Till Förster: Is a Theory of Anarchy Possible?

Wednesday Colloquium of the Institute of Social Anthropology Basel - Current Research and Debates

Acephalous societies (ἀκέφαλος, “headless”) were a prominent concept of British anthropology. Evans-Pritchard’s work on the Nuer and Fortes’ on the Tallensi introduced the concept to anthropology. At the time, foraging societies were known as having no central political organisation, presumably representing the ‘oldest of human history’. But most colonial officers assumed that pastoralists as the Nuer and agriculturalists as the Tallensi would unavoidably have headmen or some other form of centralised social organisation. That big settlements and large areas were “ungoverned” and acephalous challenged colonial thinking.

As a concept, ‘acephalous’ had been a tremendous success. From anthropology, it moved into disciplines such as political science and archaeology. It seemed to provide a reliable analytical framework to study systems of checks and balances that kept conflicts and eventually violence at bay. That these checks and balances were stable was taken for granted – and their stability was often projected on the past, assuming that acephalous societies had existed in precolonial times as they had been described and analysed in the 20^th century: If you know what an acephalous society is, then you also know what it is to have an acephalous society under colonial domination.

However, the land of the Nuer became one of the most brutal battlefields that the continent has ever seen. One may deduce from this assessment that such systems of checks and balances owed their stability more to the overarching power of the colonial state than to their own capacities to settle conflicts. And the Tallensi may still be a peaceful acephalous society because the Ghanaian state is comparatively strong and able to sustain their social organisation from above. So, what is the concept of acephalous societies good for? And what does the fate of acephalous social orders tell us about the longue durée in Africa and elsewhere?

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