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Book chapter | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Toward a historical sociology of population in Zaire: proposals for the analysis of the demographic regime |
Author: | Jewsiewicki, B. |
Book title: | African population and capitalism: historical perspectives |
Year: | 1987 |
Pages: | 271-279 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Congo (Democratic Republic of) Belgium |
Subjects: | demographic change colonialism |
Abstract: | What we know about the societies of Africa's Equatorial Basin at the end of the nineteenth century suggests the hypothesis that the biological reproduction of the group was particularly the function of social dependents and not 'big men'. The combined effects of forced labour until about 1910, and of the rapid spread of pathogenic factors until about 1940, intensified the drop in endogenous reproduction, a trend accentuated by migration toward marginal zones. The beginning of a gradual shift to reproduction within a 'family' production/reproduction unit began only toward the end of the 1940s in the central basin, at a time when comercial agriculture had become more important in the economy. This example shows that the demographic model of very high fertility is not an 'instinctive' reaction to high mortality. It results from the reorganization of power relations within colonial society reinforced by the imposition of a complex of values by the dominant class. Notes, ref. |