The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse economic
change of peasant society in rural Mankon in the Cameroon-Highland.
In this area, it is the principal characteristic that cultivation of food
crops depends on women's works with labour exchange system called
ishie. Traditionally, man had another kind of side-job and developed
several exchange institutions (called nchua) using traditional money.
Now they are facing great changes as a result of the urban development
of Bamenda.
In this study, I focused attention on the change of household structure
as the method to analyse the mechanism of socio-economic change
of peasant society. Recently, the traditional roles of men and women
have been changing and the household structure has developed a variety
of 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 new
agricultural techniques, that is irrigation, using medicines etc.
(2) urban worker; salaried occupations. Sometimes, they are weekend
farmers.
(3) part-time farmer; they are traditional villagers. Most of them have
some 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. In
most cases they are wives of salaried people.
(5) traditional wife; full-time farmer. They produce staple-food
crops, mainly taro, macabo, manioc, maize, etc. Sometimes they
sell these crops in the markets.
Of course, the majority of household structures in Mankon consist
of the combination of (3 ) + ( 5 ) . They have the function of the
neutral stratum to soften the radical change of the society. On the other
hand it is important for the further analysis of the mechanism of socioeconomic
change of peasant society that we can recognize another types
of household structure, that is (2 ) + (4) or (1) + ( 5 ) , (2 ) + ( 5 ) .
カメルーン高地農民の経済生活 : その変容のメカニズム
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