Men, Women, and Money in Seychelles 0520045920, 9780520045927

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MEN WOMEN and MONEY SEYCHELLES

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IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

Another form of female employment is domestic service over¬ seas. In 1960, there was an established avenue for women to work as nannies for British families stationed in East Africa. Some also went to the Middle East, notably to Bahrein and Kuwait. In recent years most have gone to the Middle East, particularly to Lebanon, and to Italy. Between 1966 and 1973 an average of 217 women left Seychelles annually for overseas domestic service (Labour Depart¬ ment Report 1973:16, table 7). In 1971 they went to the countries listed in table 8. Prior to 1961 there was little regulation of this emigration. The Roman Catholic mission had an emigration scheme run by a local entrepreneur, and there were several other less reputable agents. Girls under sixteen were sometimes sent. Under a law passed in 1971 (Laws of Seychelles, 31 December 1971, cap 167), in order to emigrate, a married woman must have her husband’s consent, a woman under eighteen, the consent of her parent or guardian. A woman with children must sign an under¬ taking to remit a portion of her wages for their support. Each situation is supposed to be investigated by an officer from the Department of Social Welfare, and the Seychelles government has entered into negotiations with employers’ governments to ensure fair treatment of Seychelloises. Although it is obvious that the system is subject to abuses, there is no dearth of applicants. It seems clear that there are new job opportunities open to women, that they are leaving low-paid jobs when possible, and that a number are withdrawing from the work force altogether. For men, the big shift in employment was away from the agricultural estates into construction. In 1975 Seychellois had many more employers to choose from. The planters and the church declined in importance as patrons. There were now three major contracting firms and several minor ones, the various hotels, some TABLE 8

Overseas Domestic Service, 1971

Italy Lebanon

187 72

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Britain

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SOURCE: Beattie (1972, app. Id).

158

ECONOMY AND EMPLOYMENT

small factories making furniture, beer, soft drinks, cigarettes, and bread, and a number of shops catering both to tourists and to Seychellois. Government was still a major employer, but with the rise of political parties, there were many more avenues into government. Labor unions had also grown stronger. The six unions with miniscule memberships which had existed in 1960 (Seychelles: Report 1960:10—11] had grown to fifteen unions with a combined membership of 3,300 by 1973 (Labour Department Report 1973:7 —9], The National Provident Fund was established to pro¬ vide social security for workers. By the end of 1972, 601 employers and 15,931 employees were enrolled (National Provident Fund 1972:2], In 1969 there were industrial disputes in the building and construction industry and on the tea plantations, and in 1972 there was a dispute between the government and Government Workers’ Union. The rival political parties were much involved in these disputes. They resulted in higher wages for workers (Report of the Board of Inquiry 1969; Award of Arbitration Tribunal 1972). In 1975 government laborers received a basic wage of Rs 303 per month for 184 hours of work, and skilled workers, between Rs 419 and Rs 646. Agricultural workers averaged Rs 225 per month and construction workers Rs 688 per month (Seychelles Handbook: 1976:98 — 100). The cost of living in January 1974 for an average household of 4.5 persons in Victoria was reckoned at Rs 404.63 per month (Carter 1974:6). People made up the deficit through over¬ time, odd jobs, and the earnings of spouses and children. Inflation in the early months of 1974 drove food prices up by an average of 20 percent. Households earning about Rs 400 per month in 1974 were spending 57 percent of their income on food, 15 percent on drink and tobacco, 8 percent on rent, 6 percent on clothing, and 4 percent on fuel (Carter 1974:7). (The drinking pattern will concern us later.) Thus, in the 1970s food was still a major item of expenditure (it was reckoned as 56 percent of expenditure in 1966), and although more money was available, the pattern of expenditure for the poorer sections of the population does not seem to have altered. The supply of fresh fruits and vegetables was still just as erratic as it was in 1960—although more expensive—but fish catches were greater and fish was relatively cheap.

159

160

16

Class and Mobility In 1960 the whole of Seychelles could have been regarded as a rather rundown plantation, producing copra, cinnamon, and a little vanilla for an indifferent world market, which had plenty of other sources of these products. The plantation was managed (somewhat inefficiently) by a handful of colonial administrators from Britain, whose job it was to try to make it pay. This involved a certain amount of education and training for the workers, looking after their health, and trying to find local managers who could run the plantation at a profit. In this global sense, Seychelles consisted of a large working class and a few representatives of a capital¬ owning class whose main base was overseas. The situation did not differ greatly in 1975. The capital base had expanded somewhat to hotel and tour operators, and there were more nationalities represented in the capital-owning class. Instead of a rundown plantation, Seychelles was becoming a resort village with a rundown plantation attached. This global perspec¬ tive is necessary in discussing class in Seychelles, because so much of the top end of the class structure, in a strictly economic sense, is not in Seychelles at all but rather in London, Paris, Bonn, Bombay, Riyadh, Tokyo, and New York. In 1960 fifty-six proprietors owned two-thirds of the arable land of Seychelles (Agricultural Census 1960:25). Many of them were interrelated, and several of the largest owners lived perma¬ nently in Europe. They delegated the management of their estates

161

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

to administrators, usually poor relatives or trusted employees. They were not well trained in management and typically received a fairly low wage and a small percentage of the profit earned by the estate. They recruited workers on the basis of personal networks from a pool of labor much larger than they required. Many of the estates had fallen into debt to three or four large Indian merchant firms who marketed most of the copra. On the whole, these firms did not foreclose but allowed the original owners to continue to manage their estates. The Indian firms made their profits by col¬ lecting interest over very long periods on the debts owed by their clients. Government serviced the economy by attempting to con¬ trol disease in the coconut palms and by trying to improve varieties of the palms. They also provided roads, schooling, medical ser¬ vices, police and fire protection, and a very limited amount of social security. The costs of these services exceeded income from taxes and duties, and the whole colony was in receivership from the Colonial Office to the Treasury in the United Kingdom (Rowe 1959). The colony was administered by a governor and senior administrative officials appointed from the United Kingdom. The governor was advised by executive and legislative councils, but these had a minority of elected members. The Legislative Council consisted of five official members (the governor, the colonial secre¬ tary, the attorney general, the administrative secretary, and the treasurer); three members nominated by the governor, two of whom were the directors of agriculture and education; and five elected members. There was only a single political party, the Seychelles Taxpayers and Producers Association, which repre¬ sented the planters. With a property qualification on the franchise, only 2,308 people registered to vote in 1960, and only one of the five candidates standing for election was opposed. In the elections of April 1974, with a universal franchise, more than twenty thousand voted; there were two active political parties, and every seat was contested. The two parties were the Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP) which generally had the sup¬ port of the wealthier sections of the community, and the Seychelles Peoples United Party (SPUP), which had the support of many laborers. In the early 1970s the SDP favored close ties with Britain and some form of self-government short of independence. For a time the party hoped for integration with Britain. The SPUP wanted outright independence and received support from the

162

CLASS AND MOBILITY

Organization of African Unity (OAU). Receiving no encourage¬ ment from Britain, which was withdrawing from east of Suez, the SDP abruptly changed its line in 1974 to favor independence. The 1974 elections gave the SDP 52.4 percent of the vote and the SPUP, 47.6 percent (Seychelles Bulletin 1974). There were six constituencies on Mahe and one on Praslin, each electing two members. An eighth constituency included La Digue and other inlying islands and returned a single member. Because of the way constituencies were demarcated, the SDP won thirteen seats, while the SPUP won only two. This produced great dissatisfaction and led to a constitutional conference in London in May 1975 which paved the way for independence. A coalition government was formed, and the Legislative Assembly was increased from fifteen to twenty-five members, each party being given five new members. In 1960 there were basically two classes in Seychelles, a small upper class consisting of property owners, large merchants, and higher civil servants and a large laboring class. Between them was emerging a small middle class of clerks, minor civil servants, and shopkeepers. Some indication of changes in occupation between 1960 and 1975 was given in chapter 15 (table 6). It will suffice here to group occupations roughly by class (table 9). In the seventeen years between the two censuses, upper-class occupations had grown by 4 percent and middle class occupations by only 2 percent. There was a corresponding decrease of 6 percent in lower-class occupations. Economically, in terms of relation to production, Seychelles was still basically a two-class society. A few large landowners, merchants, and capitalist entrepreneurs now (mostly from overseas) owned or controlled the means of production. A few others were their salaried employees, the employees of government, or the owners of small enterprises, and the vast majority comprised an agricultural laboring or service proletariat.

MOBILITY How much do changes in the distribution of occupations represent individual social mobility among wage earners? Table 10 traces occupational mobility of males over the fifteen-year period in the village in which I worked. Of the 151 agricultural laborers present in the village in 1960, 58 are still agricultural laborers, 1 is a

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ies, fights, lawsuits, inheritances, the progress of children at school, and what has happened to those who have left the village for other villages, the town, or overseas. This information is not only of interest in itself but is useful to her for finding jobs for her children, for alerting her to possible romantic attachments of her children, her man, or relatives, and for supplying her with informa¬ tion she can use to strengthen her ties with other members of her network. It gives her support against her enemies and feeds into the gossip network, which fuels black magic (see Part One). Third, the housewife can use her network to reach people who can benefit her and her children. The church, through the priest, can provide subsidized housing, jobs, and scholarships for children. Teachers can help the housewife’s children do well in school and advance to secondary schools or technical training courses. The shopkeeper controls the credit that household members take at his shop. The cement that holds the strands of the network together is reciprocity, the exchange of information and gifts creating obliga¬ tions for further exchange. Barth (1966) has termed such reciprocal exchanges “transactions” consisting of prestations and counter¬ prestations. He has postulated a kind of mental ledger in which actors make prestations in terms of value gained or lost. It is a useful metaphor, though surely an overrational one. Our house¬ wife gives information on village affairs to Mme A. This obligates Mme A to reciprocate with further information, or at least with a show of interest that will elicit further information. The visiting schedule shows that the housewife and Mme A visit each other often; this is accompanied by a high degree of information ex¬ change. Were either to hold back, the relationship would cool, especially if either found through other network connections that some piece of information had not been offered. The relationship is reinforced by small gifts of fruit or other foodstuffs. It is important to give such gifts to people of influence, for they place the recipient under obligation to the giver. When Mile J, the teacher, was ill, the housewife visited her twice in one day, bringing a small gift of food. Mile J recognized the obligation and returned the visit the following week when she had recovered. Perhaps she also recog¬ nized it in the treatment of the housewife’s children in school. Similarly, the housewife maintains close relations with her sib¬ lings (the half-siblings are all on the mother’s side) and with her husband’s mother and siblings. Through all these links, the house¬ wife has built a support network through which she can gather

258

HOUSEHOLDS AND NETWORKS

information and get things done quite independently of her husband. From this point of view, the household itself is merely a congeries in a wider social field. Another method of strengthening the strands of network is through godparenthood, a process similar to that noted by Foster (1969) for Tzintzuntzan, Mexico. In Seychelles, godparents are sought among equals, not among patrons, as in many Latin Ameri¬ can countries (Hart 1977:203 ff.). One asks friends or relatives of one’s own status to be godparents. The obligations to the godchild are minimal: to be present at the christening, to perhaps give a small gift, and then perhaps to present sweets or an inexpensive toy at the New Year during the childhood of the godchild. The impor¬ tance of being a godmother (mareine) or godfather (pareine) is to express friendship and solidarity with the parent. It is more com¬ mon for friends and relatives of a pregnant woman to ask to be a godparent to the child when it is born than for a pregnant woman to seek godparents. The proper etiquette is to accept the first person who asks. Our housewife has six godchildren, and five of them are children of her visitors in the above schedule; the children of Mme A, of two of her half brothers (K and L), of her husband’s married sister (Mme O), and of another friend (Mme M). In all of these cases, the housewife asked to be godmother. In the sixth case she was asked to be godmother by a woman living en menage with a man who had left his wife. This woman does not appear on the schedule of visitors. The housewife did not become a godmother until she was twenty-five, and she has clearly used the institution to strengthen her network as a mature woman. The situation is different for her teen-aged son. Not yet a man and still under his mother’s influence, he has eleven godchildren, but most are essentially extensions of his mother’s network. Thus, one is a younger child of Mme M, his mother’s friend by a bond already cemented by godparenthood. A second is the child of one of his mother’s half brothers, again, a bond already cemented by godparenthood. Two are children for whom he became godfather at the priest’s request. The son was assisting the priest at the baptism (a position contracted for him by his mother). There was no godfather present, so the priest asked the boy to perform this office. The boy could not even remember the name of his fifth godchild, but she was the daughter of Mme G, one of his mother’s visitors, and the boy performed the office at his mother’s request. His sixth godchild is his mother’s brother’s son

259

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

(F), again taken on at the request of his mother. A seventh is the daughter of his father’s sister. She had wanted her brother to act, but he was working and asked the boy to peform the office in his stead. The eighth is the son of a friend of his father’s. This friend tried two other men, both of whom refused, before asking the boy. The ninth is the son of another of his mother’s visitors, Mme T. The tenth is his father’s sister’s daughter from another part of the island, which the family visited for the baptism. Only in the case of the eleventh was the boy asked by a friend to be a godfather. Thus, seven of the boy’s godchildren are extensions of his mother’s net¬ work, three are from his father’s network but undertaken with the approval of the mother, and only one stemmed from a direct request to the boy. In all cases the boy was asked to be a godfather. He never requested it, though he acknowledges that this is the custom. Godparenthood is not an important network-strengthen¬ ing mechanism for men. Indeed there is often difficulty in finding men to act, as the two instances in which the boy was drafted by the priest demonstrate. This extended example shows the strength and close-knit nature of a woman’s network. With the household as a locus, it extends to kinsmen, husband’s kinsmen, neighbors, friends, and people of influence. It is reinforced by constant visiting and by prestations and counterprestations of information and small gifts, and it is ritualized in godparenthood. A woman’s children are closely bound up in these transactions. They extend and reinforce her network, and they are also the beneficiaries of much that goes on. They run errands, carry messages, and are both the tokens and the objects of a woman’s power and influence. She binds them to her as strongly as she can. This is a female world. Visits are between females, and godparenthood only operates effectively as godmotherhood. Despite the great efforts to control sons, a woman is probably closer to her daughters. Daughters help and care for their mothers in old age far more often than do sons. The entire female network operates apart from and, to some extent, against men. Men are necessary to support it with their earnings, but they enter into it only peripherally as brothers or sons, scarcely at all as fathers and husbands. Female networks provide interest and support for their members and allow women to prolong their mothering roles. Women are not alone; men often are.

260

HOUSEHOLDS AND NETWORKS

MALES AND THE HOUSEHOLD As are their sisters, young boys are under the continual surveil¬ lance of their mothers, although they have fewer domestic duties to perform. They do, however, run errands, carry messages, fetch water, and help with the livestock and the vegetable garden. They are freer to wander about the neighborhood and play with other children than are girls. If the mother works as a laborer or domestic, she often takes her son with her to help. Fathers rarely do this. The boy’s performance at school is his mother’s concern. It is she, not the father, who goes to see his teachers. Very often the mother helps her son obtain his first job, accompanying him for the interview with his prospective employer. He is expected to turn his wages over to her. There is a higher degree of peer-group formation and activity among boys than among girls. Girls spend more time with theii mothers and younger siblings. Boys spend more time with their peers. Football (soccer) is extremely popular in Seychelles, and boys begin to play from an early age. Boys roam around the village or town together. They go on hikes or to the beach on weekends or after school. They organize dances and dramatic presentations. They also begin to want to spend money, especially for a bicycle but also for clothes and sports equipment. When they begin to earn, their mothers, if they are wise, will let them spend part of their earnings on these items, but as they grow older the tension over who controls their earnings grows. In their wanderings, at school, and at church boys meet girls, and there is a good deal of discussion among them about who has a bouldou (“sweetheart,” literally, “sweet ball”). They try to conceal such attachments from their mothers for they know their mothers will oppose them. The pressures that build up to force a boy to set up his own household differ from those operating on a girl. To set up a house¬ hold and especially to marry, he must have money, and this means a steady job with a good wage. Such jobs require training either as an apprentice in some craft or in the form of schooling for a government job. This means that men tend to marry at a later age than do women (similarly, women in the professions tend to marry at a later age). It is difficult for a man to live alone. He needs someone to prepare his food, to mend his clothes, to keep his house

261

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

clean. Above all, men dislike being alone. Thus, very generally, men remain in their mothers’ households longer than do women. Indeed, some men never leave. Most do, however, as tensions rise over the amount of money the son contributes to the household, and disputes arise with the mother’s man, who may or may not be the son’s father. Sometimes men go to live with older sisters, but similar conflicts arise. The obvious alternative is to set up a house¬ hold with a woman of one’s own. As we have seen, this does not mean diminished demands on a man’s money but, rather, in¬ creased demands. Many men are ambivalent about taking on these responsibilities. They do not need to marry or to live en menage in order to have sexual relations. This is the meaning of the Creole expression, “Si di lait i vend bon marche ac faire roder boeuf?’’ literally, If milk is selling cheaply, why look for a cow—Why maintain a woman if you can have sexual relations for nothing? It also reveals antagonism to women and their demands. Yet, as related above, sexual relations, especially if they eventuate in chil¬ dren, are not free from responsibilities, and a man becomes en¬ meshed in obligations. He may wish to keep the affair casual, but he cannot do so and expect it to persist. He gives gifts to his woman. She performs services for him, and a skein of obligations develop. These obligations impinge on those which his mother regards as owing to her, a fact that leads to disputes and eventually forces a man either to give up living with his mother or to give up his woman. Time and circumstance also press upon a man. If he is not a good earner or if he has had a series of short-lived affairs or has left women by whom he has had children, it becomes more difficult for him to find a woman willing to live with him. He is apt to end up with a woman with children by one or more other men. This is expressed in Creole, “Si ou aste boeuf, besin aste avec ses lescornes” (literally, If you buy a cow you must buy it with its horns)—If you take a woman you must take her children with her. A man’s network differs considerably from that of a woman. It does not cluster around children and the household but around work and recreational relationships. In Bott’s terms (1971), there is a high degree of segregation in male and female networks; they tend to be separate, with little overlapping. Moreover, a female’s network is primarily with other females and a male’s with other males, with the exception of kinsmen. As we have seen from the example of the housewife, a woman’s network is close-knit. There

262

HOUSEHOLDS AND NETWORKS

is a high degree of reciprocal interaction with the same people. A man s network is less close-knit. Much of it is concerned with work and with seeking opportunities for work. Geographically, it ranges more widely than does the woman’s network. A man must be on the lookout for jobs wherever they occur. He uses friends, relatives, acquaintances, former employers, politicians, and patrons to find these jobs. He is more geographically mobile than is the woman as he is not tied down by children and domestic labor in the household. A more closely knit part of a man’s network consists of the friends he meets after work. These are usually neighbors and work¬ mates. They may meet at a shop or at a toddy seller’s to have drinks. The husband of the housewife whose visiting schedule was given in table 38 meets three to six friends most evenings for a game of dominoes. A board is set up in a courtyard where one of them works as a watchman, and they play for several hours. Other friends watch and take their places in the game by turn or when one of the players has to leave. Dominoes is extremely popular in Seychelles. It is also extremely noisy. Players slam their tiles on the table with a sound like a rifle shot. Men do not play at or near their homes but by the side of the road, near a shop, or under a tree. The same is true for card games. Thus, from an early age, men’s recreational and social activities take place away from the household, on the football field, at a dance, at the toddy seller’s, on the road. They come home to eat and sleep but not to socialize. Men do not visit each other in their houses but meet elsewhere. If we were to plot geographically the spread of male and female networks, we would find concentrations of female activities at the household and concentrations of male activities at places of work and places of recreation. The household in Seychelles (and very likely in other com¬ plex societies) has very different functions for men and women. For women it is the theater of her most important role—mothering. This is the case even for working women, although to a lesser extent. For men this is not the case. A man’s most important role is earning, and earning takes place outside the household. Women’s activities and networks tend to confirm and strengthen their posi¬ tions of dominance in the domestic sphere. Men’s activities draw them away from the household to work and recreational activities. The density of women’s activities and social relationships around the household is not paralleled in the lives of men, whose activities and networks are more spread out, less dense. A woman, as we

263

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

have seen, can prolong her chief role, mothering, into extreme old age, but it is much more difficult for a man to prolong his chief role, earning, into old age. An old man collapses into his household as a dependant. Their very different roles often bring men and women into conflict. A woman needs a man’s earning capacity. A man needs a woman’s domestic services. Sometimes these need are complementary, binding the man and woman together in mutual affection and cooperation to achieve higher social and economic status, but frequently the needs come into conflict, and their rela¬ tively nonoverlapping networks serve to pull the man and woman apart, turning the household into an arena of conflict.

264

21

Small Change In 1960 the colonial government, visiting experts, and many Seychellois assumed that the problems of Seychelles could be solved by economic development. Economically, Seychelles has developed enormously in fifteen years. An airport, better roads, a greatly enlarged port, hotels, office buildings, and public housing have altered both the physical and the social landscapes. Political parties have formed, and the dependent colony has become an independent nation, at least in name. There has been a tremendous increase in investment, and there is a whole new tourist industry, bringing tens of thousands of visitors to the islands each year. There has been some improvement in agriculture and in the raising of livestock, and a few very small industries have appeared. Many more consumer goods are available, and they are much more widely distributed than before. It looks as though economic devel¬ opment has arrived. One sees it everywhere. Yet these highly visible changes do not appear to have had much effect on the social structure of Seychelles. There has been little change in the class-structure insofar as indigenous Seychel¬ lois are concerned (chap. 16). The growth of the upper economic class has been largely a matter of the influx of overseas entrepre¬ neurs. The middle class has grown slightly, as more managers and clerical workers are required. There has been some shift in lowerclass occupations, from agricultural labor to construction and ser¬ vice work. It appears that most of the economic development has benefited the upper classes, many of whom are non-Seychellois.

265

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

A closer look at lower-class mobility in the village and urban area in which I worked in 1960 and 1975 shows a somewhat higher standard of living for most people but little social mobility. In 1975 most men were still pursuing the same occupations that they had in 1960, though some had obtained probably temporary, higher-paid construction jobs. Women showed greater occupational change, with many going into hotel employment and the professions. Over¬ all female employment declined as those in the low-paid agricul¬ tural occupations dropped out of the work force altogether. The impression of a general lack of social mobility was strengthened when we examined mobility across generations. Most children seem to have followed the occupations of their fathers. Socially, class was showing some change, with the upper class becoming much more heterogeneous with regard to nationality, ethnicity, and behavior, and there was a growing class consciousness among the working class. Social classes were less clearly marked off by patterns of consumption than they were in 1960 because of higher wages and the greater availability of consumer goods. There were still great social differences, but not as great as those of 1960. Much of this book has been concerned with examining the roles of men and women. Roles are about relationships; indeed, people only play roles in relation to one another. Roles are defined by expectations (Nadel 1957:20—44), and in Seychelles many of these expectations are reckoned in terms of money. We have seen that the expectations defining the roles of men and women have a history going back to slavery, indenture, and their aftermaths. From postemancipation times, men’s roles were concerned with getting money. They did this by selling their labor in a very restricted market in which much depended on the manipulation of personal relations with a few patrons and employers. Even in 1960 an aim of many laborers was to build up a sense of obligation in their employers which might net them concessions in the use of land, the extension of loans, and the use of influence. Most em¬ ployers recognized such obligations. Thus, the role relationship between employer and employee was not strictly based on an impersonal contract. There was a contract, almost never written, of payment for work rendered, but the role relationship was charac¬ terized by other strands based on favors, long association, and often illegitimate kin relations. Nevertheless, employers were in a clearly dominant position and were often capricious in their hirings and firings. The pool of available laborers greatly exceeded

266

SMALL CHANGE

the number of jobs. It is small wonder that domineur is a term of opprobrium in Seychelles (chap. 17). By 1975 there had been changes in the role relationships between employer and employee. There were more employers, hence more alternatives for potential employees. The new em¬ ployers were from Britain, quite outside the personal networks of Seychelles. They were accustomed to impersonal contracts with their workers in which expectations were clearly laid out. Absen¬ teeism, a part of the more flexible role relationships in the tradi¬ tional system, was frowned upon and could lead to dismissal. Overseas employers were not prepared to grant extra concessions or loans to individuals. Employment depended less on personal ties than ever before. The trend was buttressed by minimum-wage ordinances and collective bargaining by the growing trade unions. Men changed jobs with an impunity that bewildered and frustrated their employers. Some of the expectations defining men’s occupa¬ tional roles were changing. The major emphasis was still on earn¬ ing money, but there was less of a need to defer to employers and to build obligation networks with them. More and more, men turned to the unions and the politicians associated with the unions for assistance in obtaining jobs. Politicians, eager to build followings and with government jobs in their patronage, fostered this trend. The domestic roles of men and women have probably shown the least amount of change over the fifteen years. Economic devel¬ opment does not seem to have diminished the number of en menage unions or to have lowered the illegitimacy rate. Higher wages do not seem to have brought domestic stability or met the demands for long-term security for women and their children. Such facts again confound monocausal arguments that unstable domestic arrangements result from poverty alone (chap. 13). A pivotal aspect of a man’s role vis-a-vis the woman with whom he is living is as a provider of money, but there is also the woman’s expectation that he will not be able to provide enough, either because he does not earn enough or because other demands (from his mother, other women, friends, drink) eat up his earnings. She must therefore try to create other options through patrons, other men, or children. Conversely, the man also has his eye on other options, a different woman, returning to his mother’s house, mov¬ ing to another part of the island. The domestic roles of men and women are defined by such expectations, and these expectations remain, even though the man may be earning more money. The

267

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

facts (e.g., wage rates) change faster than the expectations (e.g., the unreliability of men as providers of support). Generally speaking, a woman still sees her best long-term chances of support in her children, not in her man (chap. 18). Such expectations not only have a long history (chap. 14), including individual family traditions (chap. 19), they are also bolstered by the different spheres of male and female activities. In discussing the relationship of males to money, we could describe much of what they did with only minimal reference to the domestic group. In discussing the relationship of women to money, we had to refer continually to the domestic group. Men’s economic roles are played largely outside the household, women’s within it, but they are both economic roles. Moreover, men’s economic roles involve them in social networks that are spread much more widely than are women’s. Men’s roles are more segregated than are women’s. A man relies on his labor power, not only for his liveli¬ hood but also for his status, and this involves him in roles that tend to be single stranded. A woman’s roles, by contrast, tend to be multistranded. She interacts repeatedly with the same people in many contexts. She builds networks and sets of obligations that reinforce her position and support her against the uncertainties of reliance on a male provider (chap. 20). A woman uses a whole set of attributes by which she tries to create obligations in lovers, children, patrons, friends—her labor power is only one element in this set. Both men and women are interested in the symbols of status that can be purchased, such as radios, furniture, good clothes, watches. A man boasts that he has bought these himself; they are an index of his earning success. He may use them to create or continue sets of obligations with women. The fact that he is earning more does not change the nature of this kind of conspicuous consump¬ tion—it merely inflates it (Wilson 1979:229). He is apt to be just as short of money as before. Of course, some men do invest in land, in education for their children, in shops or small businesses, and there were more opportunities for doing this in 1975 than there were in 1960. The segregation of male and female social networks places a heavy strain on connubial relationships. There is a self-fulfilling aspect to the lack of trust that men and women exhibit toward each other. One must quickly add that there are numerous exceptions,

268

SMALL CHANGE

but it is hardly surprising that economic development has not yet changed this basic pattern. Male-female relationships in Sey¬ chelles and similar societies may look unstable and disorderly to middle-class Westerners, but they are highly institutionalized and unlikely to yield to the simple raising of a wage.

269

270

22

Epilogue We left Seychelles on 27 April 1975, just at the time that a constitu¬ tional conference was being prepared in London which was to lead to a final transference of power. We have not since returned to Seychelles, so what follows is based on news accounts, various published reports (Franda 1979; Seychelles Economic Memoran¬ dum 1980), letters, and conversations. On 29 June 1976 Seychelles became an independent republic within the Commonwealth. The islands of Aldabra, Desroches, and Farquhar, which had been made part of the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965, were returned to the new nation. James Mancham, head of the Seychelles Democratic Party and chief min¬ ister under the British Colonial regime, became president. Albert Rene, head of the Seychelles Peoples United Party, became prime minister. There were nine other ministers, each with departmental responsibilities. New elections were scheduled for 1979, when eight members were to be elected from existing constituencies and a further seventeen on the basis of proportional representation. On 5 June 1977, while President Mancham and several of his ministers were in London to attend the Commonwealth confer¬ ence, there was a coup d’etat. Mancham was deposed, and the prime minister, Albert Rene, became president. The constitution and the Legislative Assembly were suspended, and a new cabinet of seven ministers was formed, all of whom were members of the SPUP. A militia was organized, and elections were again promised for 1979. The great powers quickly recognized the new govern-

271

IN PURSUIT OF SEYCHELLES

ment, and Rene consolidated his power by banning the SDP and promulgating a new constitution. Elections were held on 5 June 1979, which confirmed the constitution. Rene was elected to a five-year term as president with a ninety-eight percent vote. He is commander in chief of the armed forces as well as head of the Seychelles Peoples Progressive Front, the only political party. Voters also elected twenty-three assembly members from a slate of fifty-five candidates. Ninety-two percent of the electorate is re¬ ported to have voted (Africa Report, Sept.—Oct. 1979:32). The Rene government has pursued a policy of political nonalignment and has joined neighboring countries in calling for the demilitarization of the Indian Ocean. Relations are particularly close with Tanzania and Madagascar; the three carried out joint military exercises in 1980. In 1978 Seychelles adopted an exclusive economic zone extending the nation’s jurisdiction 200 nautical miles offshore of all its islands. This created an economic zone of some 450,000 square miles. In 1979 Seychelles began licensing foreign fishing boats and collected about $1 million in that year alone. In 1981 a Japanese vessel was seized for illegal fishing and fined $99,000. The catch of ninety tons of tuna was impounded, and the boat had to pay for escort out of Seychelles waters. India has been cooperative in helping Seychelles survey its territorial waters, and the United Kingdom has provided a deep-sea patrol boat (Africa News, pp. 7—9). Seychelles’ most promising natural resource is fish. The tuna potential in the exclusive economic zone is estimated at forty-five thousand tons per year (Africa News, p. 9). The World Bank is financing a study for a new fishing port, and France, West Germany, and Iraq are all offering aid (Africa, pp. 31, 33). The Rene government, like its predecessor, continues to en¬ courage tourism and overseas investment. The World Bank is to finance land reclamation and road construction to cater to the tourist industry, and private investors continue to develop hotels and other tourist amenities. The first half of 1980, however, saw the number of tourists decline by seven percent from the previous year, a result, it was thought, of higher air fares (Africa Report, MayJune 1981:35). Nevertheless, tourism remains practically the only way Seychelles can earn significant amounts of foreign exchange. The Rene government has given priorities to better health care, improved housing for the poor, a more equitable system of education, and better social security. Price controls were instituted

272

EPILOGUE

in an attempt to maintain the purchasing power of the rupee. Much of this was financed by a $1 million annual grant from Britain, which is due to end in 1981. The possibilities of expanding agricul¬ tural production are extremely limited, though the government is exploring them vigorously. The best the islands can hope for is to feed themselves a little less expensively. Oil prospecting is going on in the offshore areas, but fish seem the more certain resource at present. Tourism must be carefully controlled, both to protect the environment (both human and nonhuman) and to prevent all the profits from being drained out of the country. Controls on develop¬ ment have been instituted by the Rene government, but much coastal land is already in the hands of speculators, and more than 30 percent of the land area of Seychelles is owned by nonSeychellois (Seychelles Handbook 1976:68). As has been demon¬ strated in the West Indies, the local population can suddenly sour on tourists, and the tourists can change their plans very quickly. Growing military tensions between the superpowers in the Indian Ocean are already thought to be affecting the tourist traffic (Africa News, p. 8). These tensions may affect more than the tourist trade. Seychelles lies athwart one possible route of oil from the Middle East to the United States. It is not very far from the U.S. base on Diego Garcia. The United States, China, and the USSR maintain large and active embassies in Seychelles. Recently, Seychelles has renewed the lease of the American tracking station on Mahe. Though Seychelles is making strong public efforts to remain un¬ aligned, its strategic position and economic weakness may presage no escape from its long history of dependence.

273

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280

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