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Social Anthropology in Nigeria During the Colonial Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

G. I. Jones
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Extract

This essay examines anthropology and the work of anthropologists in Nigeria during the colonial period, which, for the sake of convenience, can be taken from 1884 and the establishment of the Colony of Lagos and of the Oil Rivers Protectorate to the end of the Second World War and the introduction of Regional self-government in the 1950s. During the latter part of this period I was a colonial administrator in this colony, and therefore absorbed the administrative bias in regard to anthropology and anthropologists. After the colonial period I became a professional anthropologist and acquired some of the bias of the professional anthropologist towards the colonial bureaucracy and its Nigerian successor. In what follows I am attempting to recapture my original attitudes.

Résumé

L'ANTHROPOLOGIE SOCIALE EN NIGERIA PENDANT LA PÉRIODE COLONIALE

Bien que durant la période coloniale de nombreuses études relatives au peuple nigérien aient été publiées, elles paraissent décevantes pour les étudiants contemporains. Ce fut essentiellement une période durant laquelle les anthropologues mettaient au point les techniques sur le terrain et les approches fonctionnelles structurelles qui caractérisent l'anthropologie sociale moderne, et bien qu'une grande partie de ce type de recherches fût menée avant l'indépendance, la plupart d'entre elles ne furent publiées que durant la période postcoloniale.

D'autre part, l'influence de l'anthropologie à la fois sur le gouvernement colonial et le peuple nigérien fut considérable. Le gouvernement utilisa les anthropologues professionnels lors qu'ils étaient disponibles; il encourageait ses fonctionnaires à avoir une formation en la matière et il les aidait dans leurs travaux anthropologiques. Ce ne furent pas seulement les anthropologues qui s'instruisirent davantage sur les sociétés nigériennes. Les fonctionnaires du gouvernement recueillaient également des informations de plus en plus précises sur ces sociétés et leurs comptes-rendus, non publiés pour la plupart, mais conservés dans les archives nigériennes, constituent une mine d'informations pour les futurs historiens et les sociologues. Les effets sur le peuple nigérien, dès qu'il parvint à un certain degré d'instruction, furent également remarquables. Tout groupe local, ayant eu la chance d'être le sujet d'une monographie ethnologique, l'adopta comme sa ‘bible tribale’, et les théories anthropologiques réfutées du début du 20° siècle survivent encore dans les mythes d'origine des tribus du Nigéria du Sud, qui font dériver maintenant leurs ancêtres de l'Arabie, de Babel ou de Babylone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 1974 , pp. 280 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1974

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