Rural class differentiation in Nigeria: Theory and practice - a quantitative approach in the case of Nupeland

Dirk Kohnert

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The knowledge of social stratification within the peasantry is a decisive precondition of sustainable economic and political measures for an effective support of agricultural production in least developed countries. This is one of the reasons why also in Nigeria social scientist focus on the problem of rural social structures recently. Up to now it was considered uncontested truth that, although there is considerable social and economic differentiation between the so-called small peasants, there is no class formation within the West African peasantry. However, these conclusions may rather reflect misinterpretations of the class concept than the actual situation of the peasants. A critical review of common misinterpretations of the historic-materialist class concept lays the base for the proposition of a new methodology for an analysis of the Nupe peasantry and rural social spaces in Northern Nigeria. Applied to the results an empirical investigation of four Nupe villages in Northern Nigeria in 1976, the proposed model reveals the early stages of a rural capitalist development, notably among rice producing marsh farmers of Cis-Kaduna, despite barriers of the semi-feudal land tenure system still in vigour in Nupeland. Widespread assumptions on the predominance of social mobility as great social equalizer in Northern Nigeria are not backed by the available data.

Keywords: rural development; class; land tenure; social differentiation; mobility; Nupe; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N37 O12 O15 O17 P16 Q15 R23 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1979
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Afrika-Spectrum 3.14(1979): pp. 295-315

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3669/1/MPRA_paper_3669.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Rural class differentiation in Nigeria: Theory and practice - a quantitative approach in the case of Nupeland (1979)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:3669

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().