No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
“No condition is permanent,” a popular West African slogan, expresses Sara S. Berry’s theme: the obstacles to African agrarian development never stay the same. Her book explores the complex way African economy and society are tied to issues of land and labor, offering a comparative study of agrarian change in four rural economies in sub-Saharan Africa, including two that experienced long periods of expanding peasant production for export (southern Ghana and southwestern Nigeria), a...
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IllustrationsTablesAcknowledgments1Introduction32Hegemony on a Shoestring: Indirect Rule and Farmers' Access to Resources223Inconclusive Encounters: Farmers and States in the Era of Planned Development434Commercialization, Cultivation, and Capital Formation: Agrarian Change in Four Localities675Access to Land: Property Rights as Social Process1016Exploitation Without Dispossession: Markets, Networks, and Farmers' Access to Labor1357Investing in Networks: Farmers' Uses of Income and Their Significance for Agrarian Change1598Time Is of the Essence: Intensification, Instability, and Appropriate Technology181Notes205Bibliography219Index253
\ BooknewsA comparative study of the changing patterns of resource access and resource use in several local agrarian systems in sub-Saharan Africa during and after the colonial period. Specifically, traces the effects of commercialization and political centralization on the conditions under which African farmers gained access to productive resources and how that access influenced patterns of resource use. A contribution both to African agrarian history and to debates over the role of agriculture in the recent economic crises in Africa. Paper edition (unseen), $22.50. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
