The Social Organization of an Urban Samoan Community

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The urbanization experience of Samoans in a West Coast metropolitan area provides an unusual example of a non-Western village people who have adapted with relative ease to the demands of urban life. A major factor contributing to their adaptation is the retention of a social system characterized by the traditional units and affective ties of the little community, modified to assist its members with the instrumental functions necessary for urban survival. The chief social units discussed are the extended family and the various Samoan Christian churches. It is suggested that the overlapping bonds deriving from kinship, church, and ethnic-linked occupations are so pervasive as to constitute a functional little community within the city.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: