Böcker av Piet Konings

First Published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book explores the relationship between plantation labour and gender in Africa. Such a study is the more opportune because most of the existing works on plantation labour in Africa seem to have either under-studied or even ignored the changing conceptions of gender on the continent in recent times. One of the book's major concerns is to demonstrate that the introduction of plantation labour during colonial rule in Africa has had significant consequences for gender roles and relations within and beyond the capitalist labour process. The book focuses on two tea estates in Anglophone Cameroon. A study of these estates is particularly interesting in that one of them employs mainly female pluckers while the other employs mainly male pluckers. This allows for an examination of any variations in male and female workers' modes of resistance to the control and exploitation they meet in the labour process. Such a comparative analysis is helpful in assessing the widespread managerial assumption on tea estates that female pluckers tend to be more productive and docile than male pluckers.

Civil society and empowerment have become buzz words in neoliberal development discourse. Yet many unanswered questions remain on the actual nature and configuration assumed by civil society in specific contexts. Typically, while neoliberals perceive civil-society organisations as vital intermediary channels for the successful implementation of desired economic and political reforms, they are inclined to blame the current resurgence of the politics of belonging for the poor record of these reforms in Africa and elsewhere. This book rejects such notions and argues that the relationship between civil society and the politics of belonging is more complex in Africa than western donors and scholars are willing to admit. Konings argues that ethno-regional associations and movements are even more significant constituents of civil society in Africa than the conventional civil-society organisations that are often uncritically imposed or endorsed. He convincingly shows how the politics of belonging, so pervasive in Cameroon, and indeed much of Africa, during the current neoliberal economic and political reforms, has tended to penetrate the entire range of associational life. This calls for a critical re-appraisal of prevalent notions and assumptions about civil society in the interest of African reality. Hence the importance of this book!