Abstract
The economic and social impacts of colonization on African societies are reflected, at the microlevel, by changing family structures and patterns of behavior. In order to assess the symptoms and the extent of the change, unilinear models of “modernization” have to be abandoned in favor of a concept that takes into consideration the relationship between modes of production and family strategies, on the one hand, and the position of the actors involved in the colonial process, on the other. As the example of the Siin-Siin, an agrarian Senegalese society, shows, the family as a social and economic unit has adapted to externally determined market processes and monetarized relations of distribution in the colonial context, by entering a transitional stage. This stage is characterized by individual concepts of property and rights, overlapping with collectively determined, age- and gender-ranked structures and norms of behavior.
Published Version
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