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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Individualism is the Antithesis of Indirect Rule': Cooperative Development and Indirect Rule in Colonial Malawi
Author:Power, JoeyISNI
Year:1992
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:18
Issue:2
Period:June
Pages:317-347
Language:English
Geographic terms:Malawi
Great Britain
Subjects:colonialism
indirect rule
cooperatives
History and Exploration
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637271
Abstract:The introduction of cooperatives and indirect rule to colonial Malawi during the 1930s was part of an exercise in imperial social engineering designed to thwart class formation. As early as the Chilembwe rising of 1915, officials had drawn the connection between 'petit bourgeois' frustration and violence. In 1915, the State's response was to strengthen 'tribal authority' in rebel districts, leaving the 'petit bourgeoisie' in the political wilderness. In the 1930s officials believed that, in addition to economic benefits, indirect rule, and later, cooperatives, would pay political dividends: indirect rule, by enhancing rural administration, and cooperatives, by diverting the political energies of the African 'petit bourgeoisie' into collective economic endeavour. Yet neither indirect rule nor cooperatives were able to impede the process of class formation. In the south, cooperatives met with failure, either for lack of interest, distrust of government initiatives, or because certain members hijacked them for individual economic ends. Just as indirect rule was embraced by 'Native Authorities' because it enhanced their chances of individual accumulation, cooperatives were rejected by the African 'petit bourgeoisie' because they did not. Notes, ref.
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