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

Dirk Kohnert

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

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 develop¬ment 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: political economy of development; labour systems; rural areas; economic history; Africa; colonialism; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F54 J2 J43 J61 J71 J81 J83 K31 N37 P16 P48 P52 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1986, Revised 2007
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-his
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Published in Journal of Peasant Studies 4.13(1986): pp. 258-271

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Journal Article: The Transformation of Rural Labour Systems in Colonial and Post-Colonial Northern Nigeria (1986)
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