Morality and Economic Growth in Rural West Africa : : Indigenous Accumulation in Hausaland / / Paul Clough.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Clough, Paul,
• Place / Publishing House: New York ;, Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (468 p.)

The land, labor, credit, and trading institutions of Marmara village, in Hausaland, northern Nigeria, are detailed in this study through fieldwork conducted in two national economic cycles - the petroleum-boom prosperity (in 1977-1979), and the macro-economic decline (in 1985, 1996 and 1998). The book unveils a new paradigm of economic change in the West African savannah, demonstrating how rural accumulation in a polygynous society actually limits the extent of inequality while at the same time promoting technical change. A uniquely African non-capitalist trajectory of accumulation subordinates the acquisition of capital to the expansion of polygynous families, clientage networks, and circles of trading friends. The whole trajectory is driven by an indigenous ethics of personal responsibility. This model disputes the validity of both Marxian theories of capitalist transformation in Africa and the New Institutional Economics.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Maps -- Introduction. Methods of Fieldwork and Analysis -- Chapter 1. An Introduction to the Political Economy and Culture of Marmara Hamlet -- Chapter 2. The Cultural Logic of Noncapitalist Accumulation -- Chapter 3. Land Distribution and Land Transfers -- Chapter 4. Farm Labour -- Chapter 5. Credit Relations and Social Consumption -- Chapter 6. Interregional Produce Markets -- Chapter 7. Rural Produce Traders and Wealth Acquisition -- Chapter 8. Economic Change from 1985 to 1998 -- Chapter 9. Continuity, Change – and Growth -- Appendix 1. Basic Information on Household Heads, Marmara, 1979 -- Appendix 2. Innovation, Agricultural Extension and Yields -- Appendix 3. All Landholding Household Heads Grouped by Labour Practices During the Weeding Operation in the Farming Season of 1978 -- Appendix 4. Household Consumption of Food Grain and ‘Soup Ingredients’ (Cefane) -- Appendix 5. Trading Purchases, Sales and Margins of M., 1978 -- Appendix 6. Land Sales and Labour Use, Marmara, 1978 and 1979 -- Glossary of Key Hausa Words in the Text -- Bibliography -- Index