym, has been reprinted as a pamphlet by the Africa Research Group, Cambridge, Mass.

Page 175 note 3 Journal of Development Studies (London), VI, 3, April 1970.

Page 175 note 4 The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), VI, 2, August 1968, pp. 141–69.

Page 175 note 5 Ibid. VIII, 4, December 1970, pp. 511–30.

Page 176 note 1 Kenneth W. Grundy, ‘The “Class Struggle” in Africa: an examination of conflicting theories’, ibid. II, 3, October 1964, pp. 380–1.

Page 176 note 2 Fallers, Lloyd A., ‘Social Stratification and Economic Processes in Africa’, in Herskovits, M. J. and Harwitz, M. (eds.), Economic Transition in Africa (Evanston, 1964), p. 120.Google Scholar

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Page 180 note 1 Hailey, Lord, An African Survey (London, 1938), p. 638.Google Scholar

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Page 185 note 1 Woddis, Jack, Afriea: the roots of revolt (London, 1960), p. 252.Google Scholar

Page 185 note 2 There is a growing literature on the revolutionary consciousness of peasants. See, for example, ‘The Proletariat in Today's World’, in Tricontinental (Paris), IX, 1968; Caldwell, Malcolm, ‘The Role of the Peasantry in the Revolution’, in Journal of Contemporary Asia (Stockholm), 1, 1, 1970Google Scholar and Teodor Shanin, ‘Class and Revolution’, ibid. I, 2, 1970.

Page 185 note 3 Woddis, op. cit. p. 253– Written in the early stages of the achievement of political independence by tropical African countries.

Page 185 note 4 Amin, loc. cit. p. 40.

Page 185 note 5 Ibid. pp. 38–9.

Page 185 note 6 Arrighi, Giovanni, ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective’, in Journal of Development Studies, VI, 3, 04 1970.Google Scholar

Page 186 note 1 Arrighi, Giovanni and Saul, John S., ‘Socialism and Economic Development in Tropical Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, VI, 2, 08 1968, p. 143n.Google Scholar

Page 186 note 2 Ibid. p. 148.

Page 187 note 1 This has been illustrated by the author's research since 1960, to be published under the title Trade Unionism in Tropical Africa for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London.

Page 187 note 2 See Bauer, P. T., West African Trade (London, 1963), p. 11.Google Scholar

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