article
Peasants in 19th-century Asante
Current anthropology • 24 (4) • Published In 1983 • Pages: 471-480
By: Arhin, Kwame.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article Arhin examines if the Asante was a peasant society prior to its incorporation into the world capitalist system in the nineteenth century. He discusses land ownership (owned by matriclans) and the organization of production. According to Arhin, the Asante production unit is ‘conjugal’ and includes husband, wife, adolescent children, pawns, and slaves. ‘The state heavily extracted surpluses from all producers for its upkeep and for the purpose of military and political expansion. (474)’ Arhin also finds that the residents of the capital Kumasi (KUMASIFO) considered themselves more civilized than villagers (KURASEFO) from the surrounding countryside. Based on this evidence, Arhin concludes that a peasantry did exist in Asante before the colonial period. The document includes the comments of eight scholars and Arhin's response.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Urban and rural life
- Real property
- Production and supply
- Retail marketing
- Lineages
- Territorial hierarchy
- Cities
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Akan
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Historian
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ;1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- Not Specified
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1600-1900
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Ashanti; Ghana
- NotesAdditional notes
- Kwame Arhin
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 479-480)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- a 63000576
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Akan (African people)