Login

Publications  •  Project Statistics

Glossary  •  Schools  •  Disciplines
People Search: 
   
Title/Abstract Search: 

Dissertation Information for Brian Phillip Thompson

NAME:
- Brian Phillip Thompson

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1999)

ADVISORS:
- Christopher Ehret

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Albion M. Urdank
- Ray A. Kea
- Peter B. Hammond

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Divided destinies: Economic and social change in the partitioned communities of colonial Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, 1889--1939

Abstract: This dissertation examines, in comparative perspective, the impact of British and French colonial rule on partitioned communities. It seeks to reveal the extent to which various agricultural and commercial activities of frontier Africans were affected by the decisions of local and metropolitan European policy makers, and it emphasizes the initiative of Africans in following their own best economic and social interests. This study also concerns itself with political boundaries as social phenomena, evaluating the nexus of border patrol guards and the local people, how colonialism and this boundary affected traditional social, political, and economic institutions and practices, the nature and significance of migration, and how the authorities responded to unauthorized travel by their subjects.

The present study is based on a careful reading of archival sources, which include official reports, enacted legislation, and original correspondence, supplemented by published works and dissertations.

Several conclusions emerge from this research project. By devoting their time to growing profitable cash crops, the peoples of this study demonstrated their strong sense of economic rationality. Attempts by the colonial authorities, moreover, to encourage the adoption of European farming practices were successful only when they did not threaten growers' profits or customs. Whether in agriculture, animal husbandry, or road construction, the divided peoples showed great initiative. In other matters, the modernization of the transportation system expanded trade between the interior and the coast, but it also reduced cross-border commerce.

By and large, the non-economic activities of the partitioned peoples were not as greatly affected by the boundary or colonial rule. Despite the border guards, who sometimes abused them, the indigenous peoples possessed considerable autonomy; chiefs exercised some authority over their subjects in the adjoining colony, travel for a variety of reasons took place almost always at will, and local Africans sometimes removed boundary markers in order to "relocate" them when it better suited their interests.

MPACT Scores for Brian Phillip Thompson

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-09-22 11:26:23

Advisors and Advisees Graph

generating graph, please reload

Students under Brian Phillip Thompson

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None