International African Institute

Itinéraires d'accumulation au Cameroun by Peter Geschiere; Piet Konings

Review by: Andreas Eckert
Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 64, No. 4 (1994), pp. 589-591
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1161387 .
Accessed: 18/11/2011 08:34

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press and International African Institute are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.

http://www.jstor.org
 BOOK REVIEWS 589

demographic and anthropological aspects of growth, maturation, fertility, mortality

and disease. The main collection concludes with recommendations on diet, food pro-
duction and use, land use and broader development and economic issues. There are
also valuable appendices on land use and a long and detailed section on local techni-
ques of food processing. The reports are constructed around clear and thorough data
tables throughout. Although 1940s data presentation does not include all the infor-
mation for detailed statistical comparisons with present-day work, the tables nonethe-
less have tremendous potential for comparative analysis. The editors provide useful
linking and explanatory material, set out in a distinct typeface.
The editors have carried out a phenomenal task in putting together the material in
this book. Together with the publishers they must be congratulated not only on their
achievement but on making a generally very attractively presented book available at
an exceedingly reasonable price, despite the great amount of specialist data it con-
tains. This is not a work to read at a sitting. It is a reference work to be consulted
by postgraduates planning their fieldwork, by researchers analysing contemporary
results and hoping to learn from an historical perspective, by historians of Africa
wanting to draw on the best data that first-hand scientific observation could produce
at the time. Every researcher working on African food systems, land and natural
resource use, development or history should use this book.
KATHERINEM. HOMEWOOD
University College London

and PIET KONINGS(eds.) Itineraires d'accumulation au Cameroun.

PETERGESCHIERE
Paris: Karthala, 1993, 393 pp., 160-00 francs, ISBN 2 86537 405 X.

In Africa economic modes of accumulation sometimes follow unexpected pathways.

Since independence, hidden or informal ways of enrichment have developed which
operate on the margin of circuits controlled by the state. The famous 'tontines' of
west Cameroon provide a striking example of this development: so much money is
invested in them that they have shaken the country's banking system to its core.
Of late, there has been growing interest in the existence of 'alternative' modes of
accumulation operating more or less outside the purview of the state. Particularly
after the publication of the 1989 World Bank report on the crisis in sub-Saharan
Africa, it has become common to expose the failures of the state in Africa, it has
become common to expose the failures of the state in Africa and to insist on the
need of by-passing centralised formations in favour of social groups and agencies
capable of stimulating real development. It seems to be a precarious undertaking,
however, to oppose 'state' and 'society'. Certainly, as regards Cameroon, the articles
in this volume show clearly that things are both more complex and more ambiguous.
The object is rather to gain deeper insight into the complex intertwinement of state
and society since decolonisation. Indeed, the present collection shows that a real with-
drawal of the state would be exceedingly difficult to implement. On the contrary, the
present crisis in Cameroon calls for forms of co-operation between the state and
entrepreneurs.
Two sets of questions form a kind of leitmotif for the articles included in the volume
at hand. (1) What is the exact relation between state and accumulation? Do modes of
accumulation really take place 'outside' the state or do they constitute informal or
even illegal excrescences of the state? (2) What types of regional variation occur in
the grafting of new forms of accumulation on to existing patterns of organisation?
Not surprisingly, the various chapters of the book provide very different perspectives
on this issue. The differences are compounded by the fact that the various authors use
the notion of accumulation in a broad, and therefore variable, sense. As it is employed
590 BOOK REVIEWS

here, it refers not only to the accumulation of capital but also to the accumulation of
land, labour or even 'symbolic capital'. In the introduction Geschiere and Konings
plead, all in all convincingly, for the notion of 'accumulation'. Unlike class, this
notion, however vague, seems to be a useful starting point and theoretical framework
for the kind of analysis of political economy undertaken in this volume.
The first and perhaps most interesting part of the book contains two case studies of
more or less successful forms of accumulation in Cameroon, by Miaffo and Warnier
and by Rowlands; they are complemented by a wider regional perspective (a Fisiy and
Geschiere contribution), which devotes particular attention to witchcraft and sorcery
as supposed obstacles to accumulation. Miaffo and Warnier discuss the complex rela-
tionship between state and private initiative and the grafting of new forms of accumu-
lation on to existing patterns of organisation among the Bamileke of west Cameroon.
On the basis of the biographies of sixty-five Bamileke entrepreneursthe authors pro-
vide a fascinating analysis of the various strategies towards 'disaccumulation' from
within the family. It is shown that hierarchy, inequalities, domination, migrations,
beliefs, and commercial habitus, among other things, play an important
role in the success of Bamileke entrepreneurs.The authors emphasise, however, that
these elements in and of themselves cannot be considered as causes. They only count
in the social and cultural configurations of the whole. In his study of Bamenda
businessmen of the neighbouring North West Province, Rowlands distinguishes
between an older group of entrepreneurs who were actually 'self-made' men and a
newer group that started from a foothold within the state. This, according to
Rowlands, implies two alternative and competing visions of grassfields society. One
is village-based, communitarian and links access to titles acquired in the context of
a traditional hierarchy with quite pragmatic concerns such as protection from mis-
fortune, illness and death. The other, which is urban and economically dominant,
links success with avoidance of kinship obligations, the pursuit of an ethos of achieve-
ment through work and saving, and openness to ideas of progress and national devel-
opment, while still using the idioms of title and kinship to organise household and
business social relations. Fisiy and Geschiere analyse different discourses of sorcery
and witchcraft and their implications for modern processes of accumulation in differ-
ent parts of Cameroon. The comparative study by these authors shows most clearly
that the same idioms of sorcery at times have strong levelling effects and at times
encourage further accumulation. These variations can be explained at least partly
by different family structures in the regions concerned. As the authors correctly
emphasise, discourses of sorcery try to link global developments and local, realities
(often at the family level). Thus further research into sorcery and witchcraft could
help us to understand better the tendency to 'non-accumulation' or non-productive
accumulation in Cameroon and in Africa.
The second part of the book deals with the impact of the state on patterns of accu-
mulation at the national level. The papers by both Jua and Vallee focus on changes in
patterns of accumulation following the transition from the Ahidjo to the Biya period.
Jua points out that the increasing infusion of oil revenues created substantial oppor-
tunities for capital accumulation, especially among social groups closely allied to the
state. The features of this form of accumulation include dissipation of economic sur-
plus and the waste of government capabilities. Vallee tries to explain why the Biya
regime increasingly resorted to external borrowing, leading to a substantial rise in
the national debt. In his excellent account of cocoa production in German Came-
roon, Clarence-Smith stresses that the choice between plantations and smallholder
farming is crucial for the economic future of Cameroon, as for that of many other
Third World countries. He argues convincingly that the German debates about plant-
ation versus smallholder production of cocoa illuminate many aspects of the choices
Cameroon must face in the 1990s. His (admittedly cautious) prognosis, however, that
 BOOK REVIEWS 591

in the near future smallholder production may once again prove more efficient than
plantation production seems overly speculative. Koning's paper, finally, examines
recent developments in the relationship between plantation and peasant production
in the South West Province of Cameroon. He shows why the introduction of small-
holder schemes under pressure from the World Bank have, for the most part, been
a failure.
The three fine case studies that constitute the third part of the volume by Goheen
(on the Nso region), Holtedahl (on Ngaoundere) and Van Santen (on Mokolo) focus
on a topic vital to future economic development in Cameroon: women's opportunities
for accumulation. All three papers emphasise that changes in women's access to new
modes of accumulation seem to be closely related to processes of state formation and
to their impact on local patterns. These contributions constitute an extremely import-
ant addition to the other articles. Of particular interest, in this context, is the fact that
they stress the crucial role of old and new marriage strategies in relation to accumula-
tion.
The final chapters of the volume, written by the most eloquent 'big men' of
Cameroon studies, provide, respectively, a kind of summary and a discussion of the
present political situation. Bayart draws some conclusions about the relationship
between the post-colonial state and accumulation in Cameroon. In his epilogue,
Mbembe provides a-perhaps somewhat rough-analysis of the effects of the state's
present legitimation crisis on the political system of Cameroon.
All in all, the volume is a successful and stimulating effort to discuss the complex
relationship between state and accumulation in Cameroon. Bur further research is
needed both to analyse more fully the considerable regional variations and to study
other important entrepreneurial groups in Cameroon. Itineraires d'accumulationau
Cameroun lays important theoretical and empirical grounds for related studies of
Cameroon as well as of other African countries.
ANDREAS ECKERT
University of Hamburg

WARNIER, L'Esprit d'entreprise au Cameroun. Paris: Karthala, 1993,

JEAN-PIERRE
301 pp.

This is an inspiring book. Warnier treats a topic-African entrepreneurship-which

is quite fashionable today but of which in-depth studies are still scarce. Moreover, he
follows an original approach which tries to link culture with economics, individual
action with cultural determination. The group which he studies requires such a broad
approach. He deals especially with the grassfields entrepreneursof western and north-
western Cameroon (for Warnier, the term grassfieldersincludes both the francophone
Bamileke and the anglophone Bamenda, historically and culturally closely related but
separated by a colonial border). Bamileke entrepreneursplay a remarkable role in the
Cameroonian economy. According to Warnier, businessmen of this group, 17 per
cent of the national population, control 35-90 per cent of Cameroonian capital.
The striking vagueness of the last figure reflects well the popular feeling that
Bamileke businessmen are behind everything. Often their undeniable economic
strength is attributed to this group's propensity to trade, which again is explained
by specific traits in their culture.
Warnier is well qualified to analyse this enigma. He has done extensive research in
the grassfields which led to an impressive series of publications (some with Michael
Rowlands, to whom he refers in several chapters of the present book). But he also
worked for a longer period in Yaounde, in the central region of Cameroon. Thus