Funded by the Social Science Research Council under a pre-doctoral fellowship, this research was carried out near the town of Mbeya, Southern Highlands Region, mainly in the village of Isyesye, in 1962- 64 and served as the basis for my doctoral dissertation at Columbia University (Ph.D., 1967). My field research began in September 1962, two months after Tanganyika became an independent nation. When I started my work, the central government was still administering rural areas through chiefs, but during my stay executive and judicial functions became separated through the election of local councils and the appointment of judges by the central government. It was a time when people were uncertain where to take disputes for adjudication, and witchcraft accusations were common. An analysis of these accusations became the focus of my dissertation, later published as Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Social Categories among the Safwa (Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1970).
Though the dissertation was narrowly focused, I conceived my research project as a general ethnography, since no primary research on the Safwa had been published since the early 20th Century, when Tanganyika was a German colony. This data set therefore includes information, mainly from my primary site of Isyesye, on food production and consumption, household composition, genealogies of all household heads in the community, marriage and divorce records from the local court, historical notes from Mbeya District and Regional (formerly called Provincial) Books kept by the British Trust Authority, daily field notes and diaries, maps, census data from Isyesye and three other Safwa communities [Utengule, Inyala, and Mabande], as well as linguistic data (vocabulary slips, audiotapes of Safwa dialects). I never published on most of these materials, although the collection includes some unpublished articles and a paper ["Beer Drinking and Famine in a Safwa Village: A Case of Adaptation in a Time of Crisis"], printed as part of the Proceedings of an East African Institute of Social Research conference, convened while I was in the field.
This material thus captures a broad view of a people in the process of being rapidly drawn into the new political structure of the nation state, with a consequent shift from the political salience of "tribal" membership to a more individualized, democratic form of political participation as citizens. The archive contains particularly rich information on food production and consumption, genealogy, demography, illness, and medicine. My personal field diaries, which will be included in the archive after my death, provide a more cross-sectional view of post-independence Tanganyikan society, with its mosaic of old colonial institutions and new African national structures, the promise and problems of young North American volunteers from the Peace Corps and Teachers for East Africa, who came to the region to staff educational and other government bureaucracies during my field stay, as well as the situation of Asians facing a new national policy of "Africanizing" their businesses. - Alan Harwood
Harwood's main field observations can be found under Subseries: Card Files in "Field Notes." Data that he collected in the field can also be found in Subseries: Language Data, Subseries: Data Notebooks and Slips, and Subseries: Demographic Information. Additional materials in the series include correspondence relating to Harwood's preparations for his fieldwork, correspondence with colleagues conducting field work in neighboring areas, and correspondence with his research assistants and residents of Isyesye. These can be found in Subseries: Research Files along with financial records, drafts of Harwood's manuscripts on beer consumption, reading notes, and some miscellaneous notes. Subseries: Dissertation contains a copy of Harwood's dissertation as well as comments by his dissertation committee, which included Morton Fried.
The photographs that Harwood collected when he was in the field are in Series 7. Photographs while the sound recordings are in Series 8. Sound Recordings. Series 6. Microfilm contains reference materials that he consulted for his dissertation.
In his thesis and published book, Harwood changed the names of people and places to protect people's identities. The following is a guide to some of the names used:
Fictitious Name Real Name
Ipepete = Isyesye
Mwanabantu (lineage) = Lyoto
Itimba = Ilomba
Magombe = Mbeya
Arrangement:
SUBSERIES: RESEARCH FILES
SUBSERIES: WRITINGS BY OTHERS ON TANGANYIKA
SUBSERIES: LANGUAGE DATA
SUBSERIES: DATA NOTEBOOKS AND SLIPS
SUBSERIES: DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
SUBSERIES: DISSERTATION
SUBSERIES: CARD FILES
Collection Restrictions:
Materials that identify the participants in Harwood's Bronx and Boston studies are restricted until 2056.
Collection Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Alan Harwood Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Digitization and preparation of materials for online access has been funded through generous support from the Arcadia Fund.
