TY - BOOK ID - 85467214 TI - Palm oil and protest : an economic history of the Ngwa region, south-eastern Nigeria, 1800-1980 PY - 1988 VL - 59 SN - 0511521596 0521343763 0521025575 PB - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Palm oil industry KW - Igbo (African people) KW - Ibo (African people) KW - Ibo tribe KW - Ethnology KW - Vegetable oil industry KW - History KW - Social Sciences KW - Political Science UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85467214 AB - The Ngwa region lies in the heart of the Nigerian palm belt. Palm oil is one of the oldest foodstuffs of the region and has also been an export crop, produced mainly by women, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. This 1988 book describes the rise and fall of the oil palm export industry. In contrast to the views of both dependency and vent-for-surplus theorists, it is shown that patterns of export growth and capital investment were heavily influenced by locally inspired changes in food production methods, gender and intergenerational relationships. The processes of change within the domestic and export economies became increasingly closely intertwined after 1924, when African coastal middlemen began to settle further inland and to spread the knowledge of cassava and Christianity. This book draws upon a wide range of economic, botanical, anthropological and historical studies as well as on colonial archives, but its heart lies in the oral evidence and life histories generously provided by Ngwa men and women. ER -