Introduction

1In his essay on the relationship between colonialism and anthropology, Pels (1997) identified three different approaches to colonialism, i.e. a project characterised by domination and exploitation; by progress and modernization; and/or by struggle and negotiation. Often a combination of the three was applied to a broad analysis of colonial rule, central to a well grounded critique of policies and practices. With time, the third approach held sway amongst social scientists, thus broadening the debate on colonialism. Asad (1973), Lewis (1973), Kuper (1983), Stocking (1991), McClintock, (1992); Dirks (1994), Thomas (1994), Pels & Salemink (1994), Goody (1995), Cooper & Stoler (1997), Lewis (1999), Cooper (2005) and many others have contributed to this post-colonial debate in the social sciences which has progressively moved towards an understanding of the colonial period as a dynamic “encounter” involving a great diversity of actors and outcomes.

2With the professionalization of anthropology in the inter-war years, its increasing focus on sub-Saharan Africa and the changes occurring in the social sciences after WWII with the emergence of African Studies in the 1950s, the approach to this “encounter” underwent a paradigm shift embracing social and cultural change. Like anthropologists, africanists had to cope with a “marginal identity” as outsiders/insiders within academia, focusing on a “backward continent” emerging from colonialism, which had just become part of the “Third World.” As africanists carved out a particular role for themselves as professional interpreters of largely unknown societies that had challenged Western rule, they formed a bridge between the emerging “development community” and African societies rediscovering their history and redefining their role in a changing world.

3The relevance of “cross cultural processes of negotiating meaning” (Williams 1989) is discussed below by highlighting the cross-fertilization between anthropology and history for new insights into establishing multiple connections and filling lacuna above all in the context of African Studies. One of the principal hallmarks of teachers and researchers like Jill Dias, historian by training and anthropologist by adoption (Silva 2011: 9) was the deconstruction of “fixed” social and cultural categories disciplinary and demonstrating the linkages between actors, communities and societies. Her pioneering work in Portuguese and post-colonial academia, which she applied above all to the study of Angola, was inspired by the need to understand cross-cultural interaction, negotiation and mediation of fluid identities and practices. The present essay focuses upon the way in which her work demonstrated the interconnected nature of social and cultural phenomena originally proposed by scholars such as Wolf (1956) and Geertz (1960) and others in the 1950s.

Brokerage as an analytical tool

4Since the 1950s, the concept of brokerage emerged in the social sciences as a concept for a dynamic understanding of the interaction between individuals, social strata and societies. In fact, the question of brokerage and mediation touches upon a complex and sensitive issue, not only in analytical terms but also on the “Western anthropologist’s desire to be the broker of ways of life and thought different from those at home” (Pels & Nemcel 1991: 4). The Boasian school in anthropology which emphasised cultural relativism and cross-cultural connections, introduced a novel perspective on the evolution of human relations in the early 1900s, and laid the foundations for the study of processes of acculturation, albeit circumscribed to certain “cultural areas”. Boas’ ideas were applied in the field by many of his students, e.g. Kroeber, Lowie, Sapir, Herskovits, Benedict, Mead and Freyre, while influencing many others, from Lévi-Strauss to Braudel. Given that this school of thought maintained that change resulted from external factors and was not internally induced (Szasz, 2001: 7) cultural change was largely seen as a product of external intervention.

5Nevertheless, it did prepare the way for the study of reciprocal connections between societies and for the study of hybrid cultural formations. While Freyre subscribed to luso-tropicalist notions in the 1930s which illustrated cultural (dif)fusion and “racial democracy” in (post-) colonial Brazil, Ortiz put forward the concept of trans-culturation for Afro-Cuban communities in the 1940s. Both were concerned with social change and the impact of Atlantic interaction on societies and cultures, thereby acting as forerunners of the debate on cross cultural interaction in broad geographical contexts, i.e. beyond the mostly limited “cultural areas”. It was further enriched by Braudel’s pioneering work on the Mediterranean and more recently that of Baylin and Gilroy on the Black Atlantic. While both saw the cultural encounter since first contact as a dynamic process, transculturation went beyond mere acculturation in order to incorporate reciprocal borrowing and cultural reinvention. Typically applied to Latin American societies, it was gradually replaced by concepts such as hybridity and heterogeneity (Trigo 2000; Almeida 2004).

6The work of Eric Wolf (1956), Geertz (1960) and Press (1969) and others was fundamental for the conceptualization of (cultural and power) brokerage. Focusing primarily on Latin America and the Caribbean, but also on Asia, their work which was originally inspired by Steward’s “culture change” theory (Steward 1955) has been essential for the development of a theory of cultural and power brokerage that dilutes the boundaries between traditional/modern, nature/civilisation and domination/resistance. Wolf criticised the idea of static cultural areas and focused on the connections between actors and communities, associating social change with the agency of social strata and their capacity to communicate and interact with both dominant and subaltern groups. Crossing boundaries and making alliances in order to further certain aims and interests is seen as essential for the survival of communities within broader, national spheres (Wolf 1956). While being exposed to different and often opposing directions (e.g. the community and the national level), they serve some of the interests of either side, mediate conflicts and act as buffers while maintaining a grip on tensions. If not, they would make themselves superfluous, given that other brokers would soon take their place (Wolf & Silverman 2001: 138).

7Against the background of changing social, economic and political relations in colonized, peasant societies, the cultural broker, according to Wolf, operates in a “web of group relations” which extends “through the immediate levels from the level of the community to that of the nation” (Wolf 1956: 1056). The “judicious manipulation of social ties” is a prerequisite for social mobility of “marginal” populations and their exploration of “new economic or political opportunities”. (Wolf 1956: 1072) Assuming a hybrid identity, i.e. of simultaneous insider and outsider, brokers explore this ambiguity which is “highly instrumental to the mobility and innovative behaviour essential to the role.” (Press 1969: 207) This ability to assume different identities–and as Geertz (1961) pointed out, different roles, adapting to changing times and circumstances in the post-colony–allows for a “wider latitude of sanction-free behaviour than would be possible for incumbents of clear and/or traditional roles.” (Press 1969: 208; 214) Essential to the success of such intermediaries is assuming mutually dependent roles related to each of the social and cultural configurations in which they operate, thereby avoiding identification with a “deviant or conformist context”. Cultural affinity in terms of behaviour, language, knowledge and dress are key attributes for the acceptance of the broker and his/her capacity to mediate and innovate while representing the host community to the outside world (Press 1969: 213-6).

8Since Wolf, Geertz and Press’ pioneering work from the late 1950s and 1960s, brokerage as a theme and concept has become an integral part of the social sciences, not only in anthropology but also in sociology, history, economics and political science. A recent contribution made by Szasz (2001) to the debate, discusses native Indian communities in the US by addressing the question of cultural divides, which rather than being seen as borders, should be regarded “as pathways that link people rather than barriers that separate them” (Szasz 2001: 3). Clearly then, current day state of art ethnology has taken heed of Wolf’s lessons, and further deepened and developed the underlying notions in the field to the point of embracing rhizomatic concepts to analyse the non-hierarchical cultural multiplicity of lines and signs as alliance. Although brokers exhibit traits that distinguish them from the social spaces they connect (with), their capacity to simultaneously blend in makes allows them to become part of and be adopted by their surroundings. Moving across frontiers requires great skill, determination and flexibility, as well as a considerable capacity to adapt and improvise, in order to extricate oneself from “awkward, sometimes precarious positions”, while demonstrating a great measure of receptiveness “to the world beyond one’s cultural borders” (Szasz 2001: 296/7). The question of influence and authority also enters into the equation here: brokers need to gain the trust of those they deal with, without which their mediation would be compromised.

9The ideas proposed by these scholars on ambivalent, hybrid and fluid identities are now commonly accepted not only in anthropology but also in the globalized social sciences as a whole. Indeed, another area of study which emerged since the 1960s, i.e. creolisation studies, has benefited from the notion of brokerage. Wolf worked with his former classmate Mintz on an ethnographic project in Puerto Rico and subsequently published a much quoted article on the plantation economy in the Middle America and the Antilles (Steward et al 1956). Thereafter, Mintz went on to become one of principle scholars of Caribbean Studies, and later in his career, together with Price, produced an intensely debated anthropological study of the origins of African-American culture and the relevance of trans-culturated identities (Mintz & Price 1992). More recently, the question of creolisation has received increasing attention from scholars regarding its regional and/or global validity and its epistemological limitations (Khan 2001). But the tendency towards African essentialism with strong ethnic overtones has, with a few exceptions along the West-African and Swahili coast, stood in the way of the application of transversal concepts notions such as creolisation to African societies (Martin 2006: 166). The recent thread of trans-nationalism has also taken on board much of the cross-cultural perspectives that were launched in the 1960s, in order to engage the question of modernity and cultural diversity and develop an “anthropology of interconnectedness” (Hannerz 1996). Questions of the deterritorialization of identities through migration and diasporic networks with their complex spaces and flows, originated novel approaches towards globalized phenomena which required flexible concepts and dynamic “models”. What concerns us here is that while these dynamic notions of hybridity have gained wide acceptance in academia, their application to the study of African societies, above all in the colonial period has not been without its problems and requires further attention.

Trade, Social Change and Mediation: African contexts

10The wave of challenging studies on colonialism by Balandier, Césaire, Memmi, Fanon and others that appeared from the 1950s onwards, showed that the colonial experience was a complex and dynamic social process rather than a static, monolithic “system”. As sociologists, anthropologists and historians began to challenge official discourse and the impact of decades of governance, the former colonies themselves were rapidly moving towards independence. This process which in Africa largely took place in the early 1960s was to influence radical paradigm shifts in the social sciences in 1970s and 1980s which proposed novel threads. The contributions of scholars like Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Gluckman, Leach and Lévi-Strauss ended up by producing the ingredients of what one anthropologist (Lewis) called a “cerebral cocktail” (Lewis 1977: 65) composed of innovative perspectives on social contexts, power, discourse and identities. This heady mixture would gain volume and density with the work of Foucault and Bourdieu, whose theoretical contributions towards the deconstruction of (the production of) knowledge and power have since become part and parcel of the agenda of the social sciences.

11One of the notable paradigm shifts in the 1940s was the focus on social change by scholars of the Manchester School such as Gluckman (1958) as a result of urban migration and modernization, thereby departing from the almost exclusive emphasis on “primitive” rural societies. The idea that colonialism produced a conflict-ridden society and fostered opposition, and ultimately rebellion, caused social scientists to reconsider the bounded concepts they had been working with. Gluckman’s “creative mix of often dissonant elements” and his interest in social change was further developed by his close associates, who increasingly embraced network analysis in order to study urban situations marked by migration (Schumaker 2001: 152-89). The deep-seated nature of this problem and the perceived need to return to the drawing board and rethink colonialism’s impact is highlighted by Cooper (2005), citing Balandier’s 1951 essay La Situation Coloniale. The fact that Balandier considered it as a “historically specific process” rather than “a colonial moment of binary oppositions” (Cooper & Stoler 1997: 9), marked a watershed in the approaches to colonialism. The acknowledgement that Africans manoeuvered and challenged the system from within and constantly reconfigured their relations in new situations demonstrated social scientists’ “fascination for social change” (Cooper 2005: 37, 55)

12Nevertheless, despite the growing awareness among africanist scholars of the need to bridge the gap between “primitive” and “modern” societies, between local situations and the state, the question of brokerage did not appear to take hold as a valid analytical focus within it. Whereas the Americas and the Caribbean as well as Asia witnessed a growing ethnography on brokerage, in the case of sub-Saharan Africa, the initiative would be a shared effort by anthropologists and historians. The main drive towards new research in the wake of the independence of former colonies in the 1960s was the emergence of African Studies with a new multidisciplinary focus. West Africa would form a key area of study in this respect, strongly associated with trade and migration. Based upon the changes perceived in Sierra Leone in the 1950s, also related to the influx of migrants as a result of alluvial diamond mining, the co-authored essay by anthropologist Vernon Dorjahn and historian Christopher Fyfe (Dorjahn & Fyfe 1962), employed the landlord-stranger concept to discuss the ongoing reinterpretation of rights and obligations over land, residence, marriage, taxes, etc. But they did so by transporting the reader back to the arrival of European strangers on the Sierra Leone coast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Ibid: 394), opting for the longue durée perspective originally proposed by Bloch (1989). Their short, groundbreaking text which united two distinct disciplinary approaches would prove to be particularly influential for linking past and present transformations.

13The idea of cross-cultural interaction was particularly enriched with the concept of the trade diaspora defined as a “nation of socially interdependent but spatially dispersed communities” (Cohen, 1971: 267). It held that these social groups developed autonomous institutions and retained their own distinct identities and practices within their host-societies. At the same time they adopted local customs and languages, married into local lineages in order to access social and cultural capital, while mediating local communities’ relations and conflicts with the outside world. Such diasporas tended to emerge in the context of long distance trade, and retained their brokerage role by attempting to control the exchange of certain goods or (sections of) particular commercial routes and thus guaranteeing a source of revenue. Their capacity to cross boundaries and facilitate cross-cultural interaction by means of kin- and clientship ties by adopting hybrid identities, allowed them to build entrepreneurial partnerships, social networks and spheres of influence, which were however intrinsically unstable and particularly vulnerable to changing political and economic conditions. The study of these networks allowed anthropologists and historians to reconstruct the organisation and practices, not only of broker-communities, but also of host-societies, and follow the changes that occurred in certain regions over an extended period of time. (Curtin 1984).

14West Africa was also pivotal in advancing concepts of creolisation with regard to the cross-cultural interaction between different communities and individuals in an Afro-Atlantic context. The emergence of Creole societies in insular locations such as the Cape Verde Islands, and São Tomé and Príncipe, as well as creolised communities in littoral regions such as the Upper Guinea Coast (Senegambia, the Guinea-Bissau region and Sierra Leone) illustrated the particular dynamics of Afro-Atlantic relations (Rodney 1970; Brooks 1993; Trajano 1999; Bangura 2001; Havik 2007). The role of mediators in coastal areas gave rise to an ongoing debate on the complex relations between outsider-traders and their African hosts (Rodney 1970; Mouser 1975; Brooks 1993; Havik 2004). The emergence of Creole pidgins and languages such as Kriolu (CV), Kriol (GB), Krio (SL), Forro and Linguije (STP) testify to the intense social and cultural exchange and entanglement between different ethnic groups, and between them and outsiders against the background of commercial bargaining and transactions. The apparent lack of “fixed” identities of creolized groups on the continent contrasts with the notable (self-) profiling by creolised strata on the aforementioned islands. The broader implications of these social, economic, political and cultural transformations triggered by Afro-Atlantic exchange over a protracted period of time have been studied for a variety of regions in West and Central Africa (Rodney 1970; Inikori 1982; Lovejoy 1983; Birmingham & Martin 1983; Austen 1987; Law 1995; Miller 1988; Niané 1989; Vansina 1990; Young 1994; Barry 1998; Klein 1998; Miers & Klein 1999; Shaw 2002, Havik 2004). These and many other studies which identified certain (inter-) ethnic, gendered and magico-religious patterns of interaction in African societies filled lots of lacuna with regard to the social history and anthropology of African societies within a progressively globalizing world.

15The Angolan region and the changes it went through over a period of five centuries has also been the subject of study by a number of historians generally focusing on the slave and legitimate trade and its impact upon populations (Birmingham 1966; Margarido 1969; Clarence Smith 1979; Dias 1984; Miller 1988; Torres 1991; Henriques 1997; Pantoja 2006; Heintze 2002 & 2007; Oliveira 2004). The main focus has traditionally been on the Kingdom of Kongo, its multi-faceted religious, political and economic relations with its neighbours and with European outsiders (e.g. Balandier 1965; Vansina 1973; Thornton 1983; Hilton 1985; Gonçalves 1985). Over the last decades research also included the colonial transition from the second half of the nineteenth century, thus covering aspects such as military occupation, colonization, forced labour, racial policies and migration within Angola (Wheeler & Heimer 1973; Pélissier 1977; Bender 1978; Ribeiro 1981; Péclard 1998; Freudenthal 2005; Castelo 2007; Neto 2011). Anthropological contributions, generally centered on ethnographic studies to the debate on colonialism and its impact are, as yet, rather modest, limited to the early period of the military campaigns (e.g. Roque 2003), on colonial representations (e.g. Areia 1997; Barbeitos 2009) or on the anti-colonial, nationalist struggle (e.g. Brinkman 2005).

Cross-cultural trade and brokerage: the case of Angola

16From the mid 1970s, Jill Dias’ work filled important gaps in the social history and anthropology of Angola during its formative period in the 1800s until the 1930s. Working from an inter-disciplinary perspective, blending anthropology with history, while also including economic and political perspectives, she provided a broad view of the African colonial experience (Dias, 1998). One of the central themes in her work is that of establishing transversal connections between geographical and social spaces in a crucial phase of Euro-African relation from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s, a key period of transition that had been neglected and solely viewed from a metropolitan perspective (Dias 1993: 77). Her focus on certain groups, e.g. the sobas, Ambakistas and the Creole elites, reveals a notable interest in intermediate strata that bridged spatial and social contexts, and the roles they played in the changes occurring during the colonial era. The more recent colonial period was still largely unexplored when she published her essay “Black Chiefs, White Traders”; indeed, the essay begins by clearly stating its aims: “the experience of African populations living under direct Portuguese rule has been little studied in depth.” (Dias 1976: 245) Issues such as African agency, social change, latent or open conflict with European interests and the intrinsic weakness of Portuguese colonial authority is explored here by providing the local dimensions of a “colonial situation”. The need for in depth archival research revealed often ambivalent representations groups that navigated the spaces between the Atlantic shores and the African interior.

17Her essay “Changing Patterns of Power in the Luanda Hinterland” (Dias 1985) demonstrates the complexity of economic, political and social relations in the region comes to the fore against the background of the waxing and waning of Mbundu’s power and autonomy. Rather than simply focusing on its relations with colonial power or on indigenous states, the essay centers on local agency in the form of intermediaries such as the Mubire, i.e. strangers originating from other areas that settled among Kimbundu speaking communities and mediated relations between them and European traders. The fascinating networks of relations composed of Mbundu paramount and lineage chiefs, Mubire chiefs, traders and artisans, who maintained their autonomy, and Ambakista traders who rivalled with the latter, provides the backdrop for a subtle narrative of the ongoing reconfiguration of alliances in the region. The way in which the transition from slaves, ivory, wax and salt, to tobacco, coffee, cotton, groundnuts and palm oil, and the struggle for control over labour, land, routes and outlets affected different groups and generations is also shown to be influenced by drought, famine and disease (Dias 1981). The proliferation of intermediaries in the last quarter of the 1800s heralds an increase in raiding and warfare, as well as the fragmentation of the power of Mbundu states, above all on account of the intensification of conflicts over fertile farmland and native labour (Dias 1985: 305-8).

18The simultaneous focus on different intermediaries and the inclusion of parallel narratives on their activities form a key ingredient of Jill Dias’ essays. In “Novas Identidades em Angola no Contexto do Comércio Atlântico” (Dias 2002) local and regional dynamics of change gain in depth and detail. The Vili, Zombo and Ambakistas are presented here as key actors linking the different polities and communities along the Angolan coast with the interior. The long distance trade conducted by “diasporic communities” (Dias 2002: 14) such as the Vili and the Zombo operating from the Loango coast and Mbanza Kongo mediated transactions between Atlantic ports and their hinterland from the seventeenth century. Their agency produced distinct processes of cultural syncretism and cultural resistance which became constituent parts of their respective identities. These diasporic traditions would suffer transformations (e.g. fragmentation, incorporation and emigration) as a result of the spatial shift of trade and growing colonial influence which vied for control of transactions while limiting migratory fluxes within its jurisdiction in order to guarantee labour supplies (Dias 2002: 301). The rise and fall of Ambakistas, African brokers par excellence, is described in considerable detail as they skilfully exploited their strategic geographical location on the frontier between different slave trafficking networks from the seventeenth century (Dias 2002: 3030-13). Their investment in alliances and marriage arrangements with communities they traded with along their routes, ensured the consolidation of their networks and their position as political and economic brokers, but also increased their heterogeneity. At the same time they sought employment in colonial outposts aided by their Christianised customs and appearance, acting as interpreters and go-betweens with African chiefs and elders. Their manipulation of certain beliefs associated with the alleged powers of the “white” stranger reinforced their prestige among their local clients in the interior. The progressive European penetration of the interior, the changes in the commodity trade (incl. rubber), and the racial criteria that came to structure colonial authorities’ relations with African communities, precipitated their demise as privileged brokers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Dias 2002: 311-312).

19The study of Creole society, which formed the subject of a book Jill Dias was writing (Dias n.d.) was qualified as “one of key elements for an understanding of Angola’s recent history” (Dias 1984: 61). It brings together the different narrative strands on intermediary groups that formed in the course of “centuries of interaction between African and Europeans”. The accumulation of assets and their concentration within certain trade lineages is a typical hallmark of these groups or “elites” as well as the strong influence of women within them who ran commercial operations while forming part of culturally influential and well entrenched mutual aid networks. These heterogeneous “elites” were composed of Creole trade lineages based in Luanda, groups that formed on their margins by intermarriage with ethnic Africans (Stamm 1972; Oliveira 1968), and those that resided in the interior in trading and administrative posts with close kin links to a number of ruling lineages (Dias 1984: 65-66). The transformations that occurred from the mid 1800s were to largely determine their loss of political and economic power. As the slave trade petered out, racial barriers were erected that limited their access to certain administrative hierarchies, reserved for Europeans who settled in increasing numbers. The shift to “legitimate trade” progressively cut Creoles off from their access to slave labour, an important source of wealth and status. Labour laws, taxes and administrative land concessions forced many into wage labour, circumscribing their upward social mobility. During the first decades of the twentieth century, military campaigns, the submission of African chiefs and the “nationalisation” of commerce further diminished their brokerage role. The rediscovery of their cultural roots and the diffusion of Kimbundu as the commercial lingua franca from the 1850s contributed to the emergence of an embryonic cultural identity which was expressed in pamphlets and journals of the time. This led these “elites” to inculcate certain andro-centric European attitudes towards their fellow Africans in an attempt to forge a distinct identity (Dias 1984: 79-84). Despite their affinity with and their increasing dependence on Portuguese authorities, they maintained an ambivalent position towards Europeans as a mark of their social and cultural autonomy. However, as social and racial distinctions exacerbated internal tensions and rivalries amongst Creole groups claiming urban and rural roots, “assimilated” Africans (i.e. “assimilados”) established their own clubs and associations thus contributing to the fragmentation amongst their ranks, whilst laying the foundations for future (proto-) nationalist pretensions (Corrado 2008).

Conclusions

20Anthropology always seems to be discussing boundaries, i. e. between the local and regional, between the regional and the global, between the “West” and “the rest”, and so on. Wolf & Silverman (2001) showed to what extent the idea and significance of cultural boundaries (beyond the local level), and the need for conceiving of culture and societies as heterogeneous spaces shaped by interaction at all levels (still) constitutes a epistemological challenge (Ribeiro & Feldman-Bianco, 2003). The enduring importance of his contributions and that of his colleagues in the 1950s and 1960s for the study of societies lies in the transposition of concepts of social change, cultural pluralism and the inter-connectedness of phenomena that stood at the root of notions such as brokerage to African situations. The field of African Studies would be unthinkable without these pluralist and inter-disciplinary perspectives that served to break down barriers between different, institutionalised academic traditions and broaden theoretical perspectives. However, As Jill Dias reminded her readers in the early 1990s, the application of these and other innovative ideas that first emerged in the social sciences from the 1950s had largely bypassed the colonial historiography and anthropology of former Portuguese Africa, which had been “(...) almost completely ignored by this revolution” (Dias 1993: 75). Her lasting contribution to this process (Havik, Saraiva & Tavim, 2010; Silva 2011; Havik 2011) was to establish bridges between African, Portuguese and the global academia at institutional, teaching and research level. Researchers were urged to re-centre their attention on primary sources and return to the field, explore neglected issues and share their data and experiences (Dias 2000). As a result, the importance of African agency in the context of kinship and trade networks, agriculture, politics and cultural identities gained a new momentum, above all in the case of Angola. Comparative studies crossed borders by tracing the footprints of brokers in a complex terrain over a protracted period of time, revealing situations and dynamics previously unconnected and hidden from view. No doubt she would have subscribed to the view expressed by Wolf:” If there are connections everywhere, why do we persist in turning dynamic, interconnected phenomena into static, disconnected things?” (Wolf 1982: 5)