The Rhetoric of Centre–Periphery Relations
- 1 December 1970
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Journal of Modern African Studies
- Vol. 8 (4), 617-636
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x00023934
Abstract
This article is an attempt to explore the frames of reference of two disciplines—political science and social anthropology—as they affect the study of relations between the national ‘centre’ and the local ‘periphery’ in African countries. It is exploratory, in that it reviews the assumptions and concepts characteristic of the disciplines, instead of trying to crystallise a new model. In the light of this comparison it then considers the status of what Clifford Geertz has called ‘the clichés of commonsense sociology’.1 It examines particularly one item in this collection of clichés, the notion of ‘tribalism’.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Place of Non-Groups in the Social SciencesMan, 1968
- Political Change in a West African StatePublished by Harvard University Press ,1966
- Understanding and Explanation in Social AnthropologyBritish Journal of Sociology, 1959