Regional Shifts-Marginal Gains and Ethnic Stereotypes

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2431670
AutoresP Geschiere (0000-0002-2290-6984, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume50
Fascículo2
Páginas43-56
Data de publicação2007-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAfrican Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-0206 • E-ISSN: 1555-2462
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1353/arw.2007.0094
OpenAlexW2143063252
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas13

This article addresses the question as to how Jane Guyer's seminal explorations of special traits of West African economies in Marginal Gains (2004) can help us understand variations within the region. This question acquires some urgency-for instance in the Cameroonian context, but elsewhere also-since the dimensions she emphasizes (reciprocity, gain, rank) play a crucial role in quite vicious ethnic stereotypes that increasingly dominate people's perceptions of economic developments. The challenge may be, therefore, to determine how an analysis in terms of disjunctures as an asset for marginal gains can steer clear of the ethnic stereotypes through which people themselves perceive discontinuities in everyday life. Starting from the historical example of the wild-rubber boom in southern Cameroon under German rule (1890-1913) and its chaotic effects at the local level, the article considers how Arjun Appadurai's notion of "tournaments of value" might help us understand such variations

Economics · Ethnic group · Positive economics · Sociology · Value (mathematics · African history and culture studies · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories