Prosperity in Rural Africa?
Insights into Wealth, Assets, and Poverty from Longitudinal Studies in Tanzania
Published on 16. September 2021
Book
Hardback
462 pages
978-0-19-886587-2 (ISBN)
Description
How can we track change in poor rural areas where data are scarce? How do we know what general economic growth does to places which are considered rural backwaters? As poorer countries try to transform their economies, and as economies appear to be rebounding across Africa, what is that doing to the rural poor?
Prosperity in Rural Africa? provides surprising and challenging answers to these questions. It brings together the expertise of a collection of researchers with decades of experience of working in Tanzania, all of whom faced a deceptively simple task: go back to your study sites, to the places you know well, and to the families you first visited and then describe, and try to explain, the changes that you see. The result is a fascinating compilation of insights and experience into the dynamics of rural societies in Tanzania, which highlights the importance of investment in assets for rural peoples and their success in doing so, largely through their endeavours in small-holder farming. Assets are centrally important to local definitions of wealth across the country. This matters a great deal because rural people's investment in assets is not counted when poverty lines are calculated. There are sound methodological reasons for this omission. But it means that when rural people invest in assets, then that growing prosperity is invisible in development data. This book shows what those data can miss.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Prosperity in Rural Africa? provides surprising and challenging answers to these questions. It brings together the expertise of a collection of researchers with decades of experience of working in Tanzania, all of whom faced a deceptively simple task: go back to your study sites, to the places you know well, and to the families you first visited and then describe, and try to explain, the changes that you see. The result is a fascinating compilation of insights and experience into the dynamics of rural societies in Tanzania, which highlights the importance of investment in assets for rural peoples and their success in doing so, largely through their endeavours in small-holder farming. Assets are centrally important to local definitions of wealth across the country. This matters a great deal because rural people's investment in assets is not counted when poverty lines are calculated. There are sound methodological reasons for this omission. But it means that when rural people invest in assets, then that growing prosperity is invisible in development data. This book shows what those data can miss.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Reviews / Votes
Overall, here is a conceptually, theoretically, and empirically rich combination of materials for the student of rural development ... This is a must-read for all who want to understand rural social change in Africa. * Joseph Awetori Yaro, Utafiti *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
930 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-886587-2 (9780198865872)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Dan Brockington | Christine Noe
Prosperity in Rural Africa?
Insights into Wealth, Assets, and Poverty from Longitudinal Studies in Tanzania
E-Book
09/2021
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€82.49
Available for download
Dan Brockington | Christine Noe
Prosperity in Rural Africa?
Insights into Wealth, Assets, and Poverty from Longitudinal Studies in Tanzania
E-Book
09/2021
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€111.99
Available for download
Persons
Dan Brockington directs the Sheffield Institute of International Development at the University of Sheffield. He studied for his thesis at UCL with Kathy Homewood and has worked on aspects of natural resource management and livelihood change in East Africa based on long term fieldwork in remote locations. He has recently published (with Peter Billie Larson) The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs (Palgrave, 2018).
Christine Noe is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam. She trained for her PhD at the University of Cape Town where she graduated in 2009. Her research and teaching are mostly on conservation and development politics, land tenure and rights, and rural livelihood changes. She has held fellowships with the Five College Young African Scholars program (University of Massachusetts), All Africa House (University of Cape Town), and the Visiting African Fellowship (University of Cambridge). Christine believes that strong collaborations are the foundation on which solid African scholarship can be supported.
Christine Noe is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam. She trained for her PhD at the University of Cape Town where she graduated in 2009. Her research and teaching are mostly on conservation and development politics, land tenure and rights, and rural livelihood changes. She has held fellowships with the Five College Young African Scholars program (University of Massachusetts), All Africa House (University of Cape Town), and the Visiting African Fellowship (University of Cambridge). Christine believes that strong collaborations are the foundation on which solid African scholarship can be supported.
Content
1: Dan Brockington and Christine Noe: Understanding Long Term Change in Rural Tanzania
Part 1: The Role of Assets in Understanding Social Change in Rural Tanzania: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections
2: Dan Brockington and Christine Noe: Assets, Prosperity and Data in Rural Africa
3: Olivia Howland, Christine Noe, and Dan Brockington: The Multiple Meanings of Prosperity and Poverty in Tanzania
4: Dan Brockington, Ernestina Coast, Anna Mdee, Olivia Howland, and Sara Randall: Assets and Domestic Units: Methodological Challenges for Longitudinal Studies of Poverty Dynamics.
Part 2: Case Studies of Change
5: Monique Borgerhoff Mulder: Tracing the Relationships between Assets and Well-being in Complex Social Environments
6: Katherine A. Snyder, Emmanuel Sulle, Deodatus A. Massay, Anselmi Petro, Paschal Qamara, and Dan Brockington: Modern Farming and the Transformation of Livelihoods in Rural Tanzania
7: Christine Noe, Olivia Howland, and Dan Brockington: Women's Tears or Coffee Blight: A Gender Dynamics and Livelihood Strategies in Contexts of Agricultural Transformation in Tanzania
8: Dan Brockington: The Sesame Seed Cash Injection: Commodity-fuelled Asset Booms in Remote Rural Tanzania
9: William OEstberg, Dan Brockington, and Joseph Mduma: Self-made Farmers and Sustainable Changea Entrepreneurs and Development in Goima and Mirambu
10: Vesa-Mati Loiske and Dan Brockington: Prosperity, Equality, and Power: Perspectives from Gitting and Gocho, Manyara Region
11: Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, Ellen Hillbom, and Elibariki Msuya: Ricing Fortunes: Agricultural Growth, Farm Intensification, and Paddy Specialization in Two Tanzanian Villages
12: Stefano Ponte and Dan Brockington: Involution and Enterprise in Rural Areas. A Twenty-Year Perspective on Rural and Agricultural Change in Morogoro
13: Esbern Friis-Hansen: Rural and Agrarian Transformation 1984-2018 in Three Marginal Villages in Njombe Region, Tanzania
14: Cosmas Sokoni and Verdiana Tilumanywa: Exploring Long Term Changes in People's Welfare on the Uporoto Highlands, Mbeya District, Tanzania
15: Torben Birch-Thomsen and Esbern Friis-Hansen: Improved Livelihoods on Less Land: The Case of Ilambilole and Ikuwala Villages in Iringa Region, 1996-2017
16: Anna Mdee: The Urbanising Frontier, Change, and Continuity: Uchira 1996-2018.
Part 3: Conclusions
17: Christine Noe and Dan Brockington: Telling the Stories of Asset Accumulation
Christine Noe, Stefano Ponte, Dan Brockington, Anna Mdee, Cosmas Sokoni, Esbern Friis-Hansen, Verdiana Tilumanywa, Katherine Snyder, Emmanuel Sulle, Willie OEstberg, Vesa-Matti Loiske, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, and Torben Birch-Thomsen: Epilogue: Doing Longitudinal Research
Biographies of Principal Authors
Part 1: The Role of Assets in Understanding Social Change in Rural Tanzania: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections
2: Dan Brockington and Christine Noe: Assets, Prosperity and Data in Rural Africa
3: Olivia Howland, Christine Noe, and Dan Brockington: The Multiple Meanings of Prosperity and Poverty in Tanzania
4: Dan Brockington, Ernestina Coast, Anna Mdee, Olivia Howland, and Sara Randall: Assets and Domestic Units: Methodological Challenges for Longitudinal Studies of Poverty Dynamics.
Part 2: Case Studies of Change
5: Monique Borgerhoff Mulder: Tracing the Relationships between Assets and Well-being in Complex Social Environments
6: Katherine A. Snyder, Emmanuel Sulle, Deodatus A. Massay, Anselmi Petro, Paschal Qamara, and Dan Brockington: Modern Farming and the Transformation of Livelihoods in Rural Tanzania
7: Christine Noe, Olivia Howland, and Dan Brockington: Women's Tears or Coffee Blight: A Gender Dynamics and Livelihood Strategies in Contexts of Agricultural Transformation in Tanzania
8: Dan Brockington: The Sesame Seed Cash Injection: Commodity-fuelled Asset Booms in Remote Rural Tanzania
9: William OEstberg, Dan Brockington, and Joseph Mduma: Self-made Farmers and Sustainable Changea Entrepreneurs and Development in Goima and Mirambu
10: Vesa-Mati Loiske and Dan Brockington: Prosperity, Equality, and Power: Perspectives from Gitting and Gocho, Manyara Region
11: Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, Ellen Hillbom, and Elibariki Msuya: Ricing Fortunes: Agricultural Growth, Farm Intensification, and Paddy Specialization in Two Tanzanian Villages
12: Stefano Ponte and Dan Brockington: Involution and Enterprise in Rural Areas. A Twenty-Year Perspective on Rural and Agricultural Change in Morogoro
13: Esbern Friis-Hansen: Rural and Agrarian Transformation 1984-2018 in Three Marginal Villages in Njombe Region, Tanzania
14: Cosmas Sokoni and Verdiana Tilumanywa: Exploring Long Term Changes in People's Welfare on the Uporoto Highlands, Mbeya District, Tanzania
15: Torben Birch-Thomsen and Esbern Friis-Hansen: Improved Livelihoods on Less Land: The Case of Ilambilole and Ikuwala Villages in Iringa Region, 1996-2017
16: Anna Mdee: The Urbanising Frontier, Change, and Continuity: Uchira 1996-2018.
Part 3: Conclusions
17: Christine Noe and Dan Brockington: Telling the Stories of Asset Accumulation
Christine Noe, Stefano Ponte, Dan Brockington, Anna Mdee, Cosmas Sokoni, Esbern Friis-Hansen, Verdiana Tilumanywa, Katherine Snyder, Emmanuel Sulle, Willie OEstberg, Vesa-Matti Loiske, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt, and Torben Birch-Thomsen: Epilogue: Doing Longitudinal Research
Biographies of Principal Authors