Kinship and Marriage in a Polyethnic Community

Abstract

IntroductionAlthough Redfield's (1947) folk–urban continuum has been subjected to valid theoretical critiques (Miner 1952 and Mintz 1953) the tempting simplistic dichotomy this construct implies is still basic to our view of the social universe. Apparently anthropologists, like many of the groups they study, often prefer to conceptualize in dyadic terms. Thus, in an almost complete disregard for historical processes this proclivity has manifested itself in African studies by a contrast between a static ‘tribal’ hinterland opposed to a more dynamic urban domain. More recently as a mediating agent the tribal notion wound its way into African cities via a theoretical migration and re-emerged somewhat inelegantly as ‘supertribalism’ (Rouch 1956: 60), ‘urban tribalism’ (Gluckman 1960: 55) and ‘retribalization’ (Cohen 1969: 1–6). As a consequence the ‘tribe’ remains a basic conceptual category assumed applicable to both urban and rural Africa.