The African World View and the Structure and Strategy of Traditional Business Enterprises: The Case of Kalabari of Southern Nigeria

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Periodical article

Title:	The African World View and the Structure and Strategy of Traditional Business Enterprises: The Case of Kalabari of Southern Nigeria
Author:	Wariboko, Nimi
Year:	1999
Periodical:	Nordic Journal of African Studies
Volume:	8
Issue:	2
Pages:	18-51
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	social structure Kalabari traders Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Economics and Trade Development and Technology
External link:	http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol8num2/wariboko.pdf
Abstract:	The Kalabari of the Niger Delta (present-day Nigeria) were noted as great entrepreneurs and were pillars of the transatlantic trade from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. The world view and explanatory system of the Kalabari have been explored by Robin Horton in various papers in the 1960s. Using Horton's framework of analysis supplemented with original insights, the present author examines the relationship between the Kalabari world view and the structure and strategy of the canoe house ('wari'), 'a compact and well-organized trading and fighting corporation, capable of manning and maintaining a war canoe', the most characteristic political and social institution of the Eastern Niger Delta States of the time. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum.