Beschreibung
In this study Dr Audrey Richards describes the
living
conditions of the Bemba of North-Eastern Rhodesia, with special
reference to the effects of migrant labour on the social and
economic life of a mainly agricultural society. Although
primarily concerned with the production, distribution, and
consumption of food, and with conditions of labour and standards
of living, the book gives a vivid picture of the social structure
of the Bemba – their political organisation and the functions of
the chief, systems of land-tenure, kinship groupings, and the
whole complex of economic, social, and magico-religious factors
which arise in any community.
The book has been widely
recognised as an authoritative study particularly among
economists and anthropologists.
Audrey I. Richards (1899 – 1984) worked
with Bronislav Malinowski at the London School of Economics
in the 1930s to establish `practical anthropology‘ as the
tool for analysing problems in Africa. In the 1950s she was
Director of the East African Institute of Social Research in
Kampala before returning to teach at Cambridge.