Sleeping Together: The Dynamics of Residence among the Abutia Ewe

Verdon, Michel

doi:10.1086/jar.35.4.3629538

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The changing relations among residence, household composition, inheritance of property, marriage and new forms of income have been traced for diverse groups (e.g. Rodman, 1985;Sanjek, 1982;Verdon, 1979; also see the reviews by Yanagisako [1979] and Guyer [1981]). There have been studies that try to compare the effects of developmental cycles and class differentiation on household formation (Greenhalgh, 1985;Spiegel, 1980) and others that are sceptical about the utility of the developmental cycle concept (Freed and Freed, 1983).…”

Section: Approaches To the Study Of Domestic Units In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction

Guyer¹,

Peters²

1987

Development and Change

158

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In recent years academic and policy concerns about Africa have shifted definitively away from static description and short-term intervention, towards a concern with depicting and influencing the long-term dynamics of change. One among many contentious areas of debate opened up by the dramatic shift in perspective has been the 'nature' of African familial structures. While much anthropological work has documented culturally specific -even though changing -patterns of familial organization, the other social sciences have tended to understate cross-cultural variation in favour of approaches drawing on generally applicable household models. In the recent search for an approach to variation and dynamics in the study of familial relations, the various disciplines have found the need to extend their questions and methods into empirical areas and conceptual realms beyond their traditional arenas. This in turn, as outlined in more detail in section 1 of this Introduction, has provoked a critical cross-disciplinary exploration which can only sharpen awareness of disciplinary assumptions and provoke focused debate on the application of various concepts and models to research and policy.The workshop entitled 'Conceptualizing the Household: Issues of Theory, Method and Application',* at which earlier versions of the present contributions were presented, was not necessarily intended to achieve a synthesis, but rather to explore how the various dialogues were developing. The hope was to discern, through the issues which emerged as central, whether there were untapped conceptual resources within certain disciplinary or theoretical perspectives; whether research questions were being posed in useful and manageable frames; whether there were unexplored links between particular

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Section: Approaches To the Study Of Domestic Units In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction

Guyer¹,

Peters²

1987

Development and Change

158

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“…The ideal demonstration of the model's validity would consist in applying it to actual empirical cases. This would unfortunately treble the size of this essay, and this application has already been done elsewhere (Verdon 1979a(Verdon , 1979b. However, the pertinent conclusions of these two essays will be discussed here.…”

Section: Ill: Shaking Off the Domestic Yokementioning

confidence: 97%

Shaking off the Domestic Yoke, or the Sociological Significance of Residence

Verdon

1980

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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The recent incursion of historians into the ‘history of the family’ raises a number of crucial problems from which anthropologists and sociologists seem to have shied away. Dealing with a topic new to the historical discipline, some of these historians have turned to anthropologists for theoretical inspiration. It will thus come as no surprise that what they have found and reproduced is the very conceptual discord so endemic in anthropological circles (see Laslett 1972 and Berkner 1975 for antithetical stances). This controversy, however, in one way represents only a minor aspect of the problem. Equally if not more important is the fact that the phenomena which fall under historical and sociological/anthropological investigation may not be the same after all. This is intrinsically related to their respective subject-matter and the type of evidence they have to rely upon.

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“…In this population men and women divorce, they get involved in stable relationships and may or may not cohabit; they also move in with a brother, a sister, a mother or a cousin, move out for a number of years on labour migrations and come back to build their own house, so that it is strictly impossible to draw a developmental cycle of their residential groups. 23 Yet it is quite clear to both social actors and to the observer that only some residential associations are permitted. The permutations are many, but finite.…”

Section: The Quebec Stem Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking complex households: the case of the Western Pyrenean ‘Houses’

Verdon¹

1996

Cont. Change

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S'inspirant de ses travaux sur la famille-souche franco-québécoise l'auteur élabore ce qu'il appelle une axiomatique ‘atomiste’ pour contrer les présupposés collectivistes qui ont infiltré toute la littérature sur les maisons pyrénéennes. Partant du postulat que des families évitent la cohabitation parce que toute cohabitation s'accompagne habituellement de subordination domestique si les unités familiales qui partagent le même toit ne sont pas égales sur le plan économique, l'auteur découvre dans les pratiques résidentielles du Béam et du pays basque d'Ancien Régime une frappante confirmation de ses thèses. En effet, par la dot qu'apportait le conjoint adventice, l'héritier ou l'héritière basque et son conjoint (dits ‘maîtres jeunes’) devenaient économiquement les égaux des ‘maîtres vieux’ et, par voie de conséquence, la cohabitation était facultative. Si les ‘maîtres jeunes’ choisissaient la cohabitation, par contre, ils jouissaient d'une complète égalité avec les ‘maîtres vieux’ sur le plan domestique. Quant aux pratiques béarnaises elles différaient sur presque tous les plans mais tant les coutumes basques que béarnaises appuient l'axiomatique atomiste de l'auteur.

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Sleeping Together: The Dynamics of Residence among the Abutia Ewe

Cited by 11 publications

References 9 publications

Introduction

Introduction

Shaking off the Domestic Yoke, or the Sociological Significance of Residence

Rethinking complex households: the case of the Western Pyrenean ‘Houses’

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