wealth in people
One of the more confusing concepts to understand about Africa is how power and authority were structured before the coming of Europeans and the imposing of western-style state power over the continent. The explanation for how Africans ruled is suggested by the phrase "wealth in people." What does this mean? And how did "wealth in people" work?
In pre-colonial African society, acquiring vast amounts of material goods was not the way to wealth OR power. This could be explained in part by the fact that Africans did not have very good ways to store surpluses. You could grow extra yams--but what good would it do you when those yams rotted in your storehouse? So rather than putting stock in acquiring things, or basing an individual's worth or power based on his accumulation of material wealth, a man (and it was usually a man, folks, I'm sorry to say) acquired influence, prestige, and authority by acquiring a range of what could be called "dependents." Dependents could be wives or children, but they might also be relatives, neighbors, or slaves. You could acquire "dependents" in any numbers of ways, but once a person was obligated to you (whether because you had given an individual food when s/he was starving, or because you had married a woman, etc.), you could call on their labor at any time. It was the acquisition, then, of these "obligations" that gave a person power. Power was access to labor, vast amounts of labor.
One political theory suggests that the construction of different types of power is based on "scarce resources." In land-hungry Europe, power became linked to territories because this was the scarce resource. Of course, Europeans still needed access to labor, but power was exercised by controlling land itself. Labor was controlled in a particular space; the space was what was critical. In land-plentiful Africa, labor was scarce and much needed. In vast tropical forests, men needed lots of workers to clear land in order to build huts and cultivate crops. Hence, a very different kind of "wealth" emerged, and a very different kind of power was exercised over people.
State power and authority in precolonial Africa was thus very loose, kind of weak, and not territorally based--something very difficult for westerners in 2006 to grasp. How could you possibly rule if territory was not your basis for rule? But pre-colonial kings did, in fact, do just that. Their power was based on a set of reciprocal obligations. They bestowed gifts and favors so that people would be obligated to them. If people were obligated to them, they could call on their labor when needed. If you called on a person's labor, you were obligated to continue bestowing gifts upon them--often, as your dependent, it meant that you fed and sheltered them.
This is a very simplified version of state power in precolonial Africa but I find it compelling. I think it would be very difficult for people in today's world to move to an alternative structure of authority because we are so obsessed with possessions; yet I'm also convinced that our obsession with territorial divisions (i.e., national boundaries) will either fade away or be violently undone some day. Perhaps not within my lifetime, though....
In pre-colonial African society, acquiring vast amounts of material goods was not the way to wealth OR power. This could be explained in part by the fact that Africans did not have very good ways to store surpluses. You could grow extra yams--but what good would it do you when those yams rotted in your storehouse? So rather than putting stock in acquiring things, or basing an individual's worth or power based on his accumulation of material wealth, a man (and it was usually a man, folks, I'm sorry to say) acquired influence, prestige, and authority by acquiring a range of what could be called "dependents." Dependents could be wives or children, but they might also be relatives, neighbors, or slaves. You could acquire "dependents" in any numbers of ways, but once a person was obligated to you (whether because you had given an individual food when s/he was starving, or because you had married a woman, etc.), you could call on their labor at any time. It was the acquisition, then, of these "obligations" that gave a person power. Power was access to labor, vast amounts of labor.
One political theory suggests that the construction of different types of power is based on "scarce resources." In land-hungry Europe, power became linked to territories because this was the scarce resource. Of course, Europeans still needed access to labor, but power was exercised by controlling land itself. Labor was controlled in a particular space; the space was what was critical. In land-plentiful Africa, labor was scarce and much needed. In vast tropical forests, men needed lots of workers to clear land in order to build huts and cultivate crops. Hence, a very different kind of "wealth" emerged, and a very different kind of power was exercised over people.
State power and authority in precolonial Africa was thus very loose, kind of weak, and not territorally based--something very difficult for westerners in 2006 to grasp. How could you possibly rule if territory was not your basis for rule? But pre-colonial kings did, in fact, do just that. Their power was based on a set of reciprocal obligations. They bestowed gifts and favors so that people would be obligated to them. If people were obligated to them, they could call on their labor when needed. If you called on a person's labor, you were obligated to continue bestowing gifts upon them--often, as your dependent, it meant that you fed and sheltered them.
This is a very simplified version of state power in precolonial Africa but I find it compelling. I think it would be very difficult for people in today's world to move to an alternative structure of authority because we are so obsessed with possessions; yet I'm also convinced that our obsession with territorial divisions (i.e., national boundaries) will either fade away or be violently undone some day. Perhaps not within my lifetime, though....
Labels: power and authority, pre-colonial Africa, wealth in people
posted by Jessica Somewhere in the States at 4:58 PM
6 Comments:
This isn't about borders, but I'm curious what you think of this article.
“And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice. Let me repeat this: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice. And that’s too bad. Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it. But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.”
Okay, I've finally figured out this Beta blogger requires some kind of different login. I can't login using my normal blogger account.
Frustrating! I've been trying to comment for days!
Okay, about borders...
A geopolitical border is an interesting concept to me because it falls into such a large continuum of ideas, all the way from a whimsical desire to physical barriers preventing human activities. I agree that the borders drawn by European diplomats in faraway lands will be overthrown - they had no basis in the perceptions of people living there. But those people still believe in borders and boundaries, even if they don't calculate them by latitude and longitude. I don't think the wealthy multiple-slave owning tribal power broker who has his "labor units" clear a field for crops will just let some other guy plant the field next year without a fight. I don't know of any society that lacks a concept of territory, even if it's just which hammock gets slept in by whom.
Well, as per your last comment, yes and no.
The Big Man tended to have control over land and allocated it to different people for their use. But when there were power struggles, it didn't usually tend to involve a fight over that land. Rather, the person who wanted to be the new Big Man would simply leave with followers and go set up somewhere new. Land was plentiful. Labor was not.
Also, if somebody felt they were being exploited by their big man, it was a relatively easy thing to pick up and go pledge your loyalty to a different Big Man, some distance away.
To my knowledge, wars were generally not fought over territory or dependents (who cannot be thought of as 'laborers' or 'slaves' the way we define those terms today). This is not to say it didn't happen, or that it wouldn't have happened if an "upstart" wanted to compete with the Big Man over specific territory. But to my knowledge, those kinds of territorial wars are generally not what happened in precolonial Africa.
This changed during the course of the slave trade.
I just wrote a 45 page paper on just this topic in 19th century Zululand. Sure, there were concepts of boundaries, but less so of borders--these came in with Europeans. I intend to explore those concepts more fully in my dissertation--but from what I learned during the course of research for my paper, power simply wasn't tied to territory, not in any way like we think of today. State power was tied to people, to their productive and reproductive labor, wherever they happened to be. People of course were found in a particular geographical space so in that way state power could be seen as linked to territory--but in a much more amorphous way. It was not unusual for vast numbers of people to pick up and move five hundred miles north, which happened multiple times during the 19th century. Precisely how Zulus embued the geographical space they occupied with meanings like "home" or "citizen" or "nation" is still kind of a mystery.
As far as the article on Bono vs. the pope....It seems to me that they're taking Bono's quote out of context. It would be absurd to suggest that Bono doesn't believe in charity; thus, I might argue that a better interpretation of his words, given surrounding context of his actions and other words in the years leading up to this comment, would be to state that he believes that charity isolated from justice is a poor way to change the world and it certainly hasn't served Africa well. And I doubt the Catholic church would argue with that. It's absolutely correct to state that millions of charitable donations have been squandered by unjust governments in Africa--so it seems correct therefore to state that charity without some responsibility attached to it often does little good. Seems like that's what Bono's saying to me. Justice without charity and charity without justice--probably not a good combination either way. Though I must say that if I err, I want to err on the side of mercy.
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