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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Household Units and Historical Process in Southern Malawi
Author:Vaughan, MeganISNI
Year:1985
Periodical:Review of African Political Economy
Volume:12
Issue:34
Period:December
Pages:35-45
Language:English
Geographic term:Malawi
Subjects:gender relations
cash crops
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
colonialism
Economics and Trade
Women's Issues
History and Exploration
Cultural Roles
Family Life
Historical/Biographical
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056248508703649
Abstract:The effects of commodity production on relations, particularly those of gender, within rural households in southern Malawi during the colonial period can only be understood within a wider context of interhousehold relations and the interventions of the colonial state. Two case studies of commoditisation are used to illustrate the argument. The first is drawn from the work of Elias Mandala and describes the effects of cotton cash-cropping amongst the Mang'anja of the Lower Shire Valley. The second is from the work of Landeg White who discusses the operation of tenant tobacco production on the private estates of the Shire Highlands in the 1930s and 1940s. Though in both cases commoditisation occurred in the same historical period and the communities concerned were broadly similar in culture and social organisation, they experienced the commercialisation of their economies in different ways and with different consequences for inter- and intrahousehold relations and the position of women. Bibliogr.
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