Longing for Land : Tradition and Change in a Swazi Agricultural Community

In Southern Africa, Swazi agriculturalists increasingly depend on commercial farming to sustain their livelihood. The transition from subsistence farming has occurred partly through the implementation of development programming, but also because farmers themselves have perceived opportunities for personal advantage and have made decisions accordingly. This ethnographic study documents and explains the results of a development scheme in rural Africa. The protagonists are entrepreneurial agriculturalists, male and female, who strive to achieve proprietorial control over land which men currently hold by right of usufruct. This book describes the process by which capitalism, as structure and ideology, emerges in Swaziland. Further theoretical extensions of this book are in areas of development anthropology and in understanding the dynamics of modern African state systems. This book constitutes a critique of orthodox economic rationalism and established notions of class and class differentiation. As such, it contributes to the ongoing debate in social and political science as to the nature of capitalist enterprise.Bowen, Paul N. is the author of 'Longing for Land : Tradition and Change in a Swazi Agricultural Community', published 1993 under ISBN 9781856283984 and ISBN 1856283984.