Originally published in 1987, this book traces the broad outlines of urban food policy, drawing attention to the limited knowledge of regional social history. Urban food supply systems in Africa have developed very fast, in the midst of societies in which food production was not in general oriented to feeding distant populations of 'specialist consumers'. Institutional and political links had to be forged between town and country if food supply was to be cheap and predictable. This volume explores the political and material dynamics of urban food supply through 4 case studies: Kano, Yaounde, Dar es Salaam and Harare.

Originally published in 1987, this book traces the broad outlines of urban food policy, drawing attention to the limited knowledge of regional social history. Urban food supply systems in Africa have developed very fast, in the midst of societies in which food production was not in general oriented to feeding distant populations of 'specialist consumers'. Institutional and political links had to be forged between town and country if food supply was to be cheap and predictable. This volume explores the political and material dynamics of urban food supply through 4 case studies: Kano, Yaounde, Dar es Salaam and Harare.

Multi-disciplinary examination of the role of ordinary African people as agents in the generation and distribution of well-being in modern Africa. What are the fundamental issues, processes, agency and dynamics that shape the political economy of life in modern Africa? In this book, the contributors - experts in anthropology, history, political science, economics, conflict and peace studies, philosophy and language - examine the opportunities and constraints placed on living, livelihoods and sustainable life on the continent. Reflecting on why and how the political economy of life approach is essential for understanding the social process in modern Africa, they engage with the intellectual oeuvre of the influential Africanist economic anthropologist Jane Guyer, who provides an Afterword. The contributors analyse the politicaleconomy of everyday life as it relates to money and currency; migrant labour forces and informal and formal economies; dispossession of land; debt and indebtedness; socio-economic marginality; and the entrenchment of colonial andapartheid pasts.

Multi-disciplinary examination of the role of ordinary African people as agents in the generation and distribution of well-being in modern Africa. What are the fundamental issues, processes, agency and dynamics that shape the political economy of life in modern Africa? In this book, the contributors - experts in anthropology, history, political science, economics, conflict and peace studies, philosophy and language - examine the opportunities and constraints placed on living, livelihoods and sustainable life on the continent. Reflecting on why and how the political economy of life approach is essential for understanding the social process in modern Africa, they engage with the intellectual oeuvre of the influential Africanist economic anthropologist Jane Guyer, who provides an Afterword. The contributors analyse the politicaleconomy of everyday life as it relates to money and currency; migrant labour forces and informal and formal economies; dispossession of land; debt and indebtedness; socio-economic marginality; and the entrenchment of colonial andapartheid pasts. Wale Adebanwi is the Rhodes Professor of Race Relations at the University of Oxford. He is author of Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning (University of Rochester Press).

This collection highlights a key metaphor in contemporary discourse about economy and society. The contributors explore how references to reality and the real economy are linked both to the utopias of collective well-being, supported by real monies and good economies, and the dystopias of financial bubbles and busts, in which people's own lives "crash" along with the reality of their economies. An ambitious anthropology of economy, this volume questions how assemblages of vernacular and scientific realizations and enactments of the economy are linked to ideas of truth and moral value; how these multiple and shifting realities become present and entangle with historically and socially situated lives; and how the formal realizations of the concept of the "real" in the governance of economies engage with the experiential lives of ordinary people. Featuring essays from some of the world's most prominent economic anthropologists, The Real Economy is a milestone collection in economic anthropology that crosses disciplinary boundaries and adds new life to social studies of the economy.

This volume challenges the orthodox position on two of the main themes in fertility transition studies: the inevitable link between fewer children and quality of life and the focus on women as the sole important objects of study. In an era of unprecedented fertility decline, there is increasing concern about the lessening worldwide role that men play in the upbringing of children. The immense worldwide variation in the timing and sequencing of a man's life course events, the rise and fall in personal forunes, and the weight of society's hierarchies, all combine to affect the number of children a man fathers, when he fathers them, the number of partners he fathers them with, and the kind of support and recognition he bestows on them. The cross-disciplinary approach favoured here, including ethnographies, national surveys, and historical texts, avoids the narrow focus of many fertility studies texts. By providing detailed studies on a variety of countries ranging from Germany to Papua New Guinea, the contributors build an accurate picture of the global situation, while two Overview chapters give a wider perspective, and the Introduction synthesizes the themes identified and conclusions reached.

This is a festschrift for Pius Okigbo, a foremost economist, public intellectual and trailblazer of Nigeria's development in the immediate aftermath of colonial rule. The work is comprised of twelve chapters and organised into four sections: Memoirs and Tributes; Okigbo and the Evolution of the Nigerian State; Economic Policy and Public Finance in Nigeria and Africa; and Intellectuals, Public Leadership and Civil Society. Evaluating Okigbo's contribution to international and national economic theory, and drawing on his legacy, the papers address subjects such as: the evolution of the Nigerian State; the appropriate place of the State in economic development in Nigeria and on the African continent more widely; the role of civil society in economic planning and good governance; fiscal federalism; the principles of derivation; regional integration; and the probity and viability of public institutions.