Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T18:26:55.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agrarian Populism in Colonial and Postcolonial Malawi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Erik Green
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This article analyses continuity and change of the agrarian doctrine in colonial and postcolonial Malawi. It engages in a classic debate about images and polices concerning African farming. The article argues that the agrarian doctrine must be related to the broader notion of agrarian populism, more specifically to Chayanov's notion of the logic of the peasant family farm. Employing this broader approach allows a striking continuity of the agrarian doctrine to be revealed. Calls for changes of local institutions did not signify attempts to promote rural transformation, but contained strategies to increase the economic independence of the precapitalist family farm.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet article analyse les phénomènes de continuité et de changement dans la doctrine agraire au Malawi colonial et postcolonial. Cet article engage également un débat classique sur les images et réglementations liées a l'agriculture en Afrique, et soutient la thèse que la doctrine agraire doit être reliée à la notion plus large de populisme agraire, plus spécifiquement à la logique de Chayanov concernant la ferme familiale paysanne. L'emploi de cette approche plus générate permet de découvrir d'une continuité remarquable dans la doctrine agraire. Les appels aux changements des institutions locales n'indiquaient pas des tentatives de promotion d'une transformation rurale, mais elles contenaient des stratégies pour augmenter l'indépendance économique de la ferme familiale pré-capitaliste.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , December 2011 , pp. 143 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Archival References

Public Records Office, Colonial Authority (PRO CO), London

PRO CO 525/111. Annual Report, Department of Agriculture, 1924.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/136/16 Memorandum on Native Policy in East Africa, 1930.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/141/34072. Memorandum on Agricultural Development Scheme prepared by the Director of Agriculture, enclosed in a Dispatch from Governor to Secretary of State, July 21, 1931.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/145 Report on Native Administration in Tanganyika Territory, by H.D. Aplin, March 1931.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/148/5345. The Nyasaland Times, Friday June 9, 1933.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/161. Report of the Committee appointed by his Excellency the Governor on inquiry into migration labour, 1935.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/183. Despatch to all governors in British Africa from the Secretary of State for Colonies, Malcolm McDonald, 4th November 1939.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/207/44332. Despatch from Governor Sir E. Richmonds to Secretary of State for Colonies, 1946.Google Scholar
PRO CO 525/218/44334. Review of the Nyasaland Protectorate Development Plan to 1955, enclosed in Governor Dispatch to the Secretary of State for Colonies.Google Scholar
PRO CO 625/1. The District Administration (Native) Ordinance, 1912.Google Scholar
PRO CO 626/12. Memorandum of Native Affairs, 1933.Google Scholar
PRO CO 626/25. Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1949.Google Scholar
PRO CO 626/27. African Protectorate Council. Record of the ninth meeting held in Zomba June 21–24, 1950.Google Scholar
PRO CO 626/32. Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1955.Google Scholar
PRO CO 1015/15. Progress Report for 1952 on the Nyasaland Agriculture Department Scheme, D 1550, enclosed in dispatch from the Governor to the Secretary of State for Colonies, 7 July 1953.Google Scholar
MNA. Group Report on Rural Development, report sent by District Commissioner of Cholo to Provincial Commissioner Southern Province, April 1950 Native Policy MiscellaniesGoogle Scholar
MNA DCM. 2.3.1. Report on Indirect Rule in Mombera District, January 22, 1938.Google Scholar
MNA NNM. Report on Native Rights and Land Tenure, The Governor of Nyasaland, September 1936.Google Scholar
MNA NSE 1/1/2. Record of a Provincial Conference, August 29, 1947.Google Scholar
MNA PCS 1/19/11. Southern Province African Council Report on the debate in Provincial Council of land by estates owners to Africans, September 1954.Google Scholar
MNA S1/17.C/38. Annual Report Cholo District, 1937.Google Scholar
MNA S1/54.H/33. Annual Report, Mzimba District, 1932.Google Scholar
MNA S12/1/15. Agricultural Survey Northern Mzimba, 1936.Google Scholar
Allen, C. Robert. 1992. Enclosure and the Yeoman: The Agricultural Development of the South Midlands, 1450–1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Atmore, Anthony, and Oliver, Roland. 1999. Africa since 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2005. Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956, Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2008. “Resources, Techniques, and Strategies South of the Sahara: Revising the Factor Endowments Perspective on African Economic Development, 1500–2000.” Economic History Review 61 (3): 587–624.Google Scholar
Baker, Colin. 1975. “Tax Collection in Malawi: An Administrative History.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 8(1): 40–62 Google Scholar
Bassett, Thomas J. 1993. “Introduction: The Land Question and Agricultural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In Land in African Agrarian Systems, edited by Bassett, Thomas J. and Crummey, Donald E., 3–31. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press Google Scholar
Beinart, William. 1984. “Soil Erosion, Conservation and Ideas about Development: A Southern African Exploration, 1900–1960.” Journal of Southern African Studies 11 (1): 52–83.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Henry. 2002. “Land Reform: Taking a Long(er) View.” Journal of Agrarian Change 2 (4): 433–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Sara. 1993. No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press Google Scholar
Berry, Sara. 2002. “Debating the Land Question.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44 (4): 638–68.Google Scholar
Brass, Tom. 2000. Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism: The Return of the Agrarian Myth. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Cain, P. J., and Hopkins, A. G.. 2002. British Imperialism 1688–2000, Edinburg: Pearson.Google Scholar
Canavon, Margaret. 1982. “Two Strategies for the Study of Populism.” Political Studies 30 (4): 544–52.Google Scholar
Chanock, M. L. 1975. “Ambiguities in the Malawian Political Tradition.” African Affairs 74 (296): 326–46.Google Scholar
Chayanov, A. V. 1986. The Theory of Peasant Economy. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Chirwa, Chijere Wiseman. 1994. “Alomwe and Mozambican Immigrant Labor in Colonial Malawi, 1890s–1945.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 21 (3): 525–50.Google Scholar
Colby, Geoffrey. 1956. “Recent Development in Nyasaland.” African Affairs 55 (211): 273–82.Google Scholar
Cooper, Fredrick. 1981. “Africa and the World Economy.” African Studies Review 24 (2/3): 1–86.Google Scholar
Cooper, Fredrick. 1989. “From Free Labor to Family Allowances: Labor and African Society in Colonial Discourse.” American Ethnologist 16 (4): 745–65Google Scholar
Cooper, Fredrick. 2002. Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Google Scholar
Cowen, M. P., and Shenton, R. W.. 1996. Doctrines of Development, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cowen, M. P., and Shenton, R. W.. 1998. “Agrarian Doctrines of Development: Part I.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 25 (2): 49–76 Google Scholar
Eicher, Carl K., and Staatz, John. 1998. “Agricultural Development Ideas in Historical Perspective” In International Agricultural Development, edited by Staatz, John and Eicher, Carl K., 8–37. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Gondwe, Derrick, and Githinji, Mwangi. 1998. Income Distribution in Malawi. Paper presented to the ninth annual convention of the Congress of Political Economists (COPE), Barbados, July.Google Scholar
Green, Erik. 2007. “Modern Agricultural History in Malawi: Perspectives on Policy Choices” African Studies Review 50 (3): 115–33.Google Scholar
Green, Erik. 2008. “Income Diversification, Labour, and Processes of Agrarian Change in Southern and Northern Malawi, 1930–1950.” Agricultural History 82 (2): 164–92Google Scholar
Green, Erik. 2009. “A Lasting Story: Conservation and Agricultural Extension Services in Colonial Malawi.“ Journal of African History 50 (2): 247–67.Google Scholar
Green, Erik. 2010. “State-Led Agricultural Intensification and Labour Relations: The Case of Lilongwe Land Development Program in Malawi, 1968–1981.” International Review of Social History 55 (3): 413–46.Google Scholar
Green, Erik. 2011. “Labor Costs and the Failed Support of Progressive Farmers in Colonial Malawi: A Tentative Discussion.” In Landscape and Environment in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa, edited by Falola, Toyin and Brownell, Emily. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Forster, Peter G. 1994. “Culture, Nationalism and the Invention of Tradition in Malawi.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 32 (3): 477–97.Google Scholar
Freund, Bill. 1998. The African Worker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Furgeson, James. 1990. “Mobile Workers, Modernist Narratives: A Critique of the Historiography of Transition on the Zambian Copperbelt (Part One).” Journal of Southern African Studies 16 (3): 385–412.Google Scholar
Gardner, A. Leigh. 2009. “Colonial Origins of Government Corruption? Evidence from Tax Collection in Kenya and Zambia.” Presented at African Economic History Workshop, London School of Economics and Political Science, May 6.Google Scholar
Idahosa, P. L. E. 2004. The Populist Dimension to African Political Thought: Essays in Reconstruction and Retrieval. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Iliffe, John. 1983. The Emergence of African Capitalism. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Kabuye, Edward S., and Mhango, Johnston A.. 2006. A Brief History of Agricultural Extension Services in Malawi from 1948–2000.Google Scholar
Kalinga, Owen. 1993. “The Master Farmers' Scheme in Nyasaland, 1950–1962: A Study of a Failed Attempt to Create a ‘Yeoman’ Class.” African Affairs 92 (368): 367–88.Google Scholar
Keleman, Paul. 2007. “Planning for Africa: The British Labour Party's Colonial Development Policy, 1920–1964. Journal of Agrarian Change 7 (1): 76–98.Google Scholar
Kydd, Jonathan. 1984. “Policies Towards Peasant Agriculture: A Case Study of the Lilongwe Land Development Programme, Malawi.” Paper presented at a workshop at Chancellor College, Zomba, April 14.Google Scholar
Lele, Uma, and Meyers, L. Richard. 1989a. Growth and Structural Change in East Africa: Domestic Policies, Agricultural Performance, and the World Bank Assistance, 1963–1986. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Mandala, Elias. 1982. “Peasant Cotton Agriculture, Gender and Intergenerational Relationships: The Lower Tchiri (Shire) Valley of Malawi, 1906–1940.” African Studies Review 25 (2/3): 27–44.Google Scholar
Mandala, Elias. 1990. Work and Control in a Peasant Economy: A History of the Lower Thiri Valley in Malawi, 1859–1960. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press Google Scholar
McCracken, John. 1983. “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: The Impact of the Native Tobacco Board in the Central Province of Malawi.” Journal of Southern African Studies 9 (2): 172–92.Google Scholar
Mellor, John W. 1998. “Agriculture on the Road to Industrialization.” In International Agricultural Development, edited by Staatz, John and Eicher, Carl K., 136–54. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Mhone, Guy C. Z. 1992. “The Political Economy of Malawi: An Overview.” In Malawi at the Crossroads: The Postcolonial Political Economy, edited by Mhone, Guy C. Z., 3–27. Bulawayo: Sapes Books.Google Scholar
Mkandawire, M. Richard. 1992. “Land Question and Agrarian Change in Malawi.” In Malawi at the Crossroads: The Postcolonial Political Economy, edited by Mhone, Guy C. Z., 168–92. Bulawayo: Sapes Books.Google Scholar
Moore, Henrietta L., and Vaughan, Megan. 1994. Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, and Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890–199. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Morapedi, Wazha G. 2006. “The State, Crop Production and Differentiation in Botswana, 1947–1966.” Journal of Southern African Studies 32 (2): 351–66.Google Scholar
Ng'ong'ola, Clement. 1982. “The Design and Implementation of Customary Land Reforms in Central Malawi.” Journal of African Law 26 (2): 115–32.Google Scholar
Ng'ong'ola, Clement. 1990. “The State, Settlers and Indigenes in the Evolution of Land Law and Policy in Colonial Malawi.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 23 (1): 27–58.Google Scholar
Nunn, Nathan 2007. “Historical Legacies: A Model Linking Africa's Past to Its Current Underdevelopment.” Journal of Development Economics 83 (1): 157–75.Google Scholar
Oya, Carlos. 2010. “Agro-Pessimism, Capitalism and Agrarian Change: Trajectories and Contradictions in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In The Political Economy of Africa, edited by Padayachee, Vishnu, 85–109. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pachai, Bridglal. 1973. “Land Policies in Malawi: An Examination of the Colonial Legacy.” Journal of African History 14 (4): 681–98.Google Scholar
Palmer, Robin. 1985b. “White Farmers in Malawi: Before and After the Depression.” African Affairs 84 (335): 211–45.Google Scholar
Peters, Pauline. 2004. “Inequality and Social Conflict Over Land in Africa.” Journal of Agrarian Change 4 (3): 269–314.Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 1989. The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Price, G. N. 2003. “Economic Growth in a Cross-Section of Nonindustrial Countries: Does Colonial Heritage Matter for Africa?” Review of Development Economics 7(3): 478–95.Google Scholar
Reader, R. A. 1971. A Socio-Economic Survey of Agriculture: The Lilongwe Land Development Program. Lilongwe: Government of Malawi.Google Scholar
Rizzo, Matteo. 2006. “What Was Left of the Groundnut Scheme? Development Disaster and Labour Market in Southern Tanganyika, 1946–1952.” Journal of Agrarian Change 6 (2): 205–38.Google Scholar
Vail, Leory. 1983. “The State and the Creation of Colonial Malawi's Agricultural Economy.” In Imperialism, Colonialism and Hunger: East and Central Africa, edited by Rotberg, Robert, 39–88. Toronto: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
van Beusekom, Monica, and Hodgson, Dorothy. 2000. “Lessons Learned? Development Experiences in the Late Colonial Period.“ Journal of African History 41 (1): 29–33.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Megan. 1987. The Story of an African Famine: Gender and Famine in the Twentieth-Century Malawi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Watts, Michael. 1983. “‘Good Try Mr. Paul’: Populism and the Politics of African Land Use” African Studies Review 26 (2): 73–83.Google Scholar
White, Landeg. 1984. “‘Tribes’ and the Aftermath of the Chilembwe Rising.” African Affairs 83, (333): 511–41.Google Scholar