Food, Cocoa, and the Division of Labour by Sex in two West African Societies

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 1980, Pages 355-373

  Guyer, Jane I ^a  

^a BOSTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AFRICAN SOCIETIES; BETI; CAMEROUN; DIVISION OF LABOUR; NIGERIA; YORUBA;

EID: 0019172147     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: 14752999     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0010417500009397     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Judith K. Brown, 'A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex', American Anthropologist 72 (1970): 1073-78. Quote from p. 1077.
2. Michael L. Burton, Lilyan A. Brudner, and Douglas R. White, 'A Model of the Sexual Division of Labor', American Ethnologist 4 (1977): 227-51. Quote from p. 249.
3. Ester Boserup, Woman's Role in Economic Development (London, 1970); C.S. Lancaster, 'Women, Horticulture and Society in Sub-Saharan Agriculture', American Anthropologist 78 (1976): 539-64. Quotes from Lancaster, pp. 541, 554.
4. Marshall Sahlins, Culture and Practical Reason (Chicago, 1976).
5. F. Edholm, O. Harris, and K. Young, 'Conceptualising Women,' Critique of Anthropology, 9 & 10 (1977), 101-130. Quote from p. 119, 121.
6. J. Goody and J. Buckley, 'Inheritance and Women's Labour in Africa', Africa 73 (1973): 108-21. Quote from p. 117.
7. C. Meillassoux, Femmes, greniers et capitaux (Paris, 1975); esp. Part II, 'L'Exploitation de la communauté domestique: L'impérialisme comme mode de production de la main d'oeuvre bon marché', pp. 139-205.
8. Carmen Deere, 'Rural Women's Subsistence Production in the Capitalist Periphery', The Review of Radical Political Economics 8, (1976): 9-17; Alain de Janvry and Carlos Garramon, “The Dynamics of Rural Poverty in Latin America”, Journal of Peasant Studies 4 (1977): 206-16.
9. This method is, however, advocated in programmatic statements. See Sharon W. Tiffany, 'Models and the Social Anthropology of Women, A Preliminary Assessment', Man 13 (1978): 34-51.
10. There are numerous sources on the agricultural techniques of both Beti and Yoruba. The following are the most readily available: Akin L. Mabogunje and Michael B. Gleave, 'Changing Agricultural Landscape in Southern Nigeria: The Example of Egba Division 1850-1950', Nigerian GeographicalJournal 1 (1964): 1-15; W. B. Morgan and R. P. Moss, 'Savannah and Forest in Western Nigeria', Africa 35 (1965): 286-93; J. Binet and P. Alexandre, Boulou-Beti-Fang: Le Group dit Pahouin (Paris, 1958).
11. See Sara S. Berry, Cocoa, Custom and Socio-Economic Change in Rural Western Nigeria (Oxford, 1975).
12. See Jean Assoumou, L'Economie du cacao (Paris, 1977).
13. The major sources consulted are: R. Galletti, K. D. S. Baldwin, and I. O. Dina, Nigerian Cocoa Farmers (Oxford, 1956); R. Güsten, Studies in the Staple Food Economy of Western Nigeria (New York, 1968); Martin Upton, Agriculture in South-western Nigeria (University of Reading Development Studies No. 3, 1967); J. Binet, Budgets familiaux des planteurs de cacao au Cameroun (Paris, 1956); H. Marticou, Les Structures agricoles du Centre-Sud, Cameroun (Yaounde, 1962); Société d'Etudes pour le Développement Economique et Sociale (SEDES), Le Niveau de vie des populations de la zone cacaoyère du Centre Cameroun (Yaounde, 1964-1965). One problem with comparing this data is the nature of the sample used in each case. For example, the Cameroun study includes data on cultivators who do not plant cocoa. Seventy-six percent of the SEDES sample for the budget and labour study were considered 'planters', 10 percent traditional cultivators, 6 percent salaried workers and 8 percent 'other'. All of these categories earned part of their income from cocoa, although for 'non-planters' this fraction was below 15 percent (SEDES, 1964-1965: 94). By contrast, the Nigerian study was limited to cocoa farmers. Sara Berry's study of the Yoruba rural economy would suggest that two-thirds to three-quarters of the rural male population are farmers. Another related problem is the composition of the female sample. The SEDES study does include single women; the Galletti study appears to include only the resident female members of a cocoa farmer's household. I have not tried to adjust for these differences. It is also worth noting that the term 'rural' has an occupational rather than a population distribution referent, because of the urban nature of the Yoruba settlement pattern.
14. The average household size in the Galletti et al. study was 8.1 (Nigerian Cocoa Farmers, p. 192). All the Camerounian studies show a smaller size: 4.5 (SEDES, Niveau de vie, p. 72), 2.7 active adults (Marticou, Les Structures agricoles, p. 7).
15. Gusten, Staple Food Economy, p. 41; S. M. Essang, 'Impact of the Marketing Board on the Distribution of Cocoa Income in Western Nigeria', The Nigerian Geographical Journal 15 (1972): 35-17.
16. Binet, Budgets familiaux, p. 45.
17. The basic sources on Beti culture are: P. Laburthe-Tolra, Minlaaba (Paris, 1977); M. P. de Thé, 'Des Sociétés secrètes aux associations modernes: La femme dans la dynamique de la société Beti, 1887-1966' (Thèse, E.P.H.A., Paris, 1970); H. Ngoa, 'Le Mariage chez les Ewondo' (Thèse, Université de Paris, 1968); Binet and Alexandre, Boulou-Beti-Fang.
18. The major sources used on Yoruba culture are: G. J. Afolabi Ojo, Yoruba Culture: A Geographical Analysis (London, 1966); N. A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba, F. O. Okediji and O. O. Okediji, eds., (Ibadan, 1970); Gloria A. Marshall [Niara Sudarkasa], 'Women, Trade and the Yoruba Family' (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1964); C. Odugbesan, 'Feminity in Yoruba Religious Art', in M. Douglas and P. Kaberry, eds., Man in Africa (London, 1969), pp. 199-211.
19. Yoruba Culture, p. 84.
20. P. C. Lloyd, Yoruba Land Law (London, 1962), esp. pp. 85, 292, 296; Jacques Weber, Structures Agraires et Evolution des Milieux Ruraux. Le cas de la région cacaoyère du Centre-Sud Cameroun (Yaounde, 1974).
21. See Niara Sudarkasa, 'Women and Migration in Contemporary West Africa', Signs 3 (1977): 187; Berry, Custom, Cocoa and Change, pp. 164-65.
22. Woman's Role, p. 23.
23. This is implied in all the literature, e.g. Galletti et al., Nigerian Cocoa Farmers, p. 202. A recent book on food farming never even considers the possibility of women as a source of extra farm labour: G. E. Okurume, Foreign Trade and the Subsistence Sector in Nigeria (New York, 1973).
24. Upton, Agriculture, p. 9; J. Tissandier, Zengoaga (Paris, 1969), p. 48. The original figures on farm sizes have been reduced to a standard farming unit of one man and one woman. Acreages per household have been divided as follows: Nigeria, the size of both types of farm has been divided by the number of adult men per household. Cameroun, cocoa farm size has been divided by the number of adult men, food farm size by the number of adult women.
25. For colonial history of the Beti food economy, see J. Guyer, 'The Food Economy and French Colonial Rule in Central Cameroun', Journal of African History 19 (1978): 577-97.
26. Sources for total work time, by type of work: Galletti et al., Nigerian Cocoa Farmers, pp. 294, 298; SEDES, Niveau de vie, p. 117; Jeanne K. Henn, 'Peasants, Workers, and Capital in Cameroun', (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1978), pp. 170-71.
27. SEDES Niveau de vie, p. 64.
28. Galletti et al., Nigerian Cocoa Farmers, p. 462.
29. Berry, Cocoa, Custom and Change, p. 170.
30. Galletti et al., Nigerian Cocoa Farmers, p. 560. Sara Berry reports wage differentials between men and women for hired work in agriculture, Cocoa, Custom and Change, p. 135.1 have also observed the same thing, although the types of work done by each sex were different: J. Guyer, 'The Organisational Plan of Traditional Farming: Idere, Western Nigeria' (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1972), pp. 84, 86.
31. Calculated from Henn, 'Peasants, Workers and Capital,' p. 169. The figure is based on estimestes of the proportion of women's output which is sold, measurements of hours worked, and cash income earned.
32. Polly Hill, 'The West African Farming Household', in J. Goody, ed., Changing Social Structure in Ghana (London, 1975), pp. 119-36.
33. Polly Hill has point.ed out the connection between production conditions and the rate of marriage in a rural area of Ghana where a high proportion of women remain unmarried. See her 'Food Farming and Migration from Fante Villages', Africa 48 (1978): 220-30.
34. A recent analysis by Barbara Bratby documents the nonvalorisation of women's labour in a New Guinea society: Barbara Bratby, 'Male Rationality in Economics-A Critique of Godelier on Salt Money,' Critique of Anthropology 3 (1977): 131-38.
35. Susan Carol Rogers, 'Women's Place: A Critical Review of Anthropological Theory', Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (1978): 123-62. This issue is discussed on p. 157. I have substituted 'value' where she has used the concept of 'power', in order to provide an empirical economic referent for the concept.
36. Sidney MInt.z, 'Men, Women and Trade', Comparative Studies in Society and History 13 (1971): 247-69. Quote on p. 251.
37. See for example, Jette Bukh, The Village Woman in Ghana (Uppsala, 1979).
38. Yoruba Family, p. 201.