ABSTRACT
In this chapter mainly the social interaction between kin, friends and neighbours will be investigated. These interactions are basically social networks but can also be called informal exchange groups or self-help groups. Stacher sees these groupings based on kin, friends, and neighbours but also imbedded in religious or ethnic affiliations. (Religious networks have been dealt with briefly in chapter 6, but ethnic networks have not been considered separately in this research, however, they might fall partly under either of the three categories: relatives, friends, and neighbours). In the poor urban areas at least some access to resources and to some infrastructure is made possible through networks based on mutual help and solidarity, shared cultural values and behaviour patterns. They also foster personal orientation against marginalization, frustration and loss of identity (Stacher 1997b, 165). However, in this context the validity of a comparison between rural, peri-urban and fully urbanized areas becomes apparent again, because it puts the description above and the often cited social network groupings mainly observed in poor urban areas into a different perspective. All these social networks are there now and have existed also in the countryside for centuries or millennia. Religion and group solidarity rank not only high in the hierarchy of the traditional African value system (Knauder 1975, 23 - 30) but in most traditional cultures. It is likely that networks in poor urban areas are of a different character than the traditional ties in the countryside but it must also be seen that all the group solidarity in the rural areas as well as in the poor city areas cannot essentially raise either the standard of living or the degree of happiness. The other aspect which puts the often cited social networks of poor city areas into a different perspective is the existence of very similar networks in the fully urbanized areas where people in general are not at all or by far less marginalized and frustrated and normally do not suffer from any loss of identity. What is crucial, however, is the decrease of such networks, for reasons discussed above.
