Abusa
The structural history of an economic contract
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20302237 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A F Robertson (University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 447-478 |
| Publication date | 1982-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Development Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0388 • E-ISSN: 1743-9140 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00220388208421840 |
| OpenAlex | W1986019801 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 20 |
| References cited | 46 |
This speculative essay seeks an interpretation of abusa, a share‐cropping arrangement which has been of fundamental importance in the development of the Ghanaian cocoa industry. According to theoretical expectations, such an arrangement is both inefficient and inequitable, a ‘pre‐modern or ‘pre‐capitalist’ productive relationship which will inevitably yield to a pattern of fixed rents and wage labour. Here, the role of abusa in the spectacular growth of the cocoa economy and in its recent decline is examined with reference to the development of individual contracts. It is argued that this ‘ontogenetic’ development of abusa is structured by the changing domestic circumstances of farm owner and farm worker; their competing interests in a maturing cocoa farm are negotiated and expressed in a sequence of contractual arrangements which gives the worker increasing access to the land and the product of his own labour. It is suggested that if the evolution of productive relations towards more evidently capitalist forms has been slow and uncertain, this is largely because social processes of the kind manifest in the individual abusa contract develop in what is effectively a contrary direction
Agriculture · Cropping · Division of labour · Economic rent · Economic system · Economics · Interpretation (philosophy) · Labour economics · Market economy · Microeconomics · Product (mathematics) · Production (economics) · Wage · Wage labour · Yield (engineering) · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Ecology · Land Rights and Reforms
Sharecropping
Economic Differentiation and Export Crop Production in a Ghanaian Village
Incentives, Institutions, and Small Scale Agricultural Production
The Spread of Sharecropping in Tuscany
Cash-Crop Migration Systems in East and West Africa
Capturing Ambiguities
Does the Development Discourse Learn from History
Sharecropping and the capitalist transition in agriculture
Trees, tenure and conflict
The efficiency of share contracts in Ghana's cocoa industry
Intersections between informal social and economic systems in Ghana
Poverty finance and the durable contradictions of colonial capitalism
The Emergence of Capitalist Relations in South Asante Cocoa-Farming, C. 1916–33
Exploitation, colonial capitalism, and the deep roots of climate vulnerability in West Africa
The Dynamics of Rural Accumulation in South Africa
The work of the ancestors and the profit of the living
Women's Land Rights in the Transition to Individualized Ownership
Using social reproduction theory to understand unfree labour
Social institutions and access to resources
Immigration, land transfer and tenure changes in Divo, Ivory Coast, 1940-80
Studies in rural capitalism in West Africa.
Cocoa, custom, and socio-economic change in rural Western Nigeria
Subsistence agriculture and economic development
The awkward class
Social classes in agrarian societies
Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti
Kinship and the Social Order.
Kinship and the Social Order
Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping
Neo-colonialism in West Africa
The migrant cocoa-farmers of southern Ghana
The developmental cycle in domestic groups
Research in Economic Anthropology
Politics in Ghana, 1946-1960
Alternative theories of sharecropping
Tenurial obstacles to innovation
Ghana Cocoa farmers—income, expenditure relationships
The Occupations of Migrants in Ghana
Modern Migrations in Western Africa
Community of Strangers
Social Classes in Agrarian Societies
Resource Allocation under Share Contracts
Uncertainty, Entrepreneurship, and Sharecropping in India
African Traders and Economic Development in Ghana
Studies in Rural Capitalism in West Africa
Agriculture in Development Theory
A Study in Agricultural Backwardness Under Semi-Feudalism
Development of Capitalism in Russia
Akim-Kotoku
Ashanti Law and Constitution
Akokoaso
People of the Zongo
The Family Farm in Buganda
Social Change at Larteh, Ghana
A Study of Contemporary Ghana
Dependence and Opportunity
African Systems of Kinship and Marriage
An Economic History of West Africa
On Sharecropping
Home-Town
Farmers, Traders and Brokers in the Gold Coast Cocoa Economy
| Unique citing works | 20 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 1983 - 2026 (44) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |