ABSTRACT

To use the concept of social class effectively in the African context requires some work not just defining, but in effect taking a position on, class and its validity. Just as culture dominates anthropological theory, sociological theory has no greater vessel than class with which to discuss human forms of integration. Yet, and of course precisely for this reason, using class today is deeply controversial. One representative view in a much used ‘key ideas’ series insisted that: ‘[t]he sociological significance of classes is that class relationships… are the key to the social structure in general, and economic and political life in particular. It is in this sense that industrial capitalist nations, such as Britain and America, are still class societies’ (Edgell 1993: 116).