3. Kinship and politics. The formation of the state among the pastoralists of the Sahara and the Sahel

Pastoralists and peasants: perspectives on agrarian change

“…This follows Marx's notion of the 'Germanic community', developed in the Grundrisse(Marx 1973, 471-454 ), where there is a voluntary association of co-residential family units and a common use of resources to support domestic production, as described byBonte (1981b) in East African pastoralism, for example.…”

“…The idea that such pastoral societies were 'classless' and 'egalitarian' took hold, despite many studies showing how trade and exchange had long been important (Galaty and Bonte 1991;Kerven 1992;Swift 1976Swift , 1979, and forms of religious and cultural hierarchy (such as the 'prophets' of Maasailand) were present (Rigby 1988a(Rigby , 1988b(Rigby , 1992. In the past, while relatively equal access to communal rangeland resources was possible, unequal accumulation of livestock across domestic groups occurred, even if such possibilities were offset by collective ties across age-sets, livestock population crashes and shortages of labour (Rigby 1992;Bonte 1981b). More recent studies have challenged the assumptions of egalitarianism and classlessness (Anderson and Broch-Due 2000;Hogg 1986), and emphasised diverse livelihoods and responses to risk (McPeak, Doss, and Little 2011;Little, Mahmoud and Coppock 2001a;Hutchinson 1996).…”

“…The social relations within pastoralists' domestic formations make a big difference. Bonte (1977Bonte ( , 1979Bonte ( , 1981bBonte ( , 1981c, for example, emphasised the relationships between individual and kin or community-based accumulation in Nilotic pastoralist societies of East Africa, explaining how class formation is complex, intersecting with wider social relations, religion and ideology. Equally, in such segmentary lineage systems redistributive relations involving a diverse array of stock-sharing and entrustment practices may act to offset individualised accumulation; instead accumulation occurs at the kin-group or community level.…”

Circulation of silicified oolitic limestone blades in South-Iberia (Spain and Portugal) during the third millennium B.C.: an expression of a core/periphery framework

“…This is inferred by the simultaneous presence of B2a and B1 products in the tombs of the small, fortified hamlets situated in the territorial limits separating the political body of the Guadalquivir Valley from that of the Guadiana Valley and the Portuguese Alentejo, such as La Zarcita. This phenomenon identifies the interperipheral development of social practices, which have been defined as the Germanic mode of production (Bonté, 1977(Bonté, , 1979(Bonté, , 1981Gailey and Patterson, 1988;Herrmann, 1982;Kristiansen, 1991;Nocete, 2000Nocete, , 2001.…”

Class and state formation: The case of pre-incaic Peru

“…The combination of the semi-autonomy of the households, the increased militarization, and the community control over the movement of people may precipitate more tense and hierarchical gender relations. If the state intensifies surplus extraction, social formations manifesting the Germanic mode of production may be transformed into ones based on the slave or ancient mode of production [ 12 ].…”