Beschreibung
This study by Monica Hunter Wilson, originally published in 1936, and
reissued in a second edition in 1961, was one of the first to provide a
detailed account of an African people in the process of change from rural
cattle-raising tribesmen to urban and agricultural wage-earners in a
European-dominated economic system. It also broke new ground in its
attempt to apply anthropological methods to the study of an African
community living in urban conditions. The book is divided into three main
sections. The first, and most extensive, studies the effects of culture
contact upon the Pondo living in the reserves, the second discusses urban
life and the effects of urbanization, and the third describes the position
of Africans living on European-owned farms. A final section discusses
future ‘Tendencies’ as they appeared at that time.
This new edition, being published on the centenary of this pioneering
anthropologist’s birth, contains two major essays – one an appreciation of
her life and work in the South African and wider African contexts, by her
elder son, Professor Francis Wilson; and the other a reflection by Dr
James G. Ellison on the circumstances in which Monica Hunter Wilson
undertook the research and writing of this volume, and its significance
for anthropology more generally at the time.
The author is also well-known for a
number of detailed studies of the Nyakyusa of Central Africa.
