Background to the Village of Kala

The village setting is described, patterns of settlement, the presence of different ethnic groups, and village and lineage structures. Bambara peasant society and household organisation are presented, and the role of individual and collective activity, assets and incomes. The impacts of French colonisation and Independence, on government administration, taxation, health and education are described, before discussion of recent economic and political developments in Mali.

Traditional Culture as a System That Helped the Rural Russian Population of Siberia Overcome the Difficulties of Being in the Rear During the Great Patriotic War

В статье на основе полевых исследований с опорой на социальную память, с использованием методов и источников устной истории определяется значение традиционной культуры в поддержании жизнедеятельности сельского общества сибирского тыла в годы Великой Отечественной войны. Анализируется востребованность и мобильность народных традиций в повседневной жизни, описываются жизнесохранительные практики и их связь с традиционными умениями и навыками, определяется место этих практик в процессах социальной и хозяйственно-бытовой адаптации русских крестьян к военному времени. Делается вывод, что в основе сформированной системы преодоления трудностей лежали заместительные технологии обеспечения семьи питанием, жилищем, одеждой. Созидательность традиционной культуры и ее гибкость рассматриваются на примере огородничества и домашнего скотоводства. Отмечены тенденции их реструктуризации с целью замены традиционных базовых компонентов культуры жизнеобеспечения и перемещением их в группу второстепенных. Доказывается, что критерием адаптационных замещений служили многофункциональность и универсальность. Большое внимание уделяется половозрастному перераспределению трудовых обязанностей в сельской семье, связанному с историческим опытом воспитания и семейными традициями. В завершение исследования автор предлагает рассматривать традиционную культуру как фактор победы в Великой Отечественной войне, а опыт выживания крестьянского общества в трудных условиях считать составной частью подвига населения сибирской тыловой деревни This article discusses the importance of traditional culture in maintaining the life of rural society in the Siberian rear during the Great Patriotic War. It is based on field research using methods and sources of oral history to explore social memory. The article analyzes the relevance and mobility of folk traditions in everyday life, describes life-saving practices and their relationship with traditional skills, and determines the place of these practices in helping Russian peasants adapt to wartime social and economic needs. The author asserts that the adaptive system for overcoming difficulty was based on substitute technologies for providing food, housing, and clothing for the family. She considers the creative role of traditional culture and its flexibility in the sphere of kitchen gardening and domestic livestock. The article notes the tendency of their restructuring in order to replace basic components of the traditional culture of life support and to consider them secondary. Multifunctionality and versatility now serve as the criterion for adaptive substitution. Attention is paid to the gender and age redistribution of work responsibilities in the rural family, associated with the historical experience of raising children and family traditions. At the end of the study, the author proposes that traditional culture be considered a factor in Russia’s victory in the Great Patriotic War, and that the survival of peasant society in the difficult conditions of the rear be appreciated as an integral part of the population’s achievement.

A paraszti önigazgatás középkori eredete és rétegei

The peasant society had special autonomy from the Middle Ages. The local communities elected their own leaders, coordinated the common agricultural works of the land community, they judged on their own. Some characteristic attributes of these early autonomy survived the historical, political and social changes and remained dominant in the long run. In my study I present the genesis of the Hungarian villages and communities, the different components and layers of the traditional self-government. These questions are inseparable from the development of serfdom and its current situation. I point to the dichotomy inside of the communities, which stemmed from the property difference of the peasant society and from the conflicts of the individual and collective interests, which ones remained dominant till the end of 20. century.

Käsitused kasvatusest eesti vanasõnades ja kasvatusteaduses

In this article, we have set ourselves a goal to identify how the conceptions of education contained in Estonian proverbs coincide with the corresponding educational thought in Estonia. We have empirically studied 655 Estonian proverbs that directly refer to a child, growing up, upbringing and parents as well as the methods of education. In the empirical research, we look at whether and how it is possible to semantically categorize and define proverbs based on the educational meanings in their content. To have a clearer system for analysis, we created a comprehensive scheme of categories. The four main categories with subcategories formed during the work. As can be concluded from the analysis of proverbs, the everyday wisdom that lies in them mostly coincides with behaviouristic conceptions of education as interaction and development management. According to educational scientist Heino Liimets, the interaction becomes truly mutual, but only at the highest level of acceptance of the educator’s influence – internal acceptance or interiorization. At lower levels, i.e., only agreeing to or external identification of influence, this is an influence from the educator’s position of power where the educable is passive, subordinate, and obeys commands. This content is characterized by behaviouristic thinking in educational science and can also be observed in proverbs. Behaviouristic beliefs also address the need of the proverbs to take into account the peculiarity of a child in their upbringing, which mainly mean the timeliness of education, i.e., a person can be forced into something only in childhood and youth. Upbringing, education, and learning/teaching are considered practically as synonyms in proverbs and behaviouristic educational science, both being regarded as the management of development from outside a human being. The use of certain educational methods, upbringing, and teaching methods is considered an essential condition for the management of development, education, and teaching, especially in behaviouristic thinking in science. It is a central theme also in proverbs where punishment (incl. physical), ordering, forbidding, disapproving, and causing fear are at the forefront as methods, and praising and “sharing mercy” can be found only to a very limited extent. To speak about Estonian educational scientists, Peeter Põld dealt with the topic of punishment mainly in the first half of the 20th century and Maie Tuulik at the beginning of the 21st century; the latter, however, has completely relied on the ideas of Põld. J. Käis emphasises that the culture, language, and customs of one’s nation are obtained by means of education. Education creates identity and helps socialize. Thus, education occurs as a valuation. The fact that education mediates and reproduces the values and norms valid in society is also clearly evident in Estonian proverbs. In the opinion of Maie Tuulik, modern diversity and ambivalence of values do not allow one clear hierarchy of values to be offered to a child to grow up. According to Põld, the bearer of values should primarily be someone authoritative as an example of education, although Põld himself also sees shortcomings of education based on authority. It levels individuality, promotes passivity and creates conventional values; it does not develop a sense of criticism. The relationships built on authority determine the higher and lower status of someone and, accordingly, the users of and subordinates to the power. Such relationships between parents and children as well as in education appear also in proverbs, which is expected because the world of proverbs expresses the structure of a peasant family characteristic of feudal Estonia. Due to their age, children had a low social status in the family at that time. Social status also depended on the gender. In peasant society, man was the head and provider for the family. Sons had an advantage over daughters: they were given more education and they stayed at the farm. Põld has also associated authority primarily with the father. Thus, education had to reproduce the stereotypically traditional division of roles in a family, which was characteristic of the patriarchal society. The worldview was value-based and normative and divided according to the principle of black and white, containing firm truths about who is a good and who is a bad child. A child who agreed to the upbringing of his/her parents and who respected the parents was considered good. According to Tuulik, such firm beliefs that value the hierarchical nature of relationships should be based on also today. Thus, everyday wisdom and corresponding everyday conscious world found in proverbs is present and reflected in Estonian educational science, especially in the ideas and works of two authors. These are Peeter Põld and Maie Tuulik, who represent a normative Christian-conservative view of upbringing and education, which in science is primarily related to the behaviouristic way of thinking, in which the educable is regarded as a passive object in a relationship of education based on power and authority. Thematically, of course, proverbs are also associated with the thoughts and works of other Estonian educational scientists – in particular, J. Käis, H. Liimets, A. Liimets, J. Orn, and I. Kraav, but in substantive emphasis these scientists represent a cognitive-constructivist, humanistic and hermeneutic-phenomenological way of thinking.

Accessing Global Capital Through Remittance: A Route to the Reconfiguration of the Peasant Mode of Production in Rural Eritrea

Migration and its resultant remittance have become the two powerful forces of peasant transformation in Eritrea in the last decade. If the former is responsible for uprooting labor from land, the latter is a replacement value to what the labor would have produced from the land. Using qualitative data gathered through an ethnographic fieldwork in the peasant region, this article argues that these two forces—migration and remittance—have resulted in gradual divorce of peasants from their means of production, land, in ways that seemingly appear productive to the peasants, rural–urban migration and a new form of relationship between peasants and state. In general, the outcome of the entire process is the emergence of quasi-peasant society which no more depends on land for survival because remittance has provided them alternative source. Therefore, migration and remittance in Eritrea have not only resulted in massive uprooting of labor from the land, but also heavily reconfigured the peasant mode of production.

World War II and the Creation of Asian Communist States

Mao’s formula for coming to power differed from the Bolshevik pathway. It entailed a peasant-based guerrilla war that helped to defeat Japanese occupation and that went on to defeat the Nationalist forces, led by Chiang Kai-shek, in conventional warfare after World War II was over. There were many differences between the Maoist and Soviet models of revolution, but there were also many similarities in the willingness to attempt a “socialist” revolution in a peasant society, in the glorification of revolutionary violence, in the determination to ensure that the communist party monopolizes power and politics after winning the civil war, in the determination to build socialism thereafter, and in the commitment to anti-imperialist struggle within a world communist movement led by Moscow.

Respite

After winning the Civil War, the Bolsheviks had to decide how and when to proceed to the stage of building socialism, given that they had come to power in a peasant society. The New Economic Policy, and the policy of “peaceful coexistence” toward foreign powers, were efforts to buy time to get the economy back on its feet, to prevent another foreign intervention, and to allow the regime to consolidate its monopoly further over the political realm. This period was also marked by debates over how to make the transition to socialism after this respite, debates that took place during a power struggle over the succession to Lenin.

Black Consciousness, Black Nationalism and Black Theology: Is there a possibility for theology of dialogue?

This article gives some historical development of Black Consciousness, Black Nationalism and Black Theology during the colonial and apartheid eras. The three worked symbiotically to address the racial injustices of the past. Each tenet is historically explained and ideologically defined. Black Consciousness and Black Nationalism are still prevalent in the South African sociopolitical landscape. This is expressed through the current political parties that are the minorities in the National Assembly. However, the ruling party, African National Congress (ANC), as a ‘broader church’ also possesses some constituents and adherents who are the Black Consciousness and Nationalistic aspirants. South Africa is developing into a peasant society regardless of capitalistic embraces of development. Poverty and equality are visible in societal structures. Those who were formerly equality aspirants are now in sociopolitical and economic circles and had forgotten their aspirations of justice and equality. Corruption, maladministration, bad governance, etc., are the menaces that cause imbalances and create a wider gap between the rich and the poor.Contribution: Black Theology is invited to lead dialogical deliberations to assess and ascertain how to bring justice into the volatile situation where people’s security and safety is uncertain and warped ideologies such as ethnic cleansing are promoted. Black Theology should resort to the theological mandate of speaking for the poor and oppressed and promote the sense of the New Testament spirit of communality.