Peasants and Rural Social Protest in Africa

Abstract

Peasants are an ambiguous social category. They are difficult to define and their political behavior defies most generalizations. Nevertheless, social scientists, many working outside of Africa, have produced a voluminous literature debating both the critical characteristics and the analytical utility of the term peasant. Some take the view that peasants have been defined so broadly and contradictorily as to render the concept virtually useless and that the notion should either be discarded or referred to only by negation (Dalton, 1972; Hill, 1963; Moore, 1972; Ennew, Hirst, and Tribe, 1977; Friedmann, 1980). Other scholars obviously disagree, having advanced definitions of the essence of peasants and varieties of agrarian change. Culturalists such as Kroeber (1948) and Redfield (1956) highlighted the peasants' folk version of a higher culture. Chayanov (1966) emphasized the demographic cycle of the peasant household, exhibiting a natural pattern of growth and change. Wolf (1966) and Godelier (1973) shifted the focus to the historically derived relationships of domination in which peasants were subsumed. Shanin defined peasants “as a kind of arrangement of humanity” (1973: 76) in which their partial involvement in the market and their partial subordination to the state or appropriating class were their most salient characteristics. These debates were reproduced within African Studies. Those skeptical that the concept had any analytical value initially prevailed. This position was defended most vigorously in a theoretical essay by Fallers (1961) and in Hill's (1963) masterful work on agrarian change in southern Ghana. As late as 1972, Post noted that “most writers either evade this issue or display analytical uncertainty or forthrightly reject the term [peasant]” (1972: 223).

Moralising the agrarian question: Concealed meanings and competing master narratives in the construction of an imagined South African countryside

“…A number of writers, influenced by widely divergent intellectual traditions, have nevertheless reached consensus on the use of the social category 'peasants' to classify rural households. Whatever the heuristic value of employing these descriptive categories in the South African context, the idea of 'peasantry' and 'peasant consciousness' has been the subject of theoretical controversy (see Hirst et al 1977;Isaacman 1993;Cooper 1993). "Its only specificity", as Cooper (1981:285) once put it, "is its ambiguity".…”

Land Grabbing and the Axis of Political Conflicts: Insights from Southwest Cameroon

“…There are theoretical explanations for societal resistance and the movements it gives rise to (Adnan 2007;Das 2007;Isaacman 1990;Kerkvliet 2005Kerkvliet , 2009Malseed 2008;Scott 1976Scott , 1985Scott , 1987. Restoring socio-economic identities and moral economies, the wellsprings of peasant politics, drive some conflict.…”

Student protest and the culture of violence at African universities: An inherited ideological trait

“…In the wake of independence, a wave of disillusionment swept across African nations because most citizens believed that their expectations had not been fulfilled (Isaacman, 1990;Malila & Garman, 2016). The African elite that assumed power was regarded as an extension of the Europeans, especially since many had studied in Europe and America.…”

“…Practical examples include the Union de Population Cameroonaise (UPC) revolts in Cameroon in the 1960s and 1970s, the Biafran civil war in Nigeria and the Katanga secession in Congo. Between 1960 and 1969 there were a total of 21 coup d'états in Africa (Isaacman, 1990). The number of revolutions and protest was exacerbated by the economic crisis that plagued Africa in the 1980s.…”