Cities, Society, and Social Perception: A Central African Perspective

by J. Clyde Mitchell

Overview

A dramatic consequence of the impact of Western capitalism on countries to which it has turned for raw materials and export markets has been the spectacular growth of cities in developing regions. Drawing on empirical material assembled during his twenty-one years in Africa, Mitchell here uses statistical analysis to investigate changing urban conditions in South Central Africa and their wider social, political, and economic contexts. This comparative study provides a unique springboard for an examination of the way in which urban sociologists and anthropologists think about urban phenomena in general.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198232537
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/17/1987
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	8.92(w) x 5.94(h) x 1.16(d)

About the Author

Nuffield College, Oxford

Table of Contents

	List of Tables	xxi
	List of Figures	xxiii
	List of Maps	xxiii
1	The Situational Perspective	1
	Cities and Society	3
	The Situational Perspective	7
	Cognitive Specifications of the Context: Situations	9
	Structural Specifications of the Context: Settings	14
	The Urban Context	18
	Warranted Naivety	25
	Comparison, Case Studies, and Generalization	31
2	Cities in a Divided Society	34
	The Extent of Urbanization in South Central Africa	40
	The Administrative Context	51
	The Economic Factors in Urban Selection	59
3	Labour Circulation and Urban Growth	64
	Labour Circulation	65
	Geographical Mobility	71
	Age and Sex Selection	75
	Geographical Selection	85
	Contextual Parameters, Social Structure, and Social Perception	93
4	The Perceptions of City Life	98
	The Attitude Study	106
	Response to Selected Items	110
	Rural-Urban Self-rating	115
	The Underlying Dimensions in the Items	116
	The Relationship of Background Factors to Basic Attitudes	124
	Diffuse and Specific Cognitive Orientations	133
5	Social Status and its Perception	135
	Occupational Ranking and Colonial Society	141
	Intercalary Roles and Occupational Prestige	145
	Hierarchical Position and the Perception of Status	158
	Discrepancies in Respect of Occupations	164
	General Social Position and the Perception of Status	168
	Social Structure, Social Status, and Social Perception	178
6	The Perception of Regionalism and Ethnicity	180
	Cognitive Ethnicity: A Northern Rhodesian Example	183
	The Social and Historical Setting of the Analysis	188
	The Ordering of the Items	195
	Social Distance Scores and Perceptions of Inter-ethnic Distances	201
	Multi-dimensional Distance Analysis	203
	Social and Personal Factors Affecting the Perception of Ethnicity	215
	Directly Perceived Aspects of Ethnic Distance	216
	Cues and Characteristics	221
	Perception and Behaviour: Co-residence in Single Quarters	225
	Perception and Behaviour: Ethnic Intermarriage	231
	Structural and Cognitive Ethnicity	235
7	Comparative Urbanism: Early American and Recent African Cities	243
	Industrialization and City Growth	244
	Rates of City Growth	246
	The Demographic Context	248
	Economic Conditions	251
	Poverty and Overcrowding	252
	Social Differentiation	257
	Ethnic Association	259
	Processes of Categorization and Incapsulation	263
8	Comparison and Analysis: Formulations of City Life	278
	Psychologistic Assumptions	283
	Ethnologistic Assumptions	287
	Situational Analysis	289
	Disorganization: Primary Contacts and Networks	296
	Social Networks and Social Situations	301
	Social Networks and Social Settings	310
	Settings, Situations, and Analysis	311
	Appendix	314
	Bibliography	317
	Index	333

Editorial Reviews

"Presents the sum of four decades of research on urbanization in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi....This study is a must for the serious student of urban anthropology."—Choice

From the Publisher