A Subsistence Society under Pressure: The Bemba of Northern Zambia

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	A Subsistence Society under Pressure: The Bemba of Northern Zambia
Author:	Stromgaard, Peter
Year:	1985
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	55
Issue:	1
Pages:	39-59
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zambia
Subjects:	Bemba rural society land use agricultural land Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External links:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1159838 https://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pao:&rft_dat=xri:pao:article:4011-1985-055-00-000003
Abstract:	Based on research carried out over a period of four months in the Northern and Luapula Provinces of Zambia, the author describes the changing pattern of Bemba agriculture, village structure, and subsistence patterns. Changing agricultural strategies reflect a subsistence society under pressure. Diminishing resources make it necessary to rearrange the production and distribution patterns - the uxorilocal settlement pattern is breaking down simultaneously with a loosening of the links of the matrilineal descent group. Aspects of the wider political economy - the movement of people to towns, the underfunding of agricultural development, the inability to substitute fertilizer for indigenous sources of potash in the development of cash-crop farming - have also led to the progressive degradation of Bemba rural areas. - Fig., map, ref., sum. in French, tab.