ABSTRACT

As on Mwea, so on other settlement schemes in anglophone Africa about which there is relevant information, there has usually been a distinction between staff and settlers. The differences can be identified along many dimensions, among them roles, housing, dress, terms of service, and the attributes brought to schemes. In terms of roles staff have been the supervisors and controllers, with some degree of responsibility to an outside or superior agency, while settlers have been those over whom supervision and control have been exercised. Staff have usually lived in housing of a different type and better standard than settlers, set apart in separate residential areas. Staff have often been distinguished from settlers in dress, most often some form of khaki uniform, or overalls in the case of drivers and artisans. Staff have also tended to lead a separate social life from settlers. Perhaps the most important distinction, however, concerns what may broadly be called ‘terms of service’. Typically, staff, being almost always employed by government or by a government corporation, have had regular salary payments, often with permanent and pensionable terms, and have been subject to transfers. Settlers, in contrast, have received seasonal payments dependent on several factors, including the success or otherwise of a crop, and it has usually been intended that they should become ‘settled’ through the development of a permanent relationship with a particular piece of land. In part these various differences have been associated with the nature of evolving scheme situations. In part, and prior in time, they have been associated with the characteristics and attitudes which staff and settlers have presented to schemes, and especially with their ethnic, cultural and occupational attributes. When these characteristics and attitudes have been examined, as they will be in this chapter, it will be easier to interpret the manner in which organizations, of which these people form a part, develop on continuing schemes.