Ethnology: Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society . ASMAROM LEGESSE

Abstract

Gada is a highly innovative study _whi?h explores the meaning of asymmetnc dia-lectics in human society. It demonstrates that structural models, such as those analyzed by Levi-Strauss, and empirical p~oc-esses, such as those studied by Amencan cultural anthropologists, are perpetually at odds with each other. So long as anthropology examines only one. or the. oth~r reality , its conclusions remam partial, 1f not illusory. ,. Legesse interprets these approach.es in-ductively. He isolates each methods domain by applying it to a rich body of fi~ld data on the Cada System-the central m-stitution of the Galla of Ethiopia. Structurally , this institution is a dos~~ syste~ which admits no change. Empmcally, it is one of the most unstable and dynamic institutions on record. Computer simulation was successfully employed to show how the contradiction between social. structure and demography generated change and how the combined social-demographic system underwent. orderly transformation for several centuries. Perhaps for the first time in the history of anthropology the development of a complex institution has been reproduced experimentally. The third approach, social drama analysis , was used to explore how the society reinterpreted its models in time of eris.is and how it invented ambiguous compromise solutions that temporarily resolved the deeper contradictions. Legesse shows how these approaches can. become powerful instruments of re"' .' search. However, in his thought-provoking postscript, he criticizes the looser varieties of eyolutionary anthropology which have no method and feed upon· the Westerner's desire to see his civilization as the pinnacle of all human achievements.