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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Reforming Peasant Production in Africa: Power and Technological Change in Two Nigerian Villages |
Author: | Eyoh, Dickson L. |
Year: | 1992 |
Periodical: | Development and Change |
Volume: | 23 |
Issue: | 2 |
Period: | April |
Pages: | 37-66 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | power agricultural projects Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Cultural Roles agriculture Sex Roles |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1992.tb00445.x |
Abstract: | Differential access to State-allocated incentives, based on socioeconomic inequalities in rural society, is commonly assumed to be a key determinant of change in rural Africa. This article argues that, given the spatial diversity of Africa's rural political economies, analysis of the politics of rural change needs to be premised on an appreciation of the multiplicity of social relations through which rural power structures are configured. A field study was carried out of a World Bank assisted development project, the Lafia Agricultural Development Project in Plateau State, Nigeria, between May 1985 and July 1986. The study illustrates the manner in which spatial and intercommunity variations in responses to commercialization, cultural divisions and the reorganization of political relations during the colonial era combine to sustain regional power structures which are defined by such differences. A comparative analysis of two village communities - Ruttu and Deddere - at opposite ends of the regional spectrum of commercialization is employed to demonstrate how such power structures provide a framework within which the political conditions of access operate to the advantage of both dominant socioeconomic strata and members of particular cultural communities. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |