Land, Labour and Entrustment

Diverse contractual arrangements and forms of exchange established between smallholder farmers, their households and community work groups, are important to our understanding of processes of agrarian transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, little has been written in this area. Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in a Gambian community. Further, it demonstrates the way in which, despite the liberalization of the economy, local cultural practices, such as that of entrustment, continue to be of significance in affecting the nature and particular character of agrarian transformation and postcolonial capitalist development.

Pamela J. Kea, Ph.D. (2001) in Social Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, is a lecturer in the department of Anthropology, University of Sussex. She has published articles on gender, agrarian relations and education in The Gambia.