Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:44:19.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ghanaian Females, Rural Economy, and National Stability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Gwendolyn Mikell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Most discussions of African women as rural producers have either underscored African women's traditional roles in production, focused on female exclusion from the development process and the need for female inclusion, or they have documented the failure of agricultural development projects because of oversight of the female dimension (Hafkin and Bay, 1976; Etienne and Leacock, 1980; Bay, 1982; Burfisher and Horenstein, 1985). Observation of the intense involvement of Ghanaian women in both cocoa and food production, as well as their plight during the more recent crises in the Ghanaian economy, leads one to new insights into African economic relationships. This case raises some interesting questions about the exploitation of women in agricultural production, the relationship between declining cash crop and food production and the national economy, as well as the national consequences which flow from the failure to give women a proper role in the rural economy.

The present analysis uses historical, ethnographic case-study, survey, statistical, and political data from cocoa farming areas of Ghana (especially the Sunyani area) to examine the changing relationship of rural women to economic and national stability. It is argued that in the recent difficult political and economic climate in some African countries, pressures exerted on rural areas have contributed to a heavy reliance upon female producers. Over time these pressures further contribute to an unstable rural economy, because this exploitation of the female labor force, while itself a reaction to socioeconomic trauma, further discourages male involvement in agricultural production.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 67 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addo, N.O. 1968. “The Effects of the Alien's Compliance Law of November 1968.” Ghana Social Science Journal.Google Scholar
Arhin, K. 1979. West African Traders in Ghana in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.Google Scholar
Assemeng, M. 1981. Social Structure of Ghana. Ghana Publishing Corp.Google Scholar
Bay, E. (ed.). 1982. Women and Work in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, P.T. 1954. West African Trade. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Benneh, G. 1979. “Ghana's Agricultural Development and the Impact of Government Policies Since the Sixties.” Library of Congress Paper, Africana section.Google Scholar
Boahen, A.A. 1961. “The Ghana Kola Nut Trade.” Ghana Notes and Queries 1 (January-April).Google Scholar
Bourret, F.M. 1960. Ghana: The Road to Independence. London: Oxford.Google Scholar
Brown, C.K. 1983. “Social Structure and Rural Poverty in Ghana.” Rural Africana 17:19.Google Scholar
Bukh, J. 1979. The Village Woman in Ghana. Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Burfisher, M. and Horenstein, N. 1985. “Sex Roles and Development Impacts on the Nigerian Tiv Household,” in Mikell, G. (ed.) Rural Africana. East Lansing: Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1985. “Ideology and Politics in the Markets of Ghana.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 19:2.Google Scholar
Chazan, N. 1983. An Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics: Managing Political Recession, 1969-1982. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Chazan, N. 1984. “The Anomalies of Continuity: Ghanaian Elections Since Independence.” African Studies Association Paper.Google Scholar
Daaku, K.Y. 1956. Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1885. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Date-Bah, E. (n.d.). “Ghanaian Women in Factory Employment: A Case Study.” University of Ghana-Legon.Google Scholar
DeLancey, V. 1984. “Strategies to Increase Food Production: Agricultural Extension for Women.” African Studies Paper.Google Scholar
Dumor, E. 1983. “Women and Development in Ghana.” Rural Africana 17.Google Scholar
Elliott, C. 1975. Patterns of Poverty in the Third World: A Study of Social and Economic Stratification. London: Praeger.Google Scholar
Etienne, M. and Leacock, E. 1980. Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Ewusi, K. 1981. “The Economy of Ghana: Recent Trends and Prospects for the Future.” University of Ghana-Legon.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1970. “Time and Social Structure: An Ashanti Case-Study,” in Fortes, M. (ed.) Time and Social Structure and Other Essays. London: Althone Press.Google Scholar
Garlick, P. 1971. African Traders and Economic Development in Ghana. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ghana, Ministry of Information. 1982. Ghana: September 24, 1979-September 24, 1981: Two Years of Rehabilitation and Redirection. Accra.Google Scholar
Ghana National Archives. “Complaints: Chiraa-Abesim Area, 1948-52.” DAO/1/479.Google Scholar
Hafkin, N. and Bay, E. (eds.). 1976. Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. Stanford: University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, E. 1984. “The Crisis of the State in Post-Colonial Ghana.” Howard University Zaire Conference Paper, October 5-6.Google Scholar
Harrell-Bond, B. and Fraker, A. 1980. “Women and the 1979 Ghana Revolution.” American Field Service #4.Google Scholar
Hill, P. 1963. The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana. London: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hill, P. 1975. “The West African Farming Household,” pp. 119–36 in Goody, J. (ed.) Changing Social Structure in Ghana. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hinderink, J. and Sterkenburg, J. 1983. “Agricultural Policy and Production in Africa: The Aims, the Methods, and the Means.” Journal of Modern African Studies 21,1: 1–23.Google Scholar
Johnston, , 1958. The Staple Food Economics of Western Tropical Africa. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Klingshim, A. 1971. “The Changing Position of Women in Ghana: A Study Based on Empirical Research in Larteh.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Marburg, Lahn.Google Scholar
Kofi, T.A. 1976. “MNC Control of Distributive Channels: A Study of Cocoa Marketing.” Stanford Journal of International Studies 11 (Spring).Google Scholar
Kudiabor, C.D.K. 1974. “Rural Development, Dispersal of Industries and Population Redistribution.” Accra, May 6-9.Google Scholar
Kuenyehia, Akua. 1978. “Employment Law and the Status of Women in Ghana.” University of Ghana-Legon, June 26-29.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. February 27.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. March 13.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. April 10.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. May 8.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. May 29.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. June 26.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. September 18.Google Scholar
Legon Observer. 1981. November 11.Google Scholar
Lewis, B. 1984. “Bureaucratic Strategies for Including Women Farmers.” African Studies Association panel on “African Agriculture: Towards What Kind of Development?” November, Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Mikell, G. 1975. “Cocoa and Social Change in Ghana: A Study of Development in the Sunyani District.” Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University: New York.Google Scholar
Mikell, G. 1983. “African Women Within Nations in Crisis.” TransAfrica Forum, Summer.Google Scholar
Mikell, G. 1984a. “Filiation, Economic Crisis and the Status of Women in Rural Ghana.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 18(1): 195–218.Google Scholar
Mikell, G. (with Skinner, E.P.). 1984b. “Africa: Migration and Economic Crisis.” Cultural Survival Quarterly: The Search for Work 7(4).Google Scholar
Mikell, G. (ed.). 1985. Rural Africana. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.Google Scholar
Ministry of Information. 1981. Accra: Ghana.Google Scholar
Miracle, M.P. and Seidman, Ann. 1963. “State Farms in Ghana.” Land Tenure Center Paper #43. University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Mullings, L. 1976. “Ga Women and Socio-economic Change,” in Hafkin, N. and Bay, E. (eds.) Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Muntjewerff, C.A. 1982. Produce Marketing Cooperatives in West Africa. Africa Studies Center series #7. Leiden.Google Scholar
National Council on Women and Development. 1976. Annual Report 1975/76. USAID: Ghana.Google Scholar
Nyanteng, V.K. 1978. “The Declining Cocoa Industry: An Analysis of Some Fundamental Problems.” Institute for Social, Statistical and Economic Research Technical Publication #40. Legon.Google Scholar
Ofori-Atta, J. 1978. “Income Redistribution in Ghana: A Study of Rural Development Strategies.” Ghana Social Science Journal 5(May): 1–25.Google Scholar
Okali, C. 1983. Cocoa and Kinship in Ghana. London: Kegan Paul for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Oppong, C., Okali, C. and Houghton, B. 1975. “Women Power: Retrograde Steps in Ghana.” African Studies Review 18(3).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppong, C., Okali, C. and Houghton, B. 1983. Female and Male in West Africa. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Osei-Kwame, P. and Taylor, P. 1984. “A Politics of Failure: The Political Geography of Ghanaian Elections.” African Studies Association Paper. Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Owusu, M. 1970. The Uses and Abuses of Political Power. University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Peil, M. 1975. “Female Roles in West African Towns,” in Goody, J. (ed.) Changing Social Structure in Ghana: Essays in Comparative Sociology of a New State and Old Tradition. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Pellow, D. 1977. “Work and Autonomy: Women in Accra.” Library of Congress.Google Scholar
Posnansky, M. 1980. “How Ghana's Crisis Affects a Village.” West Africa (December).Google Scholar
Posnansky, M. Forthcoming. “The Ghanaian Drought of 1982-83: The Village Perspective.”Google Scholar
Price, R. 1984. “Neo-colonialism and Ghana's Economic Decline: A Critical Assessment” Canadian Journal of African Studies 18(1): 163–94.Google Scholar
Rhodie, S. 1969. “The Gold Coast Cocoa Hold-up of 1930-31.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 9: 104–18.Google Scholar
Robertson, A.F. 1973. Dependence and Opportunity: Political Change in Ahafo. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Robertson, C. 1984. Sharing the Same Bowl: A Socio-economic History of Women and Class in Accra, Ghana. Indiana University.Google Scholar
Robertson, C. 1985. “Response to John Campbell.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 19(2): 431–32.Google Scholar
Sanjek, R. 1983. “Female and Male Domestic Cycles in Urban Africa: The Adabraka Case,” in Oppong, C. (ed.) Female and Male in West Africa. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Skinner, E.P. 1960. “Labor Migration and Its Relationship to Socio-cultural Change in Mossi Society.” Africa 30: 275–301.Google Scholar
Smock, A. 1977. “The Impact of Modernization on Women's Position in the Family in Ghana,” pp. 192–213 in Schlegel, A. (ed.) Sexual Stratification: A Cross-cultural View. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Staudt, K. 1982. “Women Farmers and Inequities in Agricultural Services,” pp. 207–24 in Bay, E. (ed.) Women and Work in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Steele, W.F. and Campbell, C. 1982. “Women's Employment and Development A Conceptual Framework Applied to Ghana,” pp. 225–48 in Bay, E. (ed.) Women and Work in Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Takata, D. 1985. “Private Volunteer Organizations and Women's Participation in African Development,” in Mikell, G. (ed.) Rural Africana. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.Google Scholar
United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 1975. Women in National Development in Ghana: Study and Annotated Bibliography. FY 1976-FY 1980. 6-Annex F (April).Google Scholar
Vallenga, D.D. 1977. “Differentiation among Women Farmers in Two Rural Areas in Ghana.” Labor and Society 2(2): 197–208.Google Scholar
West Africa. 1981. November 2:2608.Google Scholar
West Africa. 1985. “Women Want More Control.” August.Google Scholar
West Africa. 1986. January 6: 44.Google Scholar
West Africa. 1986. January 13: 67.Google Scholar
West Africa. 1986. February 10: 321.Google Scholar
Women in Development. 1976. National Council on Women and Development. Accra.Google Scholar
World Bank Country Study. 1984. Ghana: Policies and Programs for Adjustment. Washington, D.C.Google Scholar