Working Groups or Wage Labour? Cash‐crops, Reciprocity and Money among the Maka of Southeastern Cameroon

Peter Geschiere

Development and Change, 1995, vol. 26, issue 3, 503-523

Abstract: The spread of cocoa cultivation among the Maka in the 1950s created new labour demands. These were not met by wage labour, as in most cocoa producing areas, but rather by a novel system of working groups. Specific economic factors can help to explain why wage labour did not develop within the villages, but it is also clear that the preference of the Maka for more cooperative labour arrangements was related to broader socio‐cultural characteristics of this society—notably the somewhat paradoxical tension between strong levelling mechanisms and an equally strong emphasis on personal ambition. The new working groups were based on reciprocal exchange of labour, but money came to play an increasing role in their functioning. They allowed for a certain degree of commodification of labour to the advantage of richer farmers, but ultimately they restricted the rise of more structural inequalities. The recent crisis in cash‐cropping makes it clear that a system of working groups can offer farmers more flexibility than wage labour in the face of the vagaries of world‐market prices.

Date: 1995
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