The Transformation of Rural Labour Systems in Colonial and Post-Colonial Northern Nigeria

Dirk Kohnert

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 1986, vol. 13, issue 4, 258-271

Abstract: The study attempts to highlight the interrelation between three central points in the ongoing debate on the political economy of development: viability, surplus, and class-formation. A case study of the development of rural labour systems in Northern Nigeria is meant to provide both a better qualitative and quantitative idea of this interrelation. After an analysis of the socio-economic effects of forced and bonded labour during colonial times, the articulation of different systems of family and non-family labour has been investigated. Class-specific effects of labour and capital input do even result in an increasing use of communal labour by rich and middle peasants after the Nigerian Civil War: its form remains, but its content changes fundamentally. The socio-economic and material base for small-scale peasant subsistence production has been gradually destroyed.

Keywords: labour systems; rural development; Nigeria; Africa; African History (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F54 J81 N37 P16 P48 P52 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1986
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Transformation of Rural Labour Systems in Colonial and Post-Colonial Northern Nigeria (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:118629

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