Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa

Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa
	The first edition cover of the book.
Author	Jack Goody
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	History of Africa ; Sociology ; Anthropology
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Publication date	1971
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	88

Last updated February 26, 2019

Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa is a book studying the indigenous political systems of sub-Saharan Africa written by the British social anthropologist Jack Goody (1919–2015), then a professor at St. John's College, Cambridge University. It was first published in 1971 by Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.

Sir John Rankine Goody, was a British social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 to 1984.

Oxford University Press (OUP) is the largest university press in the world, and the second oldest after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the vice-chancellor known as the delegates of the press. They are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University has used a similar system to oversee OUP since the 17th century. The Press is located on Walton Street, opposite Somerville College, in the suburb Jericho.

The International African Institute (IAI) was founded in 1926 in London for the study of African languages. Frederick Lugard was the first chairman ; Diedrich Hermann Westermann and Maurice Delafosse (1926) were the initial co-directors.

Divided into five chapters, the short book is devoted to Goody's argument that former scholars studying sub-Saharan Africa had made mistakes by comparing its historical development to that in Europe, believing the two to be fundamentally different due to technological differences between the two continents. In particular he criticises the idea that African political systems were ever feudal, believing that such a concept – while applicable to Medieval Europe – was not applicable to pre-colonial Africa.

Feudalism combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe

Feudalism was a combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. Although derived from the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), then in use, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the Middle Ages. In its classic definition, by François-Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.

Synopsis

Chapter One: Feudalism in Africa?

In the first chapter, entitled "Feudalism in Africa?", Goody explores the various definitions of the word "feudalism", and the manner in which it has been used to describe historical societies across both Europe and Asia, and also the manner in which social anthropologists have used it to refer to contemporary societies in Africa. He proceeds to discuss the various definitions of feudalism, and the way in which it has been used by both noted sociologists such as Max Weber and Karl Marx and also by historians like Marc Bloch. Goody then goes into greater detail regarding how the term has been used to refer to various African states, such as S.F. Nadel's use of the term to refer to Nupe society in his book A Black Byzantium (1942), and Maquet's use of the term to refer to the states of the Ruanda in his work The Premise of Inequality in Ruanda (1961), believing that the use of the term "feudal" – which has its basis in historical investigation into Medieval Europe – is simply unnecessary in both of these cases.

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, philosopher, jurist, and political economist. His ideas profoundly influenced social theory and social research. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology. Weber was a key proponent of methodological anti-positivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive means, based on understanding the purpose and meaning that individuals attach to their own actions. Unlike Durkheim, he did not believe in mono-causality and rather proposed that for any outcome there can be multiple causes.

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary.

Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a French historian. A founding member of the Annales School of French social history, he specialised in the field of medieval history and published widely on Medieval France over the course of his career. As an academic, he worked at the University of Strasbourg, the University of Paris, and the University of Montpellier.

"If we are to take up and develop the tradition of comparative work, which has been so neglected in recent years by historians, sociologists and anthropologists alike, then the best strategy at this stage is to avoid the kind of overall comparisons that are invited by words like tribalism, feudalism, capitalism. These abstractions make for too crude a level of analysis."

Jack Goody, 1971.^[1]

Moving on to look at the "economic approach to feudalism", Goody challenges the view championed by "orthodox Marxists" such as I.I. Potemkin that in Africa, feudal states emerged because land was controlled by powerful land owners to whom the peasants were indebted, having to pay rent or proving services in return for being allowed to farm the land. Instead, Goody argues, in much of Africa, land was plentiful and "of little economic importance", and that such a feudal system of land ownership was simply not applicable. Goody proceeds to argue that while Africanists should not adopt the term "feudalism" from historians of Medieval Europe, there should be greater interdisciplinary work on Africa from historians, anthropologists and sociologists alike.^[2]

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Chapter Two: Polity and the Means of Production

Goody devotes the second chapter to an examination of the economic and technological aspects of pre-colonial African society, which he argues distinguish it from Medieval Europe specifically and Eurasia more generally. He begins with a brief discussion of the complex trade networks across Sub-Saharan Africa that existed prior to contact with Europeans, noting that it certain respects Africa had a monetary economy that was similar to that of Western Europe. However, according to Goody it was in its "means of production" rather than its "productive relations" that Africa's economy differed greatly from that of Eurasia; describing the continent as a "land of extensive agriculture", Goody noted that it had a relatively small population, plentiful land, and poor soils, and that notably the majority of Africa did not have access to the plough, an invention that only reached as far south as Ethiopia.

In economics and sociology, the means of production are physical and non-financial inputs used in the production of economic value. These include raw materials, facilities, machinery and tools used in the production of goods and services. In the terminology of classical economics, the means of production are the "factors of production" minus financial and human capital.

A plough (UK) or plow is a tool or farm implement used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting to loosen or turn the soil. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by working animals such as oxen and horses, but in modern times are mostly drawn by tractors. A plough may be made of wood, iron, or steel frame with an attached blade or stick used to cut the soil and loosen it. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, although despite archeological evidence for its use written references to the plough do not appear in the English language before c. 1100, after which point it is referenced frequently. The plough represents one of the major agricultural inventions in human history. The earliest ploughs were wheelless, and the Romans used a wheelless plough called the aratrum, but Celtic peoples began using wheeled ploughs during the Roman era.

Ethiopia, Oromo: Itiyoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Hebrew: אתיופיה, -officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country in the northeastern part of Africa, popularly known as the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With over 102 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second-most populous nation on the African continent that covers a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi). Its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa, which lies a few miles west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.

Goody goes on to look at the nature of land in Africa, arguing that it was both more plentiful and less productive than that in Europe, leading Africans to move their farms around more often. He argues that the nature of land in Africa meant that the concept of serfdom, a prominent part of Medieval European society, never developed there. He rounds up the chapter with a discussion of the role that horses and cavalry played in the African military.^[3]

Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of debt bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.

Chapter Three: Polity and the Means of Destruction

Chapter Five: Conclusions

Main Arguments

"Feudalism" in Africa

"It is≈≥±−÷§ the thesis of this present work that the nature of 'indigenous' African social structure, especially in its political aspects, has been partly misunderstood because of a failure to appreciate certain basic technological differences between Africa and Eurasia. It is the differences that make the application of the European concept of 'feudalism' inappropriate. But the problem is not only historical; in many areas 'traditional' African social structure exists (in a somewhat modified form) precisely because the rural economy has not greatly changed. It is not only the comparative analysis of historians and sociologists that needs to take cognizance of these facts, but also the decisions of planners, developers, and politicians (both reforming and conserving)."

Jack Goody, in the book's preface, 1971.^[4]

In Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa, Goody presents his argument that the label "feudal" is not applicable when referring to African states, considering it to be a word that is primarily used to describe the societies of Medieval Europe. Although Goody accepted the possible existence of "broad resemblances between the states of medieval Europe and those of pre-colonial Africa", in particular similarities between their "monarchical systems of government", he dismisses the use of such a "vague and all-embracing concept" as feudalism, believing that it ignores the multiple differences – primarily regarding "economics and technology" – which differentiate the two continents.^[5]

Goody criticised those Africanists, such as S.F. Nadel and J.J. Maquet, who have used such a term to describe societies which they are studying, but praised M.G. Smith, L.A. Fallers and L.P. Mair, who "make at least as adequate an analysis [in their own studies] without introducing the concept at all." According to Goody, "This second approach seems preferable as a procedure. It is simpler; it minimizes the inevitable Western bias; and it helps to avoid the assumption that because we find vassalage (for example), we necessarily find the other institutions associated with it in medieval Europe."^[6]

He notes the trend for orthodox Marxist scholars in particular to claim that certain African states were feudal, arguing that because of their adherence to Marxism, they are "apt to fall back upon the idea of universal progression from tribalism to slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and finally socialism, each stage being characterized by a particular set of social institutions."^[7] Although he notes that the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – the founders of Marxist thought – gave much to the study of how society's progress, Goody believed that this orthodox Marxist approach when dealing with African history "blocks advance" because it held to a "rigid attachment to particular European-based schema, whether this be derived from an explicit ideological commitment or from an inability to see beyond our own cultural tradition."^[8]

Although he rejected the term "feudalism", which he considered to be rooted to the study of Medieval Europe, Goody did however believe that "Africanists certainly have something to learn from the studies of medieval historians", noting that "valuable material for comparative analysis" can be found on such topics as "inheritance, marriage, [and] descent".^[9] by msela

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References

Footnotes

↑ Goody 1971. p. 16.
↑ Goody 1971. pp. 1–20.
↑ Goody 1971. pp. 21–38.
↑ Goody 1971. p. preface.
↑ Goody 1971. p. 21.
↑ Goody 1971. pp. 8–9.
↑ Goody 1971. p. 13.
↑ Goody 1971. pp. 13–14.
↑ Goody 1971. p. 15.

Bibliography

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[1] Goody 1971. p. 16.

[2] Goody 1971. pp. 1–20.

[3] Goody 1971. pp. 21–38.

[4] Goody 1971. p. preface.

[5] Goody 1971. p. 21.

[6] Goody 1971. pp. 8–9.

[7] Goody 1971. p. 13.

[8] Goody 1971. pp. 13–14.

[9] Goody 1971. p. 15.