John H Hamer
Biographic Data
| ID | 92274 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John H Hamer |
| GIVEN NAMES | John H |
| FAMILY NAME | Hamer |
| SIGNATURE | HAMER J H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Schlumberger (Ireland) |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1965 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Keeping up with the fast-moving world of crisis management
The Indiviual and Social Self. An American and African Illustration of Differences
Anthropos , Seite 186 - 195
Money, Modernization and Ambivalence Among the Sidāma of Northeastern Africa
This article attempts to show how the historic exchange and market system along with an entrenched social ambivalence of an African people impacts the use of multi‐purpose money and modernization. I focus on how individuals have responded to the latter in the middle to late twentieth century. The reaction is then compared with that of people in three other African societies. The conclusion considers how traditional subsistence values have led to …
Natural Objects Transformed into Symbolic Meaning among the Sidama of Northeast Africa
Anthropos , Seite 203 - 210
Decentralization as a Solution to the Problem of Cultured Diversity: An Example from Ethiopia
The failure of the nation state in sub-Saharan Africa has been a topic of great concern in recent years. In this article I explore in detail the historical experience of one ethnic group in the Horn of Africa, the Sidāma, and show how the nation state has had a comparatively negative effect upon another group in southern Ethiopia, the Maale. For the Sidāma, historic disparagement by the state, though discouraged by the present Ethiopian governmen…
The Mother's Brother. Kinship and Community among the Sidama of Northeast Africa
Anthropos , Seite 560 - 567
The Religious Conversion Process Among the Sidāma of North-East Africa
This article analyses the conversion process and the experiences of the Sidāma, in being proselytised by Protestant missionaries in an attempt to integrate them into the modernising Ethiopian state. The conversion process is considered in terms of reasons for accepting or rejecting the new religion. A minority of Sidāma are shown to have changed from old beliefs and practices, partly because of the ease of moral reinterpretation and secular incen…
Money and the Moral Order in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century American Capitalism
The moral use of money in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is considered by examining a sample of thirteen American entrepreneurs. Bourdieu's concepts of economic and symbolic capital, as well as Appadurai's ideas about linking desire and sacrifice through exchange are used to show how some entrepreneurs redistributed their wealth through philanthropy. Other men of wealth remained committed to personal accumulation. The concept of …
Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries
Inculcation of ideology among the Sidāma of Ethiopia
A moral code as ideology is gradually inculcated at different stages in the male life cycle among the Sidama of Ethiopia. The elders constitute a gerontocracy in control of the code, enabling them to link household and community in perpetuating a system of subsistence production which generates sufficient surplus to support rituals and symbols that maintain the ideology. They encourage oscillation of males between household and community until de…
Impact of a Cash Economy on Complementary Gender Relations among the Sadāma of Ethiopia
This article describes gender relations among the Cushitic-speaking Sadama of the highlands at the edge of the rift Valley in Ethiopia. The social system is egalitarian densely populated and with a complementary gender division of labor. Agricultural production is based on the false banana tree cultivation (ensete cultivation) which requires 3-6 years for maturity and intensive manuring and cultivation. The yield provides a higher caloric content…
Commensality, process and the moral order: An example from southern Ethiopia
The ritual sharing of food by elders is shown to serve as a metaphor for the cultural code of the Sadāma of Ethiopia. It is a means of demonstrating that just as socio-political events change so does the ritual surrounding food consumption, and that the latter must be continuously discussed and debated to reach a consensus about commensal correctness. This elaborate means of ritual procedure constitutes a comparison for the way in which elders mu…
Humane Development: Participation and Change among the Sadama of Ethiopia
Hamer has produced a very well-written ethnographic analysis of development and change among the Sadama, a Cushitic-speaking people living along the Rift Valley...The analysis attempts to show how traditional modes of decision making and living adapt to or are adapted to impinging forces of modernization.a Hamer's emphasis on humane development is highly appropriate and his analysis is very successful.a The focus on inevitable and constant change…
Hierarchy, Equality, and Availability of Land Resources: An Example from Two Ethiopian Ensete Producers
Practice and Change: An Episode of Structural Disjunction and Conjunction among the Sadama of Ethiopia
This paper is concerned with religious proselytization as a means of creating new relationships and practices among the Sadama. Though religious conversion constituted a threat to the traditional authority structure, creating a rift between converts and traditionalists, both groups were ultimately brought together again in a new structure. The latter was largely a result of historical accident and convergence of values which led to changing relat…
Rivalry and Taking Kinsmen for Granted: Limiting Factors in the Development of Voluntary Associations
This article examines the issue of the difficulty which closely related kin have in forming cooperative and self-help societies. Using the Sadama of Ethiopia as an example, it is demonstrated that the contradiction between the normative stress on amity and the actual rivalries and social inequities among close kin is partially overcome by "taking for granted" a minimal amount of cooperation from these relatives. The realities of organizing cooper…
Preconditions and Limits in the Formation of Associations: The Self-Help and Cooperative Movement in Subsaharan Africa
symbolism of money for personal gain, while not destructive of cooperation in community activities, encouraged individualism and retentiveness in regard to property and money. The advent of voluntary self-help associations in the 1960s provided the basis for new social alignments different from those based on the hierarchy of descent and age. Associations were structured on a basis of equality and voluntarism which meant further emphasis on self-…
Self-Interest and Corruption in Bukusu Cooperatives
Preference, Principle, and Precedent: Dispute Settlement and Changing Norms in Sidamo Associations
Goals, Status, and the Stability of n Achievement: A Small Sample from Southern Ethiopia
Crisis, Moral Consensus, and the Wando Magano Movement among the Sadama of Southwest Ethiopia
This paper examines what happens when the moral consensus which makes for group cohesiveness breaks down and persons seek to effect a reform. The significance of the movement is first discussed followed by a description of ritual, dispute settling activities, and a consideration of historical antecedents. The Sadama dwell in an area approximately I70 miles south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.2 They are between the Arussi on the north, G…
Prerequisites and Limitations in the Development of Voluntary Self-Help Associations: A Case Study and Comparison
Voluntary associations have been characterized as developing in three stages. The first stage, or 'incipient' development is that of the emergence of a small group around a leader, the second stage-organizational-involves the establishment of the association, and the 'stabilization' or third stage consists of the organization's bureaucratization. This paper deals with the organizational stage of a people from Southwest Ethiopia, the Sadama. Certa…
Myth, Ritual and the Authority of Elders in an Ethiopian Society
Opening ParagraphIn this paper I discuss the mythological and ritual sequences honouring dead elders amongst two descent segments of the Sadama of Southwest Ethiopia. Myth and ritual will be described and an explanation offered regarding the persistence of both under changing conditions.The participants in these rites are the men of the Holo-Garbičo clans, two of the most esteemed descent groups of the Cushitic speaking Sadama. The Sadama, locate…
Dispute Settlement and Sanctity: An Ethiopian Example
It is proposed in this paper that the sanctified decision, meaning the acceptance of a decision in faith, is an alternative to negotiated or decisions and is the key to understanding the dispute settlement process in some societies. Settlement procedures, the most frequently occurring delicts, and sanctions as applied by the Sidamo of Ethiopia serve to illustrate the sanctity oriented type of society. Examination is also made of the process invol…
Sidamo Generational Class Cycles. A Political Gerontocracy
IntroductionThis paper considers age organization as a political means of dealing with problems arising out of the dispersion of men and wealth in varying ecological zones among the Sidamo of south-west Ethiopia.The Sidamo inhabit an area shaped like a trapezoid beginning 169 miles below Addis Ababa, extending on a north-south axis from Lake Awasa to Lake Abaya, and on the east-west axis from the upper branches of the Loghita River to the Billate…
Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries
Sidamo Generational Class Cycles. A Political Gerontocracy
IntroductionThis paper considers age organization as a political means of dealing with problems arising out of the dispersion of men and wealth in varying ecological zones among the Sidamo of south-west Ethiopia.The Sidamo inhabit an area shaped like a trapezoid beginning 169 miles below Addis Ababa, extending on a north-south axis from Lake Awasa to Lake Abaya, and on the east-west axis from the upper branches of the Loghita River to the Billate…
Spirit Possession and Its Socio-Psychological Implications among the Sidamo of Southwest Ethiopia
Voluntary Associations as Structures of Change among the Sidamo of Southwestern Ethiopia
Impact of a Cash Economy on Complementary Gender Relations among the Sadāma of Ethiopia
This article describes gender relations among the Cushitic-speaking Sadama of the highlands at the edge of the rift Valley in Ethiopia. The social system is egalitarian densely populated and with a complementary gender division of labor. Agricultural production is based on the false banana tree cultivation (ensete cultivation) which requires 3-6 years for maturity and intensive manuring and cultivation. The yield provides a higher caloric content…
The Religious Conversion Process Among the Sidāma of North-East Africa
This article analyses the conversion process and the experiences of the Sidāma, in being proselytised by Protestant missionaries in an attempt to integrate them into the modernising Ethiopian state. The conversion process is considered in terms of reasons for accepting or rejecting the new religion. A minority of Sidāma are shown to have changed from old beliefs and practices, partly because of the ease of moral reinterpretation and secular incen…
Myth, Ritual and the Authority of Elders in an Ethiopian Society
Opening ParagraphIn this paper I discuss the mythological and ritual sequences honouring dead elders amongst two descent segments of the Sadama of Southwest Ethiopia. Myth and ritual will be described and an explanation offered regarding the persistence of both under changing conditions.The participants in these rites are the men of the Holo-Garbičo clans, two of the most esteemed descent groups of the Cushitic speaking Sadama. The Sadama, locate…
Inculcation of ideology among the Sidāma of Ethiopia
A moral code as ideology is gradually inculcated at different stages in the male life cycle among the Sidama of Ethiopia. The elders constitute a gerontocracy in control of the code, enabling them to link household and community in perpetuating a system of subsistence production which generates sufficient surplus to support rituals and symbols that maintain the ideology. They encourage oscillation of males between household and community until de…
Preconditions and Limits in the Formation of Associations: The Self-Help and Cooperative Movement in Subsaharan Africa
symbolism of money for personal gain, while not destructive of cooperation in community activities, encouraged individualism and retentiveness in regard to property and money. The advent of voluntary self-help associations in the 1960s provided the basis for new social alignments different from those based on the hierarchy of descent and age. Associations were structured on a basis of equality and voluntarism which meant further emphasis on self-…
Dispute Settlement and Sanctity: An Ethiopian Example
It is proposed in this paper that the sanctified decision, meaning the acceptance of a decision in faith, is an alternative to negotiated or decisions and is the key to understanding the dispute settlement process in some societies. Settlement procedures, the most frequently occurring delicts, and sanctions as applied by the Sidamo of Ethiopia serve to illustrate the sanctity oriented type of society. Examination is also made of the process invol…
Rivalry and Taking Kinsmen for Granted: Limiting Factors in the Development of Voluntary Associations
This article examines the issue of the difficulty which closely related kin have in forming cooperative and self-help societies. Using the Sadama of Ethiopia as an example, it is demonstrated that the contradiction between the normative stress on amity and the actual rivalries and social inequities among close kin is partially overcome by "taking for granted" a minimal amount of cooperation from these relatives. The realities of organizing cooper…
Money, Modernization and Ambivalence Among the Sidāma of Northeastern Africa
This article attempts to show how the historic exchange and market system along with an entrenched social ambivalence of an African people impacts the use of multi‐purpose money and modernization. I focus on how individuals have responded to the latter in the middle to late twentieth century. The reaction is then compared with that of people in three other African societies. The conclusion considers how traditional subsistence values have led to …
Decentralization as a Solution to the Problem of Cultured Diversity: An Example from Ethiopia
The failure of the nation state in sub-Saharan Africa has been a topic of great concern in recent years. In this article I explore in detail the historical experience of one ethnic group in the Horn of Africa, the Sidāma, and show how the nation state has had a comparatively negative effect upon another group in southern Ethiopia, the Maale. For the Sidāma, historic disparagement by the state, though discouraged by the present Ethiopian governmen…
Commensality, process and the moral order: An example from southern Ethiopia
The ritual sharing of food by elders is shown to serve as a metaphor for the cultural code of the Sadāma of Ethiopia. It is a means of demonstrating that just as socio-political events change so does the ritual surrounding food consumption, and that the latter must be continuously discussed and debated to reach a consensus about commensal correctness. This elaborate means of ritual procedure constitutes a comparison for the way in which elders mu…
Hierarchy, Equality, and Availability of Land Resources: An Example from Two Ethiopian Ensete Producers
Self-Interest and Corruption in Bukusu Cooperatives
Preference, Principle, and Precedent: Dispute Settlement and Changing Norms in Sidamo Associations
Goals, Status, and the Stability of n Achievement: A Small Sample from Southern Ethiopia
Crisis, Moral Consensus, and the Wando Magano Movement among the Sadama of Southwest Ethiopia
This paper examines what happens when the moral consensus which makes for group cohesiveness breaks down and persons seek to effect a reform. The significance of the movement is first discussed followed by a description of ritual, dispute settling activities, and a consideration of historical antecedents. The Sadama dwell in an area approximately I70 miles south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.2 They are between the Arussi on the north, G…
Guardian Spirits, Alcohol, and Cultural Defense Mechanisms
Keeping up with the fast-moving world of crisis management
Practice and Change: An Episode of Structural Disjunction and Conjunction among the Sadama of Ethiopia
This paper is concerned with religious proselytization as a means of creating new relationships and practices among the Sadama. Though religious conversion constituted a threat to the traditional authority structure, creating a rift between converts and traditionalists, both groups were ultimately brought together again in a new structure. The latter was largely a result of historical accident and convergence of values which led to changing relat…
Prerequisites and Limitations in the Development of Voluntary Self-Help Associations: A Case Study and Comparison
Voluntary associations have been characterized as developing in three stages. The first stage, or 'incipient' development is that of the emergence of a small group around a leader, the second stage-organizational-involves the establishment of the association, and the 'stabilization' or third stage consists of the organization's bureaucratization. This paper deals with the organizational stage of a people from Southwest Ethiopia, the Sadama. Certa…
Acculturation Stress and the Functions of Alcohol among the Forest Potawatomi
Spirit Possession and Its Socio-Psychological Implications among the Sidamo of Southwest Ethiopia
Voluntary Associations as Structures of Change among the Sidamo of Southwestern Ethiopia
Guardian Spirits, Alcohol, and Cultural Defense Mechanisms
Sidamo Generational Class Cycles. A Political Gerontocracy
IntroductionThis paper considers age organization as a political means of dealing with problems arising out of the dispersion of men and wealth in varying ecological zones among the Sidamo of south-west Ethiopia.The Sidamo inhabit an area shaped like a trapezoid beginning 169 miles below Addis Ababa, extending on a north-south axis from Lake Awasa to Lake Abaya, and on the east-west axis from the upper branches of the Loghita River to the Billate…
Dispute Settlement and Sanctity: An Ethiopian Example
It is proposed in this paper that the sanctified decision, meaning the acceptance of a decision in faith, is an alternative to negotiated or decisions and is the key to understanding the dispute settlement process in some societies. Settlement procedures, the most frequently occurring delicts, and sanctions as applied by the Sidamo of Ethiopia serve to illustrate the sanctity oriented type of society. Examination is also made of the process invol…
Prerequisites and Limitations in the Development of Voluntary Self-Help Associations: A Case Study and Comparison
Voluntary associations have been characterized as developing in three stages. The first stage, or 'incipient' development is that of the emergence of a small group around a leader, the second stage-organizational-involves the establishment of the association, and the 'stabilization' or third stage consists of the organization's bureaucratization. This paper deals with the organizational stage of a people from Southwest Ethiopia, the Sadama. Certa…
Myth, Ritual and the Authority of Elders in an Ethiopian Society
Opening ParagraphIn this paper I discuss the mythological and ritual sequences honouring dead elders amongst two descent segments of the Sadama of Southwest Ethiopia. Myth and ritual will be described and an explanation offered regarding the persistence of both under changing conditions.The participants in these rites are the men of the Holo-Garbičo clans, two of the most esteemed descent groups of the Cushitic speaking Sadama. The Sadama, locate…
Crisis, Moral Consensus, and the Wando Magano Movement among the Sadama of Southwest Ethiopia
This paper examines what happens when the moral consensus which makes for group cohesiveness breaks down and persons seek to effect a reform. The significance of the movement is first discussed followed by a description of ritual, dispute settling activities, and a consideration of historical antecedents. The Sadama dwell in an area approximately I70 miles south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.2 They are between the Arussi on the north, G…
Goals, Status, and the Stability of n Achievement: A Small Sample from Southern Ethiopia
Preference, Principle, and Precedent: Dispute Settlement and Changing Norms in Sidamo Associations
Preconditions and Limits in the Formation of Associations: The Self-Help and Cooperative Movement in Subsaharan Africa
symbolism of money for personal gain, while not destructive of cooperation in community activities, encouraged individualism and retentiveness in regard to property and money. The advent of voluntary self-help associations in the 1960s provided the basis for new social alignments different from those based on the hierarchy of descent and age. Associations were structured on a basis of equality and voluntarism which meant further emphasis on self-…
Self-Interest and Corruption in Bukusu Cooperatives
Rivalry and Taking Kinsmen for Granted: Limiting Factors in the Development of Voluntary Associations
This article examines the issue of the difficulty which closely related kin have in forming cooperative and self-help societies. Using the Sadama of Ethiopia as an example, it is demonstrated that the contradiction between the normative stress on amity and the actual rivalries and social inequities among close kin is partially overcome by "taking for granted" a minimal amount of cooperation from these relatives. The realities of organizing cooper…
Practice and Change: An Episode of Structural Disjunction and Conjunction among the Sadama of Ethiopia
This paper is concerned with religious proselytization as a means of creating new relationships and practices among the Sadama. Though religious conversion constituted a threat to the traditional authority structure, creating a rift between converts and traditionalists, both groups were ultimately brought together again in a new structure. The latter was largely a result of historical accident and convergence of values which led to changing relat…
Hierarchy, Equality, and Availability of Land Resources: An Example from Two Ethiopian Ensete Producers
Humane Development: Participation and Change among the Sadama of Ethiopia
Hamer has produced a very well-written ethnographic analysis of development and change among the Sadama, a Cushitic-speaking people living along the Rift Valley...The analysis attempts to show how traditional modes of decision making and living adapt to or are adapted to impinging forces of modernization.a Hamer's emphasis on humane development is highly appropriate and his analysis is very successful.a The focus on inevitable and constant change…
Impact of a Cash Economy on Complementary Gender Relations among the Sadāma of Ethiopia
This article describes gender relations among the Cushitic-speaking Sadama of the highlands at the edge of the rift Valley in Ethiopia. The social system is egalitarian densely populated and with a complementary gender division of labor. Agricultural production is based on the false banana tree cultivation (ensete cultivation) which requires 3-6 years for maturity and intensive manuring and cultivation. The yield provides a higher caloric content…
Commensality, process and the moral order: An example from southern Ethiopia
The ritual sharing of food by elders is shown to serve as a metaphor for the cultural code of the Sadāma of Ethiopia. It is a means of demonstrating that just as socio-political events change so does the ritual surrounding food consumption, and that the latter must be continuously discussed and debated to reach a consensus about commensal correctness. This elaborate means of ritual procedure constitutes a comparison for the way in which elders mu…
Inculcation of ideology among the Sidāma of Ethiopia
A moral code as ideology is gradually inculcated at different stages in the male life cycle among the Sidama of Ethiopia. The elders constitute a gerontocracy in control of the code, enabling them to link household and community in perpetuating a system of subsistence production which generates sufficient surplus to support rituals and symbols that maintain the ideology. They encourage oscillation of males between household and community until de…
Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries
Money and the Moral Order in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century American Capitalism
The moral use of money in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is considered by examining a sample of thirteen American entrepreneurs. Bourdieu's concepts of economic and symbolic capital, as well as Appadurai's ideas about linking desire and sacrifice through exchange are used to show how some entrepreneurs redistributed their wealth through philanthropy. Other men of wealth remained committed to personal accumulation. The concept of …
The Religious Conversion Process Among the Sidāma of North-East Africa
This article analyses the conversion process and the experiences of the Sidāma, in being proselytised by Protestant missionaries in an attempt to integrate them into the modernising Ethiopian state. The conversion process is considered in terms of reasons for accepting or rejecting the new religion. A minority of Sidāma are shown to have changed from old beliefs and practices, partly because of the ease of moral reinterpretation and secular incen…
The Mother's Brother. Kinship and Community among the Sidama of Northeast Africa
Anthropos , Seite 560 - 567
Decentralization as a Solution to the Problem of Cultured Diversity: An Example from Ethiopia
The failure of the nation state in sub-Saharan Africa has been a topic of great concern in recent years. In this article I explore in detail the historical experience of one ethnic group in the Horn of Africa, the Sidāma, and show how the nation state has had a comparatively negative effect upon another group in southern Ethiopia, the Maale. For the Sidāma, historic disparagement by the state, though discouraged by the present Ethiopian governmen…
Sociology (23 works) · Political science (21 works) · Law (17 works) · African history and culture analysis (16 works) · Geography (13 works) · History (13 works) · Economics (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · History (7 works)