This thesis resituates the Community Development programme as the key social intervention attempted by the British Colonial Office in Africa in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A preference for planning, growing confidence in metropolitan intervention, and the gradualist determination of Fabian socialist politicians and experts resulted in a programme that stressed modernity, progressive individualism, initiative, cooperative communities and a new type of responsible citizenship. Eventual self-rule would be well-served by this new contract between colonial administrations and African citizens. The thesis focuses on the implementation of the Mass Education programme in Nyasaland, and, more specifically, on a small but significant Mass Education scheme at Domasi, that operated between 1949 and 1954 in Nyasaland??s south. The political and social context in which the Mass Education scheme was implemented in Nyasaland is important. The approach taken by the government of the Protectorate before the mid-1940s is discussed, and previous welfare interventions described and critically assessed. The initial approach to Mass Education in Nyasaland is also dwelt upon in some detail. The narrative concentrates upon the scheme itself. Three themes emerge and are discussed successively ?? the provision of social services adapted to the perceived needs of Africans, the enforcement of environmental restrictions and inappropriate social and agricultural models, and the attempted introduction of representative local government. All three interventions were intended to promote the precepts of Mass Education, but instead resulted in the extension of state administrative power. The manner in which this occurred is explored throughout the thesis. Mass Education at Domasi did not result in the creation of a new form of citizenship in Nyasaland. It contributed instead to a breakdown in the narrative of social development and eventual self-rule that had legitimised British rule. The riots that occurred in 1953 tore at the precepts that underpinned the Mass Education programme. The immediacy of self-rule and independence resulted in a shift in emphasis within the Colonial Office and the colonial government in Nyasaland from social intervention and to constitutional reform and political development. There simultaneously emerged a new rural transcript, one that privileged open opposition to the colonial social prescription over subtle and hidden rural resistance. At a time when nationalist politics was in disarray in Nyasaland, rural Africans spoke back to colonial power.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/276253 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Kark, Daniel, History & Philosophy, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Publisher | Publisher:University of New South Wales. History & Philosophy |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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