ABSTRACT
Reprinted from American Anthropologist, 59 (1957): 579–94. The thesis expounded in this article has been elaborated in Professor Little’s West African Urbanization: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Social Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1965). Kenneth Little is Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh. His principal research has been conducted in West Africa, and he is especially interested in problems of urbanization and social change in developing countries. In addition to his latest book, West African Urbanization, he is the author of The Mende of Sierra Leone and of a number of books on race relations, including Negroes in Britain and Race and Society.
