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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Patriarchal Structure and Factional Politics. Toward An Understanding of the Dualist Society |
| Author: | Willame, Jean-Claude |
| Year: | 1973 |
| Periodical: | Cahiers d'études africaines |
| Volume: | 13 |
| Issue: | 50 |
| Pages: | 326-355 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Congo (Democratic Republic of) |
| Subjects: | social structure modernization Yaka (Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo) political elite traditional polities chieftaincy History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1973.2714 |
| Abstract: | In African societies, involved in a process of modernization, traditional rulers have to keep some balance between the demands of rural traditional constituencies and those of the modernizing bureaucratic groups. If chiefs are caught in severe role conflicts between the requirements of customs and modernizing goals a condition of mutual hostility is alleged to develop between the rulers and the modernizing authorities. Any discussion on the role and the relationship between traditional and modernist elites should be appraised in the context of historical materialism and class structure rather than in the perspective of acculturation and the modernity-tradition continuum. The unchangeableness of society organized in autonomous communities is in striking contrast with the constant dissolution and refounding of States and the never-ceasing changes of dynasty. These basic points are examined against the example of the Bayaka of Kwango, who are said to have kept alive their traditional social structures and political organizations. Notes, tables, French summary. |
