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The Analysis of Rebellion and Revolution in Modern British Social Anthropology

Author(s): Peter M. Worsley
Source: Science & Society, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Winter, 1961), pp. 26-37
Published by: Guilford Press
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THE ANALYSIS OF REBELLION AND
REVOLUTION IN MODERN BRITISH
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY*
PETER M. WORSLEY

SOME WAYS,a survey ofthesocialanthropological literature

on rebellions and revolutions is a simpleundertaking, forit is
theabsenceofsuchanalysis Beforegoingon to
thatisso striking.
examinewhathas been writtenon thesethemes,therefore, it is
worthwhile askingwhy this remarkable gap has existed, since it
constitutesnotmerely an important problemin thegrowth
historical
of this science,but also an interesting problemfor the wider
of
sociology knowledge. To know why, need to look briefly
we at
socialanthropology at itssubject-matter,
itself, itshistorical deriva-
tionsand theoretical traditions,at its techniques,and at thecon-
ditionsunderwhichanthropologists have carriedout theirfield-
investigations.We limit ourselvesprincipally to modernBritish
socialanthropology.
In the nineteenth century, despitetheirevolutionist interests,
ethnologicalobservers werehighlyimpressed withthefixity ofprim-
itivesocieties.The evolutionary schemesworkedout by Morgan,
Taylor,Frazerand others,certainly helped,in themostimportant
way, to establish
a mode of thinking about societyin developmental
terms,and also to orientattentiontowardsthe culturalbasisof
humansocial organization. On thesefoundations all subsequent
thinkers have built,whethertheyhave acknowledged it or not.
But thepioneerevolutionists also tendedto regardcontemporary
primitive societiesas fossils,preserved forposterity,but virtually
♦A
paper delivered at the joint session of the Seminars on Historical Sociology,
Comparative Method, and Social Anthropology at the Fourth World Congress of
Sociology, Stresa, Italy, 1959.

26

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 REBELLION AND REVOLUTION 27
unchanged and unchangingfrom the conditions of palaeolithic
savagery.Othersthoughtof themas social formswhichhad reached
a dead end,or as formswhichwouldnot changeintoyethigherforms
beforemillenia had passed. Even Morgan,for example,could ask,
in 1878, how the Indians of North America "any more than our
barbarousancestors[could] jump ethnicalperiods?They have the
skullsand brainsof barbarians,and mustgrowtowardscivilization
as all mankind have done who attained to it by a progressive
experience."1
Morgan (followedby Engels) explained this believed rigidity
ofsocial institutions in biosocialterms;particularkindsof diet,they
suggested-themselvesthe productsof particularkinds of economy
("arts of subsistence")-produced human varieties with defined
physical,and thereforewith definedmental,characteristics. Even
thosewho adopteda moreconsistently culturalapproachconceived,
however,of theirsavagesas men thoroughly dominatedby "custom."
Moreover, in the simplestsocieties, such as those of the Australian
aborigines (who attractedspecial attentionbecause theywere be-
lieved to be lowestin the social-evolutionary scale), therewere no
specializedpolitical institutions with staffsof executive and admin-
istrativeofficials.Change was extremelygradual, it would seem,
and was usually cyclical; structuralchange was a matterof cen-
turies.In consequence,the investigationof the actual processesof
social life,and particularly politicalprocesses,was neglected.Formal
rules of behavior were writtendown as if they were the total
actualityof social life.The interpretation or floutingof theserules,
theirmanipulationby interest-groups or interestedindividuals,the
gap between legal and moral preceptand reality,were obscured.
Inevitably,therefore,theoreticalanalysisof processof change-as
distinctfromdescriptivereporting-including studies of rebellion
and revolution,was eitheromittedor skewed.
With the developmentof modern field-work, notably via the
Malinowskianrevolution,anthropologistswere thrustright into
the give-and-take of social life. As Fortes has shown,2Malinowski
himselfconstantlycontrastedthe formal"rules" of social life with
the actuality of behavior: the discrepancybetween "the ideal
i Lewis Henry Morgan, Letter to The Nation, Nov. 28th, 1878, pp. 332-3.
2 Meyer Fortes, "Malinowski and the Study of Kinship," Man and Culture (London,
1957)-

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28 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
of native law" and "the applicationof moralityand ideals to real
life," "the clash betweenthe main principleof law, Mother-right,
and one of the strongestsentiments,paternal love/' In this, the
influenceof psychoanalytic writingson consciousand unconscious
motivesand on ambivalenceis clear, and, indeed, acknowledged.
Malinowski'sbasicsociologicalheritage,
Yet despitetheseinsights,
like that of Radcliffe-Brown, derived from Durkheim, in whose
writings conflictwas principallytreatedas a formof social path-
ology,and whereattentionwas focussedon the normativeand inte-
grativeelementsin social life.The problemof orderwas considered
to be logicallyprior to the problem of change. (It is still treated
in thiswayin the workof Parsons.)In the workof Radcliffe-Brown,
whoseinfluencein the United Kingdomwas at leastas greatas Mal-
inowski'sin the inter-waryears,the Durkheimianstrain was not
even leavened by Freudianism,but made even more holisticby a
strong infusion of the organicism of Herbert Spencer, whose
dichotomybetweensocial "statics"and "dynamics"was onlyslightly
modified in RadclifEe-Brown's distinctionbetween "social mor-
phology,"3 and laterbetween"social structure"and "social organiza-
tion."4Neither showed much interestin structuralchange. The
persistenceof this statics-dynamics model in British social anth-
ropologyis more recentlyevident in Firth's elaboration of this
distinctionbetween"social structure"and "social organization."It
is in thelattersphere,he says,that"time enters."5Yet, as Nadel has
commented,while patternsof social relationsmay be recurrentand
stableenoughforus to speak of themas elementsof social structure,
we are all the time"abstractingfromsuccessive,repetitiveactions,"
from an "event-structure."6 We cannot, therefore,study "social
physiology"apart from"social morphology," or vice-versa.
It seemslikelythattheoreticaltrendsof thiskind were fostered
by thesituationin whichtheinter-war social anthropologistworked.
The societieshe studiedwere normallyin colonial areas whichhad
becomestabilized-at leastto theextentof suppressingopen conflict,
old or new- by the impositionof colonial government, oftenafter
3 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown,"On Social Structure,"JRAI, Vol. LXX (1040).
4 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown,Structure and Function in Primitive Society (London,
1952), Introduction.
5 Raymond Firtìi, Elements of Social Organization (London, iqkO.
6 S. F. Nadel, The Theory of Social Structure (London, 1957),
P- 128.

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 REBELLION AND REVOLUTION 29
a lengthyperiod of disorganizationand conflictin the nineteenth
century.Indeed, theywere not merelystabilized,but ofteneven
"frozen,"particularlywhere "indirect"methodsof rule
artificially
were introduced,as occurredin large areas of Africaduring the
period of establishmentof modern British social anthropology.
Despite the long recordedhistoryof Ashantiinternaland external
conflict,forexample,Rattray-himselfa Governmentanthropologist
-could virtuallyignore this in his treatmentof Ashanti political
organization.The operationof indirectrule throughthe medium
of feudal monarchiesand emiratesin West Africais well enough
recorded,but Colson has shown,for an acephalous tribe like the
Tonga of NorthernRhodesia,how the highlyfluidand evanescent
rain-shrines were"frozen"intoa centralizedsystemof administrative
controlby the Britishauthorities.7 Change was carefullycontrolled,
so thatTonga fissiparity- theconstanttendencyto splitawayto form
new villages-was inhibitedby direct administrativefiat.Colonial
Governmentswere now interestedin the smooth continuityof
"tribal"systems, and in findingout whatmade themwork.At times,
old authoritywas revived;sometimes,quite imaginary"indigenous"
authorities, like Kikuyuchiefs,wereeven invented.For a while,the
Governmentanthropologist became a significantfigure.
It is thereforesignificantthat the firstreal challenge to the
dominant functionalismfrom within social anthropologyitself8
emergedas a resultof Malinowski'sattemptto apply functionalist
hypotheses to thestudyofsouthernAfricansociety.9 It becameabun-
dantlyclear, as Gluckman showed in two criticalpapers,10that the
attemptto cope with the interfusedsocial fieldof South Africain
termsof a schemewhichsaw "White" and "Black" as two separate
social entitiesimpingingupon each other,which examined only
interdependence and whichattemptedto compart-
and not conflict,
mentalizethe"seamlessweb" ofsociallifeintoseparate"institutions"
with an ultimatelybiological basis, broke down. To Malinowski's
"compartments" and his "schemeof threeseparateculturalphases
7 Elizabeth Colson, "The Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia," Seven Tribes of
British Central Africa (New York, 1951).
8 I.e., leaving aside, notably, the important theoretical critique by Merton in his
1948 paper on "Manifest and Latent Functions."
9 Bronislaw Malinowski, The Dynamics of Culture Change (New Haven, 1945).
10 Max Gluckman, Malinowskt's Sociological Theories, Rhodes-Livingstone Paper
No. 16 1949- these essays were firstpublished separately in 1947).

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 30 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
of [culture contact]" Gluckman counterposedthe conception of
"the Rand mines[and] the Africantribewhichsuppliestheirlabor
[as] both part of a singlesocial field."11In thisanalysisof a society
whereconflict was obviouslyendemicand wheretheinterdependence
of White and Black was clearlycontrollednot by primitiverecip-
rocityor bysubscriptionto a commonvalue-system, but by sanctions
of power,werethegermsof a theoreticalapproachwhichchallenged
the assumptionsof orthodoxfunctionalism, and whichsignificantly
emergedas a resultof inquiryinto the sharpsocial antagonismsof
southernAfricaby a South African.12 A similarcriticismof recipro-
city-models has been recently mounted by Mills in his objectionsto
Parsons' "ego-alter" paradigm,13where Mills observes that this
ignores the power-content of social relations; as he puts it: "an
institutionis a set of rolesgradedin authority"(emphasisadded).
The pace, intensityand scope of world changes was sharply
stepped up during World War II. Anthropologists who had pre-
viously been confined in their researches, by choice or direction,to
ruralareasofcomparativesocial quiescence,werethrustinto areasof
extremely rapidchangeand hightension,oftenin militarycapacities
(like Evans-Pritchard, Nadel and Hogbin) or, at the least,had their
thinkingradically affected.Whereas the anthropologisthad nor-
mally been excluded from trouble-spots, he was now thrustinto
them. It was this experience which produced what is probably
still the outstandingstudyof a revolutionby a Britishsocial anth-
ropologist,Evans-Pritchard's curiously-neglected The Sanusi of Cy-
renaica.Whereasin 1937, Evans-Pritchard could writehis workon
The Nuer withonlyincidentalreferenceto thepunitiveexpeditions
then in progress,The Sanusi is focussedupon the emergenceof a
political nationalistmovement,under religiousleadership,among
the acephalous,segmentary, feudingBedouin tribes.
Evans-Pritchard showshow the founderof the Sanusiya Order
in Cyrenaicawas an outsider,a scholarfromthe Maghrebwho had
also dwelt for a long time in the Hijaz. By establishinghis head-
11 Op. cit.,p. 7.
12 Earlier and more tentativeessays in this direction were Max Gluckman's "Analyses
of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand," Bantu Studies, Vol. XIV (1940) and
"Some Processesof Social Change Illustrated with Zululand Data," African Studies,
Vol I (1942), as well as the Wilsons' various studies of Éhe impact of tiheindustrial
order on rural Central Africa,culminatingin -theirThe Analysis of Social Change.
13 C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York, 1959), p. 30.

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 REBELLION AND REVOLUTION 31
quartersin the distantoasis of Jaghbub,he avoided identifying
his Order with any one tribeor tribalsection.As Evans-Pritchard
points out, the early intimatesof the Grand Sanusi were also
foreigners who had no particularisticties or kinshipwith specific
Bedouin; theystood outside the networkof feudsand allegiances.
Again,theshrinesof the Order,whicheventuallycame to constitute
political,administrative and economic centersas well as religious
and educationalestablishments, followedthe lines of tribalsegmen-
tation,but weresituatednear tribalor sectionboundaries.Thus the
Orderlinkedtogethertheseparateand oftenhostiletribesby basing
organizationon the tribalsystem;it was able to use the
its territorial
commonculturalsubstratumof language,way of life and lineage
structurewithoutinvolvingitselfin the divisiveparticularisms. It
only required the external threatof, the
firstly, Turks, and later,
more seriously,the Italians, for the Order to become a political
movementcapable ofwagingtwoguerillawarsof six and nine years'
durationrespectively, and ultimatelyof establishingan independent
kingdom (albeit with Britishaid).
Evans-Pritchard's studyof this lengthyrevoltappears to me of
great theoreticalvalue to studentsof related movementsamong
peopleslackingspecializedand centralizedgovernmental institutions.
in
In the postwarera, the area of greatestturbulence which British
social anthropologists have been able to studymovementsof pro-
testsat first
hand, has been Melanesia,wherethewell-known"Cargo
cults" have been so prominent.My own comparativestudyof these
movements14 was based on a wide rangeof literatureonlya littleof
which was by professionalsocial anthropologists who had studied
these movements at firsthand, notablyLawrence,15Berndt,16 Bur-
ridge17and Guiart.18The earliestanthropologicalwriterson these
14 PeterWorsley,The TrumpetShall Sound (London,1957).
15 Peter Lawrence,"Cargo Cult and Religious Beliefs among the Gana," Inter-
national Archivesof Anthropology, Vol. VLVII (1954); "The Madang District
Cargo Cult/'South Vol.
Pacific, VII (i955)-
16 R. M. Berndt,"A CargoMovement in theEast CentralHighlandsof New Guinea/'
Oceania,Vol. XXIII (1952-3);"Reactionsto Contactin the EasternHighlandsof
New Guinea/' Oceania,Vol. XXIV (1954).
17 K. O. L. Burridge,"Cargo Cult Activity in Tangu/' Oceania,Vol. XXIV (1954);
"Racial Tension in Manam,"South Pacific,Vol. VII (i954)-
18 Jean Guiart, " 'Cargo Cults' and Modern Political Evolution in Melanesia/'
South Pacific,Vol. V (1951) and numerouswritingscited in my book noted in
footnote14.

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 32 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
cults (e.g., F. E. Williams and Chinnery)treatedthem merelyas
formsof delusion or irrationalistthinking.Only A. C. Haddon of
the pioneer studentssaw them as evidence that not all primitive
social institutionswere as fixedas the nineteenthcenturyhad con-
ceived them to be, and that though there might be functional
correspondence betweenthe formand contentof religiousorganiza-
tionand the restof the social order,quite varyingreligiouspatterns
were in factcompatiblewith an unchangedbasic subsistenceecon-
omy,territorialorganizationand political system.
Little theoreticalstimulus could be derived from American
anthropologywhich,althoughit had devoteda good deal of atten-
tion to indigenousmessianisms, notablyin the Ghost Dance studies
of Spier,19Du Bois,20Gayton21and others,had done so withina
Kroeberianculture-historical framework, concernedwith tracking
down the culturalderivationsand affiliations of the "traits"which
they conceived of as the culturalequivalents the atom. Somewhat
of
more surprisingly, anthropologists did not take up the theoryof
charismaelaboratedby Max Weberwhichso manysociologistsfound
valuable. Partlythis was due to academic provincialism,but also
no doubt because anthropologistsfound it difficultto accept a
viewpoint which involved classifyingthese movementsas non-
rational formsof social action,periodic irruptionsinto historyin
responseto the inevitabletensionsthateven the mostrationalsocial
order contains. Anthropologists, since the days of Evans-Pritch-
ard's classic study of Witchcraft,Oracles and Magic among the
Azande, had been concernedwith demonstrating the logic that lay
withintheapparentlyirrational"mystical"thoughtof the primitive,
and with showingthe specifickinds of social situation in which
mysticalthinking,on the one hand, and scientificthinking,on
the other,occurred.In The Trumpet Shall Sound, we attempted
to show that the Cargo cults, given the knowledgeand technical
resourcesavailable to the Melanesians, were not irrational,but

19 Leslie Spier, The Ghost Dance of 1870 Among the Klamath of Oregon, University
of Washington Publications in AnthropologyNo. 2 (1927); The Prophet Dance
of the Northwest . . . , General Series in Anthropology,No. 1, Wisconsin (1935).
20 Cora Du Bois, The 1870 Ghost Dance, Universityof California Anthropological
Records, Vol. Ill (1946).
21 A. H. Gayton, The Ghost Dance of 1870 in South-Central California, University
of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology,No. 3 (1930).

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 REBELLION AND REVOLUTION 33
highly coherent responses to an unpredictableand periodically
disastroussocial environment.
Evans-Pritchard in his Sanusi,and the variousstudentsof Cargo
movements,had been concernedwith primitiverevolutionismin
statelesssocieties. (We adhere to the "state-stateless" dichotomy
introducedin AfricanPolitical Systemsas polar extremes,ignoring
for the momentthe refinements suggestedby S. N. Eisenstadt.22)
In these societies,in all likelihood, it seems clear that although
periodicreligiousmovementsmay well have sweptacrossprimitive
societiesbeforecolonization,it is only in the event of an overall
externalthreatto the whole societythatthe religiouscult overrides
segmentary divisionsand welds the separatekin or territorial group-
ings into unifiedpolitics. In the nature of the case we can know
of
little,reliably, pre-European cults,although there is evidence for
both North America and Melanesia that large-scalemovements of
this kind did occur in the pre-colonialpast, but did not, in the
absence of persistingexternalunifyingpressures,lead to any con-
solidated policy,but merelypassed away or were absorbed solely
into the belief-system.
Systematicstudy of rebellion and revolutionin simple State
societieshas equally developed in the main only since the war.
The essaysby Kaleryo Oberg23and Max Gluckman24in African
Political Systemshad alreadydiscussedthe problemsof social sta-
bilityand of the containmentof rebellionforthe Ankole and Zulu
states,but Evans-Pritchard's 1948 studyof The Divine Kingship of
the Shilluk took up some of the themesforeshadowed in his prewar
workon The Anuak.2*In The Shilluk,he discussedin moregeneral
theoreticaltermsthecompetitiondramaticallyenactedin succession
rituals in which differentsectionsof the countryparticipatein
thestruggleforthe possessionof thesacredsymbolsof kingship,and
in whichthe king-electis ritually"conquered" by the effigy of the
kingship.In 1952, Gluckmandeveloped thisanalysison a regional
22 "Primitive Political Systems; A Preliminary Comparative Analysis/* American
Anthropologist,Vol. LXI (1959).
23 "The Kingdom of the Ankole in Uganda," African Political Systems (New York,
1940).
24 "The Kingdom of the Zulu of South Africa/' African Political Systems (New
York, 1940).
25 The Political System of the Anuak of the Anglo-EgyptianSudan, London School
of Economics Monographs in Social Anthropology,No. 4 (1940).

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 34 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
comparativebasis in his lectureon Rituals of Rebellion in South-
East Africa. Here he confinedhis discussionprincipallyto "re-
petitive" ("relativelystationary")social systems,where "particular
are settlednot by alternationsin the orderof offices,
conflicts but by
changes in the persons occupying those offices" (p. 21). Using
Kuper's account,26he described how at the installationof the
Swazi king, the king is subjected to ritual insult,remindedof his
unworthiness and of the unenviablewretchedness of his eminence,
is dressed as a wild monsterin paingivingsharp grass,and yet
periodically,too, his greatnessand mysticalpower,and the unity
of the nation with him, are also triumphantlycelebrated."This
ceremony,"Gluckman remarked,"is not a simple mass assertion
of unity,but a stressingof conflict,a statementof rebellion and
rivalryagainst the king, with periodic affirmations of unity with
the king,and the drawingof power fromthe king." He went on
to suggestthat the institutionalization of rebellion itself in the
formof successionwarsengenderedby uncertainrules of succession
is perhapsa sourceof strengthratherthan weaknessto statesbased
on simple technology, lacking integratedand centralizedeconomic
and communications systems, and thereforeprone to fissiparity and
regionalseparatism. In the succession wars the weakest contenders
were eliminated.Automaticrules of successionwhich mightresult
in the enthronement of a weak or unpopular king were therefore
rarely found. The comparativeevidence fromother parts of the
world certainlyappears to bear out amply Gluckman's thesis.A
Muslimhistorianhas notedforthehighlydevelopedMughal Empire,
forexample,that:
therewas [in Islam]no well-defined law regulatingthesuccessionto the
throne.Sometimesthe law of primogeniture applied . . . oftenthe
nomineesucceeded,and not infrequently thesuccessionwas effected by
a plebiscite.Owingto the absenceof a fixedlaw of successionto the
throne,rival interests oftencame into conflictand resultedin blood-
shed.But underlying thisabsencewasan advantage:in thecivilwarthat
followedfromthedeathofa king,onlythefittest survivedandruledwith
In
greatefficiency. Mughal India, neitherthelaw of primogeniture, nor
the principleof plebiscite,nor even of nominationwas adheredto.
Exceptin thecase ofAkbar... thesworddecidedthestruggle.27
26 Hilda Kuper, An African Aristocracy (New York, 1047).
27 S. M. Jaffar,The Mughal Empire from Babar to Aurangzeb, S. Muhammed Sadiq
KShan (1936).

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 REBELLION AND REVOLUTION 35
More recently, Wittfogel28 has demonstrated the continuousand
obsessionalpreoccupationof orientaldespotswith the elimination
of potentialrivals,and its obverse: the fillingof the palace with
courtierswho owe theirpositionentirelyto the despot'sfavor.In
consequence,slaves,eunuchs,women (sisters,mothers, and especially
concubines),and commoners,are frequentlypreferredas favorites,
confidants and ministers;brothersmay be killed off,and even sons,
as Schapera has shown in the cases of Shaka and Dingane in his
comparativestudyof southernAfricanpolitical systems.29
The ideology appropriateto this condition of unquestioned
kingshiphas been discussed,in one of its aspects,by Evans-Pritchard
and Fortesin AfricanPolitical Systems,when theyobservethatthe
widespreadassociationof crops and food with general rituals of
political solidarity (early noted by Fraser and Robertson-Smith)
derives fromthe common interestsall share in the perpetuation
of the social and natural order,particularlyin land or other pro-
ductiveresources.Yet at the same time,specificrivalriesarise over
preciselythesame basic resources.Anothermanifestation in ideology
of thiskind of unchallengedmonarchyis the elevationof the king-
ship above particularrivalries.The Ankole kingship,for example,
is symbolizedby the sacreddrum Bagyendanwa,over whose posses-
sion successionwars were fought.The Drum's shrineconstitutesa
sanctuaryfromthe King's death-penalty and its priestsdistribute
succorto all devotees, whether Bahima or the depressed
aristocratic
Bairu agriculturalcaste. As an alternativesafety-mechanism, we
findthe commonphenomenonby whichhostilityis oftendeflected
against the king's advisorsrather than against the Little Father
himself,who is conceived of as having a relationshipof peculiar
intimacywith his subjects;fromWat Tyler to Gapon the popular
belief recursthat one has only to by-passthe evil entourageand
approachthe king himselfand all will be granted.
All thesesuperficiallybizarreand contradictory facetsof station-
ary, feudal or agrarian, state systems,seem to have been greatly

OrientalDespotism(New Haven, 1957).

28 Karl Wittfogel,
I.
29 Schapera, Government and Politicsin Tribal Societies (London,1956),p. 173.
Schaperahas pointedout, however,that not all rebellionis fed back into the
system;it mayalso resultin secessionand partition,
but theconditionsunderwhich
occur have not yet receivedmuch attention.This has been
these alternatives
noted by Gluckman.

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 36 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
clarifiedby thesocial anthropologicalresearchers hereinmentioned,
and some recenthistoriography- notably Cohn's The Pursuitof the
Millennium and Hobsbawm'sPrimitiveRebels-shows theirinflu-
ence. This, too, at a time when anthropologiststhemselvesare
sloughing off their functionalistsuspicions, which sometimes
amountedto a suspicionnot merelyof "conjecturalhistory"but of
the time-dimension itself.The recent critique by Gellner,80the
historically-oriented studies of Barnes,31Schapera32and others,are
symptomatic. So, too, is the interestin conflict-theory,
for Gluck-
man's contention,in Rituals of Rebellion, that"everysocial system
is a fieldof tension,full of ambivalence,of co-operationand con-
trastingstruggle,"33 which he developed in subsequentstudies,34 is
now widely absorbed. Hence the deep interestin the work of
Simmel and Coser, or at least in that section of Simmersformal
sociologywhich deals with conflict,for,reading it in isolation,
few seem to realize that Simmel regardedconflictmerelyas one
specimenin a rangeof social forms,not as some generalkeyto the
understandingof social process that some readiersfind in his
treatment.
Nothing has been said here about studies of revolution in
advanced industrialstatesystems, because anthropologistshave not
yet directed their attentions to these. Clearly,however,the extra-
polation of principlesfound illuminatingforsimplersocietieswill
not be valid forthesequite different kindsof power-structure.The
of
writings Epstein,35Watson,36 and on
Mitchell,37 Central Africa,
however,are excellent analyses of the social sources of modern
political conflictin both rural and urban areas which are always
liable to resultin periodicoutbreaks.
We shall concludeby pointingout thattheshiftof interestaway
froma concentration on normativeconsensusto the examinationof

30 Ernest Gellner, "Time and Theory in Social Anthropology,"Mind, Vol. LXVH

(1958).
31 J. A. Barnes, Politics in a Changing Society (New York, 10K4).
32 Op. cit.
33 See p. 21.
34 Max Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa (Oxford. iqkkV
35 A. L. Epstein, Politics in an Urban African Community /M^nrh^t^r mffft'
36 W. Watson, Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy (Manchester, 10158).
37 J. C. Mitchell, The Kalela Dance, Rhodes-Livingstone Paper No. 27, and other
writings.

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 REBELLION AND REVOLUTION 37
conflicthas led to a furtherreappraisalof the validityof traditional
functionalismeven as applied to the simple segmentarysociety.
Turner's study of Schism and Continuityin an African Society
demolishesthe crude notion thatwe can retainorthodoxfunction-
alism forstatelesssocietieswhile introducingconflict-theory forthe
rest. He shows how differences of interest,and contradictionsof
moral principle,and ambiguitiesof choice are as evident at the
level of the day-to-day life of the Central Africanvillageras they
are in thosestructurally moreobviousand significant situationsthat
are rebellionsand revolutions.As in the classic rebellion-ritualat
State level, insoluble contradictionsare "resolved"by the periodic
reaffirmation ofcommonallegianceto overallritualsymbolsor moral
codes.But the"resolution"can onlybe temporary, forthedifferences
of interestpersist,break throughagain, and are ritually"resolved"
once more-or lead to secessionby the disaffected. Here is another
demonstration oftheprinciplewe foundat workin Evans-Pritchard's
Sanusi studyand in the Melanesiancults: the achievementof pol-
itical unityon the part of social units sharinga commoncultural
idiom, but highlydivided againsteach other,by associatinground
some universalisticritual symbol external (unlike particularistic
ancestralor earthcults) to any one of the componentunits. (The
parallelswithmodernAfricanurban witchcraft also suggeststhem-
selves.) Turner's of
study cyclical tension and relief demonstrates
how changewithina system must eithercumulate towards structural
changeof thesystemor be coped withby somecatharticmechanism.
These related studies of rebellion,revolutionand other formsof
conflictby modernBritishsocial anthropologists, therefore, all in-
dicate an importantshiftin basic conceptualapproach: towardsa
dynamicsocial theorymore capable of handlingsocial processand
awayfromtheearliersolidaristDurkheimiananthropological theory.

Centerfor CommunityStudies,
Universityof Saskatchetuan

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