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Book | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | In the shadow of history: the passing of lineage society |
Author: | Davidson, Andrew P. |
Year: | 1996 |
Pages: | 328 |
Language: | English |
City of publisher: | New Brunswick |
Publisher: | Transaction Publishers |
ISBN: | 1560002301 |
Geographic term: | Sudan |
Subjects: | social structure Nuba households |
Abstract: | The area of the Nuba Mountains in the western Sudan has always been subjected to change, but not at the accelerated rate that it is undergoing complex socioeconomic changes at the present. It is an area which has offered refuge to various peoples during episodic upheavals along the Nile River and elsewhere, which accounts for its diversified population. The crucial question which emerged during the author's investigation in the mid-1980s was what was the best way to conceptualize and comprehend the variable effects of development presented by the disparate character of the villages in the region. The social unit he chose for the foundation of his research is the household, in which he sees a coalescing of macro (structured processes) and micro (individual agency) levels of analysis. The author recounts the livelihood strategies of individuals as members of households. Changes in market activity and agriculture have taken place here, as in other parts of the Third World, in a far more compressed space of time than in Europe. The author compares the economic life in three villages - Somasem, Shair Tomat, Shatt Damam - to achieve a better understanding of the capacities and limitations which condition the freedom of action of the people. The older lineage system, which was based on communalism, kinship, and an age-based hierarchy, is being displaced by new forms of social organization and individual orientation. This has undermined village cohesion, which in turn means that the inhabitants are more exposed to the Islamic-dominated government in Khartoum and vulnerable to the continuing civil war in the Sudan. |