The social uses of knowledge in contemporary Tanzania.
Item
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Title
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The social uses of knowledge in contemporary Tanzania.
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Identifier
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AAI8821096
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identifier
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8821096
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Creator
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Kerner, Donna O.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Vincent Crapanzano
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural
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Abstract
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This study examines how knowledge is created, institutionalized, distributed, and manipulated in Tanzania. Socially constituted knowledge is considered on several levels: hegemonic discourse expressed in state policies and public ceremonials, formal education, practical information/strategies, ironic folk motifs, and esoteric ritual knowledge. The temporal and spatial dimensions of how knowledge is generated and used are presented in two ways: (1) through an historical analysis of colonial and contemporary state policies, and (2) in a comparison of the evolution of social reproduction strategies in two contrasting regional arenas, Tabora and Kilimanjaro. The central focus of the study is the polarity between state-sponsored development programs and socioeconomic realities at the local political level.;In the 1980s Tanzania sustained a severe economic crisis which affected all levels of practical activity. This period is contextualized in terms of a series of crises from the nineteenth century onward which have punctuated the development of capitalist relations in this world area. The strengths and limitations of Tanzania's postcolonial socialist development policy are also discussed with reference to other socialist formations. The resilience of informal sector exchange in these economies, and throughout the Third World generally, is impressive. Tanzania's shadow economy is not simply based on an alternative moral order resistant to state control; rather it is evidence of the failure of state redistributive mechanisms which would normally enable citizens to meet the cost of social reproduction within the legal exchange economy.;The postcolonial development crisis is manifest in state rhetoric concerning the use of formal education to engineer social transformation. The failure of society to respond to changes made in schools is considered in terms of the way state policies are locally understood and creatively managed by actors, who use the scarce resources of formal knowledge against alternative beliefs and practices to survive within a deteriorating economy. Educational and other resources are unevenly distributed among regions. Institutionalized and nonformal knowledge are part of the cultural capital of different classes within a local arena. Unequal possession of cultural capital extends opportunities for some, and at the same time initiates the potential for creative resistance and quasi-accommodation for others.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
