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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | African Rural Entrepreneurs and Labor in the Cameroon Littoral |
| Author: | Eckert, Andreas |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
| Volume: | 40 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 109-126 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Cameroon |
| Subjects: | Bamileke Duala farmers History and Exploration Economics and Trade Labor and Employment Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Development and Technology Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/183397 |
| Abstract: | This article examines how specific social and cultural systems simultaneously framed or determined the activities of rural entrepreneurs in the Cameroon littoral between the 1880s and 1950s. The article outlines two cases - that of the Bamileke and that of the Duala - which represent different trajectories in African entrepreneurship. Duala agricultural enterprise in the Mungo region was characterized by elitism. The Duala rural entrepreneur was above all a 'gentleman' farmer who mainly used slave and coerced labour on cocoa plantations. Under colonial rule, Duala farmers were able to maintain the high social status which they had established in precolonial commercial networks. The integration of commercial farming into the local economy thus constituted the central competitive advantage of Duala entrepreneurs over European plantations. In contrast, the Bamileke entrepreneurs represent in many ways the classic 'oppressed minority' model. The article argues that the economic success of the Bamileke farmers in the Mungo region can be explained by a characteristic 'notability ethos' which was deeply embedded in Bamileke social and cultural systems. The ethos strongly emphasized a discipline associated with productive accumulation. Notes, ref., sum. |
