The sociology of black Africa: Social dynamics in central Africa

527 Pages·1970·43.43 MB·English

by  Georges Balandier

THE SOCIOLOGY
OF BLACK AFRICA
soCIAL DYNAMICS IN CENTRAL AFRICA
Georges Balandier
TRANSLATED BY
DOUGLAS GARMAN
00
ANDRE DEUTSCH
FIRST PUBLISHED l 970 BY
ANDRE DEUTSCH LIMITED
10) GREAT RUSSELL STREET
LONDON WCI
COPYRIGHT @ 191), 196 3 BY GEORGES BALANDIBR
TRANSLATION COPYRIGHT@ 1970
BY ANDRE DEUTSCH LIMITED AND
FREDERICK A. PRAEGBR, INC.,
NEW YORK
ORIGINALLY PUDLISI!I>D UNDER THE TITLE
'sOCIOLOGIE ACTUELLE DE L' AFRIQUE NOIRE'
BY PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DB PRANCE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
EBENEZER BAYLIS & SON LTD
THE TRINITY PRESS
WORCESTER AND LONDON
ISBN0233 961216
CONTENTS
PREFACE 7
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE II
INTRODUCTION I3
PART I. THE 'COLONIAL SITUATION' AND ITS NEGATION
Chapter I. The 'Colonial Situation' Concept 2I-56
Chapter II. The Peoples of the Gabon-Congo
and the European Presence n-8 I
PART II. SOCIAL CHANGE AMONG THE PANG OF GABON
Chapter I. Fang Society 85-163
Chapter II. Fang Crises 164-258
Chapter III. The Direction of Socio-Cultural
Change in the Fang Community 259-285
PART III. S9CIAL CHANGE AMONG THE BA-KONGO
OF THE CONGO
Chapter I. Characteristics of Ba-Kongo Society 2.89-}47
Chapter II. The Nature and Direction of
Social Change: Specific Problems 348-409
Chapter III. Ba-Kongo Messianism 41o-472
CONCLUSION: DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL
CHANGE 473-504
REFERENCES 507-523
INDEX 531-540
PREFACE
Some years ago, in our Introduction to the Second Edition of this
work -an edition which had been largely recast and brought up-
to-date - I stressed the fact that it was a contribution to the
creation of a 4Jnamic and critical anthropologJ. My purpose in doing
so was to draw attention to the originality of the questions it
raised and the kind of answers it proposed, and to suggest that
because of this it was in line with a number of recent develop-
ments in the field of modern comparative sociology and anthro-
pology. Such concepts as 'colonial situation' and 'position of
dependence', and phenomena accepted as revealing fundamental
social relations and their specific dynamic, like the breakaway
religious movements, have now forced themselves upon the
attention of the specialists. But they were already centred to the
research on which this book is based; though they represent only
one aspect of it.
Indeed, its most obvious aspect. The theoretical inferences
which are closely bound up with the presentation of the facts and
their analysis, are nowhere summed up in a fully developed
theory. Sometimes they are implicit in the cautious approach,
sometimes expressed because of their immediate explanatory
effectiveness, but they are never formulated categorically. Often
they remain in the background. And indeed one of my critics
expressed regret that I had not 'adequately exploited the rich
theoretical content of the field-work carried out on the spot by
providing a full· theoretical exposition'.*
Undoubtedly, the possibility of doing so has influenced the
direction of my subsequent work. In particular, insofar as the
• See the review by J. Maquct in the Cahitrs lnllT'NlliolflliLY ill Soriologi.t. XXXV,
pp. 18o-8!.
Preface
political dynamic of the Fang and the Ba-Kongo constitutes in a
sense the connecting thread of the present book, it was this that
led me to elaborate a theory of political anthropology. In this
sense, my recent Anthropologie Politique sets out to show that
'research conducted by politically minded anthropologists
demands a differently oriented social anthropology and compara-
tive sociology'.* These latter belong to the kind of interpretation
that has been described as 'dynamist'.
This was a first assessment. It needs to be clarified and filled out
with the help of this new edition of The Sociology of Black Africa.
In this work, a study deriving directly from an anthropological
project rehabilitates history, as opposed to functionalist and
structuralist presuppositions. The comparison of Kongo and
Fang society shows them to be part of a long process of develop-
ment which led to a diversification of their formations and
reactions, despite the fact that they both had to face the
same situations - those arising from a slave economy, then from
colonialism and more recently from decolon.ization. Their systems
of social relations and cultural organization cannot be fully
understood merely in the light of the principles that govern
them or of their 'formal' existence; they only assume their full
meaning when they arc related to the historical movements and
events that have shaped and modified them. In trying to discover
not only the most obvious changes, but also those that were
hidden behind a fa<;ade of formal continuity, I was forced to
appreciate, at a higher level of complexity, the dynamic of the
two societies and the two cultures when subjected to comparative
analysis. Thus recognition of the different practices deriving from
tradition, which exhibit different procedures and strategies
according to whether they occur among the Fang or among the
Ba-Kongo, proved to be the start of a new interpretation of
traditionalisi!J. It led me to distinguish, according to the kind of
approach to tradition and the ends in view, four 'faces' of the
phenomenon: fundamental traditionalism, formal traditionalism,
the traditionalism of resistance and t
• G. Balandier: Anlhropologit Poliliqut, znd cd., Presses Universitaircs de France,
Paris, 1969; American and English editions of which are now in preparation
(Pantheon and Penguin Books).
t Cf. Anlbropologie Politiqut, p. ZOJ If.
Preface
Similarly, the realization that, during the colonial period, political
problems were expressed in terms of religion encouraged me to
attempt a clearer interpretation of the relations of expressimrus
that arise between the various constituent elements of all social
and cultural formations.
Thls is a feature of the method whlch it is important to emph:t-
size. At the time of my investigation, both the Kongo and the
Fang societies were in a state of serious crisis, the former as a
result of its long resistance to the colonial authorities, the second
owing to internal deterioration. Once research ceased to be
merely retrospective, and concerned itself with the present day,
thls situation became a kind of permanent reference. It revealed
the severe ordeal to which both societies had been exposed for
several decades, and brought us face to face with a harsh and barely
tolerable experiment. Because of this, crisis served as an indicator
of definite social relations, of definite cultural configurations, and
of the respective relations between them. It made it essential to
understand the two societies in action and reaction, and not as
hitherto in the light of timeless forms and systems. The necessity
for thls, which became apparent in the course of working in the
field, led me to seek out the conditions of social existence that are
most revealing of the relations comprising it, and to sketch a
situational anafysis which, thanks to similar efforts on the part of
others, has now acquired scientific status.
Societies that constitute part of the colonial situation are under
strong compulsion to ambiguity and ambivalence. This leads to a
real effect of exaggeration, with the result that the discrep:tncy
between the appearance of social reality and social reality itself is
increased. At the time of my investigation, the main question was
to decide whether thls discrepancy (more readily discernible in
this instance) was the result of the colonial situ:ttion or whether it
is characteristic of every society. My later studies, especially those
in the sphere of politie:tl anthropology, have convinced me that
the phenomenon is a general one. Societies are never what they
appear to be or what they claim to be. They have to be understood
on at least two levels: a superficial one, representing what m:ty be
called the 'official' structures; and a much deeper one which
enables us to penetrate the really fundamental relationships and
practices that reveal the dynamic of the social system. From
10 Preface
the moment it grasps these two levels of organization and expres-
sion, and reveals the relation between them, any social science
becomes critical; and this is the only way in which it can advance
as genuine science.
A considerable part of this work deals with movements that
. have caused the colonial situation to be challenged and subse-
quently repudiated. It stresses repeatedly the extent to which the
rejection o(an order imposed from without (by colonialism) has
also been the occasion for reopening the question of some of the
relations governing the internal order. The recognition of this
fact has meant that I have had to define more precisely the roles of
conformity and opposition respectively within the so-called
traditional societies. An investigation that began with the
examination of the Fang and Kongo societies and the conditions
determining their existence and transformation has now widened
its scope. It opens up the possibility of an anthropology. of
confrontation.* It differentiates between the motive force in-
herent in the structures themselves and that which gives rise to
their profound modification and should properly be described as
diachronic.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
In order to relieve the reader of a mass of references in the form of
footnotes, while not depriving him of convenient access to other
notes, references to sources (denoted in the text by superior
numerals) have been placed at the end of the book, grouped by
chapters. Other notes or comments have been left in the form of
footnotes in the text.
In transcribing names and terms taken from African languages, I
have followed the system adopted by the author for the original
French edition of this work. Each sound is indicated by one letter,
accented where necessary. Thus an acute(') or a grave() indicates
the opening of vowels, and the circumflex (') their nasalisation
(o on in French). if corresponds to ell in French; II to 011. The tilden
indicates a liquid consonzan t, e.g. n, g corresponds to ch in
German; while 1, I,] and would be represented in French by
ch, tch, dj and dz.
With the author's consent and help, I have compressed some
material, and have omitted a few passages, especially in Part I
Chapter II.
I would like to thank Professor Thomas Hodgkin for his help
and advice without which my task would have been far more
difficult.
D.G.
Douglas Garman (born 15 February 1903, died 8 December
1969) completed this translation shortly before his death. A
translator of great skill and sensibility, he was also a serious
sociologist, a man of many-sided learning, of wit and critical
power, an imaginative educator, writer and publisher, a farmer
and lover of the country, a devoted revolutionary.
THOMAs HoDGKIN
INTRODUCTION
Since I 94 there have been an increasing number of studies dealing
with the social changes that are taking place in developing
countries, and with the so-called phenomena of 'acculturation'.
In many cases they have been influenced by the requirements of
contemporary politics, but in such circumstances the specialists
concerned must often be content with results that appear more like
those of scrupulous technique than of scientific progress. Thanks
to the 'treatment' to which the facts have been subjected, the
amount of material assembled is out of all proportion to the
development of theory. There can be no doubt, therefore,
particularly in the minds of those engaged in this field of study,
that from time to time some critical assessment is needed; and,
indeed, Les implications sociales d11 progres technique, published under
my direction in I 9 9, was an attempt in this direction.
Unfortunately this is a field that has aroused little interest
amongst French ethnologists and sociologists, despite the new
material it could provide them with. This is all the more regret-
table in that the tradition of French sociology would have brought
to such work an original style and obviated the dangers of a
naive sort of empiricism. The critical work that is necessary as
a start has here been undertaken, however incompletely, in the
examination of the concept of the colonial siftlation with which the
present work opens. The value of such a concept was brought
home to me by first-hand experience, acquired since I 946, of
African societies exposed to the processes of increasingly rapid
change; it was therefore for quite practical reasons that I felt
obliged to undertake a first evaluation of the existing material and
conceptual equipment.
The present study is the result of field work carried out in
I3
14 Introduction
Central Africa between 1948 and 1, in Gabon and the Congo,
with one or two incursions into the neighbouring Congo
(Leopold ville) and the Ebolowa district of Cameroun which
vidcd additional material of a comparative nature. Apart from the
fact that this investigation had been included in the programme of
work for the Sociology Department that I had organized at the
Institut d'Etudes Centrafricaines, I had also been invited to draw
up a kind of balance sheet for two peoples - the Gabonese Fang
and the Ba-Kongo of the Congo-who had attracted the attention
of the administrative authorities by their enterprise and 'revival of
initiative', and now, after accepting the colonial situation for a
time, were beginning to react against it by reorganizing them-
selves. Before making enquiries on the spot, I felt obliged to
clarify the situation that had led to this reaction. This meant
undertaking some historical research, including a thorough study
of the old literature and of such archives as were still available for
the period 189o-19 o; and part of this material was used in writing
the chapter, 'The Peoples of the Gabon-Congo and the
pean Presence'. I should add that, for many years prior to
Independence, I had been following the development of both
countries 'at a distance', and in 1961 I paid a second visit to
Central Mrica.
The Fang and the Ba-Kongo share a certain number of common
features. Both are ethnic groups scattered over relatively large
areas, but split up as a result of the division of territory between
the colonial powers; thus the Fang are to be found in various
parts of Cameroun, Spanish Guinea and Gabon, and the Ba-
Kongo in both Congas and Angola. This splitting up of related
groups explains why movements seeking to achieve consolida-
tion and reunification exert such influence. On the other hand,
both peoples had at an earlier stage tried to make use of the
colonial system: in the case of the Ba-Kongo in order to maintain
and extend their economic influence; in that of the Fang to sub-
stitute economic conquest for the armed conquest they had been
obliged to forego. Thus, unlike their neighbours, who continued
to avoid contact, they were exposed to the process of change; and
this, together with the influence resulting from their size, tended
to make other peoples look up to them as leaders. It remains to
add that in their relations with Europeans and the colonial groups