The Second World War and the Sierra Leone Economy

Labour Employment and Utilisation, 1939–45

Bibliographic Data

ID20057150
AuthorsGilbert A Sekgoma (corresponding author)
Year1986
Pages232-257
Publication date1986-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueAfrica and the Second World War (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/978-1-349-18264-0_9
OpenAlexW2477270749
ISBN9781349182640
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited10

Micro-studies 1 on the economic impact of the Second World War on some important strategic African colonial outposts of the British Empire, such as Sierra Leone 2 and Kenya, have not received much attention from political scientists and historians. This neglect in the past could be attributed to the inaccessibility of official materials covering the critical years 1939–45. This chapter seeks to stimulate research on this crucial period of African history now that some materials are open to the public in British and other archives. It examines the impact of the Second World War on Sierra Leone’s economy, with particular attention to labour utilisation. It reinforces the argument initially advanced by La Ray Denzer, L. Sptizer, M. Amolo and H. Conway that the colonial state used war-time emergency powers to crush the development of an independent labour movement. The paper also demonstrates the machinery of Britain’s manipulation and domination of Sierra Leone’s economy, and proceeds from two hypotheses: (i) that during the war, Sierra Leone’s economy was further integrated into that of the metropole and the resultant linkages continued into the post-colonial period; (ii) that Sierra Leone’s economy operated in an environment shaped indirectly by a war directly affecting the metropole, a world system, 3 moreover, in which Sierra Leone was only a peripheral part. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves

Argument (complex analysis) · Colonialism · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Political science · Politics · Sierra leone · Spanish Civil War · World War II · African history and culture studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law

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