Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women
Search in google:
In the most comprehensive analysis to date of the world of open air marketplaces of West Africa, Gracia Clark studies the market women of Kumasi, Ghana, in order to understand the key social forces that generate, maintain, and continually reshape the shifting market dynamics.Probably the largest of its kind in West Africa, the Kumasi Central Market houses women whose positions vary from hawkers of meals and cheap manufactured goods to powerful wholesalers, who control the flow of important staples. Drawing on more than four years of field research, during which she worked alongside several influential market "Queens", Clark explains the economic, political, gender, and ethnic complexities involved in the operation of the marketplace and examines the resourcefulness of the market women in surviving the various hazards they routinely encounter, from coups d'etat to persistent sabotage of their positions from within. Booknews Economic anthropologist Clark focuses on the women in the marketplace in the city of Kumasi, Ghana. She looks at such aspects of their lives and livelihood as getting into the market, the regional web, buying and selling, the control of resources, negotiations, and home and husband. Based on interviews conducted on seven consecutive days in July 1979. Paper edition (unseen), $22.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
List of IllustrationsList of TablesPreface1. Stepping into the Market2. The Regional Web3. Persistent Transformation4. Buying and Selling5. Control of Resources6. "We Know Ourselves"7. Queens of Negotiation8. Multiple Identities9. Home and Husband10. The Market under Attack11. Surviving the PeaceAppendix: Survey MethodologyReferencesIndex
