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causality and chance on the Upper Nile
Author(s) -
SACKS KAREN
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1979.6.3.02a00020
Subject(s) - causality (physics) , sociology , social organization , swamp , anthropology , ecology , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
Examining Nuer and Dinka history suggests that received wisdom about the organizational and military superiority of the Nuer is misleading at best. Western Dinka were decimated by ivory and slave traders while Nuer took refuge or were pushed into a mosquito‐laden swamp. Both groups underwent organizational changes under pressures of capitalist penetration and, in turn, influenced the shapes of trader social organization. The theoretical point of this paper is to suggest that structural changes can only be understood through historical analysis, that organizational changes do not take place in the abstract, and that there is no structural or evolutionary shortcut to understanding how systemic change occurs or the conditions under which it occurs.