The State and agricultural labour: Zanzibar after slavery

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented June, 1981The march of capitalism into Africa is often made to appear inexorable. Indeed, some scholars have defined the possibility of a failure, a missed possibility of domination, out of existence: the survival of pre-capitalist modes of production are simply a way by which the costs of labor or cash crops are subsidized by subsistence cultivation. But how is one to tell whether the cultivator's access to the soil represents a dangerous automony, a tenacious resistance to becoming subject to industrial work rhythms and control over all aspects of a working life, or else constitutes a perfectly functional part of a superexploitative system?The conditions of rural and urban workers in South Africa is likely to suggest itself in answer to that question. But the best of research in South African labor history has focused on the specific processes by which labor was controlled and has not neglected the persistence of resistance — in individual and daily behaviour in farms and factories as much as in collective action.2 A look beyond South Africa emphasizes how elusive similar objectives could be, and how essential it is to ask just what kind of transformations capital and the state sought, how they tried to effect them, and what they were unable to do.3 Much of the literature on the "articulation" of modes of production stresses structural juxtapositions, not processes. And that gets away from the most basic if most difficult aspects of Marx's treatment of capitalism, that it was based on two quite particular and quite well masked forms of coercion: primitive accumulation— the permanent alienation of workers from the means of productionand the labor process itself- the daily struggle to make workers work. Primitive accumulation is not the mere amassing of resources, nor is it legal title to land: it is the effective exclusion of acess to the means of production of an entire class. And to say that means to ask how they were kept away. The labor process itself entails distinct mechanisms—from supervision on the shop floor to the educational system—to control the pace and intensity of labor, which in turn foster distinct patterns of resistance. Our task is not to arrive at a rigid and pristine definition of capitalism, but to look at accumulation and the labor process as the specific and complex phenomena they are. They embody the action of people and institutions, and the consequences of such actions not being complete need to be taken seriously. This study of Zanzibar looks at an attempt that penetrated to the heart of the labor process, an effort to make slave labor into wage labor. It involved non-white landowners and non-white workers in a British colony, but the division between landowners and workers was no less fundamental for the racial complexity of Zanzibar. British officials were clear that they wanted to make slaves into an agricultural proletariat, but they ended up with a complex system of labor migration, shaped as much by the ex-slaves as by the state or the ex-slaveowners. I have discussed the evidence and details of this process at length elsewhere; my aim here to to discuss some basic issues that it raises in terms that might suggest comparative perspectives

Empire and Citizenship, 212-1946

The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.Frederick Cooper is a Professor of History at New York University specializing in African history, colonization and decolonization, social sciences and the colonial world. Jane Burbank is a Professor of History at New York University specializing in Russian history, legal culture, imperial polities, and peasants. They will speak on empire and citizenship in the ancient world through the Second World War.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesOhio State University. Dept. of HistoryOhio State University. Dept. of Comparative StudiesOhio State University. Center for Slavic and Eastern European StudiesOhio State University. Center for African StudiesEvent webpag

Reforming Empire, ending Empire: France and West Africa, 1944-1960

Si miramos de forma retrospectiva, tanto el fin de los imperios coloniales como el desarrollo de un mundo de estados-nación después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial parecen inevitables. Con todo, en la larga historia de los imperios, el año 1945 es una fecha demasiado temprana para marcar la transición del imperio al estado-nación. Hacerlo supondría dejar escapar los diversos modos en que los actores políticos imaginaron su futuro. En 1945 los líderes franceses no pensaban en su país como un estado-nación, sino que la nación francesa existía en el seno de un estado más complejo —el estado-imperio—. Algunos líderes pensaron que el imperio podía convertirse en otro tipo de “composite polity”, una federación que pasara a llamarse Unión Francesa. Los que habían sido súbditos pasarían a ser ciudadanos. En el África occidental francesa, la mayoría de los líderes no buscaban la independencia a finales de los años cuarenta, sino construir una Francia federal más igualitaria. Ambas versiones del federalismo implicaban visiones estratificadas de soberanía —que diferentes personas participasen de forma distinta para gobernarse tanto a sí mismos como al conjunto de la federaciónWith hindsight, the end of colonial empires and the development of a world of nation-states after World War II seems inevitable. Yet in the long history of empires, even 1945 is too early a date to mark a transition from empire to nationstate. To do so would be to miss the diverse ways in which political actors imagined their futures. In 1945 French leaders did not think of their country as a nation-state. The French nation existed within a more complex state —an empirestate. Some leaders thought empire could become another kind of composite polity, a federation to be renamed the French Union. Its one-time subjects would now be declared citizens. In French West Africa most leaders did not in the late 1940s seek independence, but rather to build a more egalitarian, federal France. Both versions of federalism entailed layered visions of sovereignty —that different peoples would participate in different ways in governing themselves and the federation as a whol

Tributes to Professor Robert Berkley Harper

In 1977, I began teaching at The University of Pittsburgh Law School and in short order one of my closest friends during my tenure there was Professor Robert “Bob” Harper. I wondered when I was hired whether I was selected because I looked strikingly similar to Bob, and perhaps the faculty thought my favoring Professor Harper would make my assimilation into the law school faculty that much easier. Students constantly called me Professor Harper and, indeed, many on the faculty called me Bob for several years; I never bothered to correct them. I thought if they paid that little attention to detail in law school, I would just let them go through life missing some of the finer points their education, and life for that matter, has to offer

Episodic fevers and vasodilatory shock mimicking urosepsis in a patient with HIV-associated multicentric Castleman’s Disease: a case report

Background: Multicentric Castleman's disease (MCD) is a pre-malignancy that presents with lymphadenopathy and features of systemic inflammation. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated MCD is associated with human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) infection. If untreated MCD has a relapsing and remitting course that is eventually fatal. Case presentation: A 67-year-old man had six hospital admissions over 20 months characterised by fever, urinary frequency and CRP >100 mg/L. The final admission was complicated by hypotension requiring intensive care unit admission and ionotropic support. His history included HIV and Hepatitis B virus (HBV) co-infection on suppressive therapy. Each presentation was managed as presumed urosepsis with use of empirical antibiotics, however numerous blood and urine cultures failed to identify a pathogen. A bone-marrow aspirate and trephine found no evidence of haematological malignancy. A positron emission tomography scan found active lymph nodes, one of which was biopsied and found to contain the plasma-cell variant of Castleman's disease. Ultimately the cause for the recurrent presentations was attributed to progressive MCD. The patient received rituximab monotherapy and has had no further related admissions. Conclusions: MCD should be considered in patients with chronic HIV infection presenting with recurrent sepsis-like episodes and/or vasodilatory shock, particularly if no pathogen is identified or lymphadenopathy is evident

A metal-poor damped Ly-alpha system at redshift 6.4

We identify a strong Ly-alpha damping wing profile in the spectrum of the quasar P183+05 at z=6.4386. Given the detection of several narrow metal absorption lines at z=6.40392, the most likely explanation for the absorption profile is that it is due to a damped Ly-alpha system. However, in order to match the data a contribution of an intergalactic medium 5-38% neutral or additional weaker absorbers near the quasar is also required. The absorption system presented here is the most distant damped Ly-alpha system currently known. We estimate an HI column density ($10^{20.68\pm0.25}\,$cm$^{-2}$), metallicity ([O/H]$=-2.92\pm 0.32$), and relative chemical abundances of a system consistent with a low-mass galaxy during the first Gyr of the universe. This object is among the most metal-poor damped Ly-alpha systems known and, even though it is observed only ~850 Myr after the big bang, its relative abundances do not show signatures of chemical enrichment by Population III stars.Comment: Updated to match published versio

Out of Empire

The history of decolonization is usually written backward, as if the end-point (a world of juridically equivalent nation-states) was known from the start. But the routes out of colonial empire appear more varied. Some Africans sought equal rights within empire, others to federate among themselves; some sought independence. In London or Paris, officials realized they had to reform colonial empires, but not necessarily give them up. The idea of “development” became a way to assert that empires could be made both more productive and more legitimate. Frederick Cooper explores how these alternative possibilities narrowed between 1945 and approximately 1960

from free labor to family allowances: labor and African society in colonial discourse

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136392/1/ae.1989.16.4.02a00080.pd

A Case Study in Collaborative Efforts at Spartanburg Community College

The General Assembly of South Carolina radically changed the structure of secondary education with the enactment of the Education and Economic Development Act (EEDA) of 2005. A provision in the legislation requires post-secondary institutions to develop articulation agreements with secondary institutions in their service area(s). Traditionally, articulation agreements between secondary and post-secondary institutions have been few and far between. The question then becomes how articulation agreements are developed from the post-secondary perspective. Spartanburg Community College is one of the sixteen technical/community colleges in South Carolina. The development of articulation agreements is examined at Spartanburg Community College using the lens of path dependence, neo institutionalism, and resource dependency as a guide. History is used as a means of describing the process as a manifestation of the changing environment within Spartanburg County through time

K-space filter deconvolution and flip angle self-calibration in 2D radial hyperpolarised 3He lung MRI

In hyperpolarised 3 He lung MRI with constant flip angles, the transverse magnetisation decays with each RF excitation imposing a k-space filter on the acquired data. For radial data acquired in an angularly-sequential order, this filter causes streaking, angular shading and loss of spatial resolution in the images. The main aim of this work was to reduce the effects of the RF depletion k-space filter in radial acquisitions. Two approaches are presented; (i) retrospective deconvolution of the k-space filter for sequentially-acquired data and (ii) golden angle acquisition order. Radial trajectories sample the centre of k-space with every projection, thereby self-tracking signal decay. The inverse of the signal decay function was used to retrospectively deconvolve RF depolarisation k-space filter effects and the method was demonstrated in 2D radial imaging in phantoms and human lungs. A golden angle radial acquisition was shown to effectively suppress artefacts caused by the RF depletion k-space filter. In addition, the average flip angle per slice was calculated from the signal decay and the values were found to correspond with conventional flip angle maps, providing a means of flip angle self-calibration