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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Transfer of Trust: Ethnicities as Economic Institutions in the Livestock Trade in West and East Africa |
Authors: | Quarles van Ufford, Paul Zaal, Fred |
Year: | 2004 |
Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute |
Volume: | 74 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 121-145 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Benin Kenya |
Subjects: | social networks ethnicity trade domestic trade animal husbandry Ethnic and Race Relations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Economics and Trade History and Exploration |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3556927 |
Abstract: | This article explores the role of ethnic identity in the framework of the livestock trade in West and East Africa. It argues that ethnic identity was used as an instrument to build trust relationships that were vital to the development of precolonial livestock trade networks. With the onset of colonial rule, alternative marketing channels developed, none of which proved to be capable of providing reliable and low transaction cost services to both livestock producer and consumer. Nevertheless, the ethnic trade monopolies were threatened by the advent of formal colonial marketing institutions and the progressive 'opening up' of the market. This situation remained basically unchanged during the postcolonial era and with recent livestock and meat trade liberalizations. The evidence from Benin and Kenya demonstrates, however, that ethnic identity continues to determine the organization of the livestock trade, albeit in a different way. The transfer of trust remains crucial to minimize transaction costs in a market that is characterized by a mobile commodity, long distances, and delayed payment in the absence of adequate financial institutions. In addition, it is argued that the specificity of the market environment equally facilitates the use of ethnicity for commercial purposes such as the delimitation of market niches. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract] |