The Economic Lives of Peasantry in Cameroon-Highland

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  • カメルーン高地農民の経済生活 : その変容のメカニズム
  • カメルーン コウチ ノウミン ノ ケイザイ セイカツ ソノ ヘンヨウ ノ メカ

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Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse economicchange of peasant society in rural Mankon in the Cameroon-Highland.In this area, it is the principal characteristic that cultivation of foodcrops depends on women's works with labour exchange system calledishie. Traditionally, man had another kind of side-job and developedseveral exchange institutions (called nchua) using traditional money.Now they are facing great changes as a result of the urban developmentof Bamenda.In this study, I focused attention on the change of household structureas the method to analyse the mechanism of socio-economic changeof peasant society. Recently, the traditional roles of men and womenhave been changing and the household structure has developed a varietyof types. Some of these are listed as follows:Types of male occupation(1) full-time farmer; new agriculturist. They produce cash crops,mainly vegetables and yams, and some of them try to introduce newagricultural techniques, that is irrigation, using medicines etc.(2) urban worker; salaried occupations. Sometimes, they are weekendfarmers.(3) part-time farmer; they are traditional villagers. Most of them havesome kind of side-job to get cash, such as trader, butcher,carpenter, wine tapper, stone cutter, sand collector, etc.Types of female occupation(4) house wife; not engaged in agriculture. These are a minority. Inmost cases they are wives of salaried people.(5) traditional wife; full-time farmer. They produce staple-foodcrops, mainly taro, macabo, manioc, maize, etc. Sometimes theysell these crops in the markets.Of course, the majority of household structures in Mankon consistof the combination of (3 ) + ( 5 ) . They have the function of theneutral stratum to soften the radical change of the society. On the otherhand it is important for the further analysis of the mechanism of socioeconomicchange of peasant society that we can recognize another typesof household structure, that is (2 ) + (4) or (1) + ( 5 ) , (2 ) + ( 5 ) .

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