3 - Towards an African proletariat?

Summary

Although the primary purpose of this monograph is to explore how the industrial framework outlined in Chapter 2 moulds relationships between railwaymen in the urban context, other issues have to be accorded priority. The first relates to a point made in Chapter 1. A common preoccupation of African urban studies has been the ‘problem’ of stability. That and the associated question of ‘urbanisation’ are the principal subjects of the present chapter. Briefly, although railwaymen are far from being ‘target workers’, and are on the contrary strongly committed to an urban and industrial world, they continue to maintain active contacts with their rural areas of origin through networks of ‘extra-town ties’, as Mayer (1962 : 576) calls them. How and why such networks are maintained and with what consequences for the structure of urban relations will be explored here. The findings of this chapter provide an interesting contrast with those of earlier researchers in Uganda, particularly Elkan, but largely confirm, and I hope amplify, the conclusions of Parkin's Kampala study (1969a, etc.) and of his subsequent work in Nairobi (forthcoming). They also bear out the implications of recent research on the Copper Belt (especially Harries-Jones 1969, 1970). On the other hand they provide opportunities for comparison and contrast with a recent Ghanaian study (Peil 1972). Peil's research, which was published when this monograph was virtually complete, included intensive surveys of Ghanaian factory workers in which information similar to that discussed in this chapter was sought.