The Study of Urban Africa
| Date | 01 April 1966 |
| Published date | 01 April 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1966.tb00262.x |
| Author | William John Hanna |
The
Study of Urban Africa
By WILLIAM JOHN HANNA
Dr.
Hanna is Chairman, Research Department of Political Science and History,
Centre for Research in International and Public Affairs.
The
study of urban Africa is at the threshold. Generalizations and case
studies are now available in sufficient quantity so that scholars can begin to
investigate conditions, boundaries, and probabilities. Two recently published
books' represent the level of work which has been completed and, both expli-
citly and even more so implicitly, indicate research needs.
It
would of course be possible to review the Kuper and Little books con-
ventionally. One would note, for example, that the former contains the papers
which were presented at a series of interdisciplinary seminars at the Los
Angeles campus of the University of California, and the latter is essentially
an up-to-date summary of the author's previous publications on voluntary
associations in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Nigeria. However, it seems more
important to engage the basic issues of the current state of knowledge and
future research needs as these issues are reflected in the two books. Since the
books devote primary attention to urban migration and the means by which
migrants adapt to (and integrate within) the towns, it may prove useful to
survey briefly our knowledge
of
these subjects, drawing upon the Kuper and
Little volumes for evidence.
Urban migration is not a new phenomenon in BlackAfrica, a fact supported
by John Fage and other contributors to the Kuper volume. However, research
has for obvious reasons focused upon behaviour in the imperial and indepen-
dence periods. Most of the causes of twentieth century urban migration, both
seasonal and long-term, can conveniently be placed into one general and four
specific categories. In general,
it
may be asserted that virtually all the specific
causes of contemporary urban migration directly or indirectly stem from
European intervention. Most African towns are the outgrowth of European
settlements established to facilitate European trade and industry, and the
administration
of
Africans. Horace Miner, writing in the Kuper volume, refers
to the new towns as 'overseas outposts,' and Little, following Jean Dresch's
'Villes d'Afrique Occidentale' (Les Cahiers d'Outre-mer, 1950), expresses the
same point this way: 'Though inhabited by Africans, it is largely the creation
of
Europeans.'
It
will be seen that the four specific categories which are used
to group the causes of urban migration are linked with this more general one.
(a)
The
new infrastructures of African territories, largely built, financed,
and/or inspired by Europeans, contributed to urban migration by offering
attractions in the town and facilitating travel. Little notes the impact of the
construction of new roads, railways, and public works. William Schwab's
paper in the Kuper volume links the development of Oshogbo, Nigeria, as
a centre for trade and commerce to the extension of railway and telegraph
1Urbanization and Migration
in
West Africa, edited by Hilda Kuper. University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1965; pp. 227; $6.95. West African Urbanization: AStudy
of Voluntary Associations in Social Change, by Kenneth Little, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1965; pp. 179;
ISS.
(A review of Hilda
Kuper's
book by
Dr.
Kenneth
Little appears on page 144. Ed.),
124
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