Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-r8qmj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-17T01:48:44.949Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Becoming a bwana and burley tobacco in the Central Region of Malawi*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2009

Martin Prowse
Martin Prowse*
Affiliation:
Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13, B-2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
*
Email: martin.prowse@ua.ac.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Smallholders now grow most of Malawi's main export crop – burley tobacco. Based on nineteen months' fieldwork in the Central Region, this article offers a sociological interpretation of why some smallholder growers spend a proportion of burley income on conspicuous consumption in rural towns and trading centres. This practice can be seen as a form of inculcated behaviour whereby smallholders reproduce elements of one model of success in this region: that of the Malawian tobacco bwana (boss/master). The article discusses implications from this form of potlatch behaviour by describing the contrasting fortunes of two non-farm rural enterprises, examining data on how tobacco production and ‘cooling off’ is viewed by wives, and comparing the crop preferences of husbands and wives. It concludes by suggesting that the concept of conspicuous consumption may provide an alternative prism to the instrumental lens of neo-patrimonialism through which to view apparently unintelligible investment decisions in African economies.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 575 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

The research for this paper was conducted whilst I was a PhD candidate at the University of Manchester. I gratefully acknowledge Economic and Social Research Council funding, and my affiliation to the Centre for Social Research, Zomba, and the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi (NASFAM). I thank Juveta Nkhata and Sirjent Saka for excellent research assistance, Jens Andersson and Richard Sherrington for their comments, and Jan Kees van Donge for his enthusiasm in studying the sociology of economic life. Thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewers whose comments have improved the paper considerably.

References

REFERENCES

Booth, D., Cammack, D., Harrigan, J., Kanyongolo, E., Mataure, M. & Ngwira, N.. 2006. ‘Drivers of change and development in Malawi’, working paper 261. London: ODI.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryceson, D. F. 2006. ‘Ganyu casual labour, famine and HIV/AIDS in rural Malawi: causality and casualty’, Journal of Modern African Studies 44, 2: 173–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cammack, D. 2004. ‘Poorly performing countries: Malawi, 1980–2002’, Background Paper 3 for ODI study on Poorly Performing Countries. London: ODI.Google Scholar
Campbell, C. 1995. ‘Conspicuous confusion – a critique of Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption’, Sociological Theory 13, 1: 37–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, J., Gordon, D., Hirschmann, D., Martella, D. & Simmons, E.. 1993. Mid-Term Evaluation of the Agricultural Sector Assistance Program (ASAP). Lilongwe: USAID.Google Scholar
Conroy, A. 1993. ‘The economics of smallholder maize production in Malawi with reference to the market for hybrid seed and fertilizer’, University of Manchester, unpublished PhD thesis.Google Scholar
Conroy, A. 2005. ‘Poverty, AIDS and the food crisis’, in Levy, S., ed. Starter Packs: a strategy to fight hunger in developing countries. Wallingford: CABI Publishing, 219–28.Google Scholar
Englund, H., ed. 2002. A Democracy of Chameleons: politics and culture in the new Malawi. Blantyre: Christian Literature Association in Malawi.Google Scholar
Fanon, F. 1968. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Francis, E. 2000. Making a Living: changing livelihoods in rural Africa. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. 1994. Consumption and Identity. Reading: Harwood Academic.Google Scholar
Gondola, D. 1999. ‘Dream and drama: the search for elegance among Congolese youth’, African Studies Review 42, 1: 23–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrigan, J. 2001. From Dictatorship to Democracy: economic policy in Malawi, 1964–2000. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Heald, S. 1991. ‘Tobacco, time and the household economy in two Kenyan societies: the Teso and the Kuria’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, 1: 130–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaffee, S. 2003. Malawi's Tobacco Sector: standing on one strong leg is better than on none. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Kothari, U. 2006. ‘An agenda for thinking about “race” in development’, Progress in Development Studies 6, 1: 9–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kydd, J. 1984. ‘Malawi in the 1970s: development policies and economic change’, in Malawi: an alternative pattern of development. University of Edinburgh, Centre for African Studies.Google Scholar
Kydd, J. & Christiansen, R. E.. 1982. ‘Structural change in Malawi since independence: consequences of a development strategy based on large scale agriculture’, World Development 17, 5: 355–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kydd, J. & Hewitt, A.. 1986. ‘The effectiveness of structural adjustment lending: initial evidence from Malawi’, World Development 14, 3: 347–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layard, R. 2003. ‘Income and happiness: rethinking economic policy’, Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures 2002/3, London School of Economics, 4.3.2003.Google Scholar
Lwanda, J. 2006. ‘Kwacha: the violence of money in Malawi's politics, 1954–2004’, Journal of Southern African Studies 32, 3: 525–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCracken, J. 1983. ‘Planters, peasants and the colonial state: the impact of the native tobacco board in the central province of Malawi’, Journal of Southern African Studies 9, 2: 172–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCracken, J. 1984. ‘Sharecropping in Malawi: the visiting tenant system in the Central Province, c. 1920–1968’, in McCracken, J., ed. Malawi: an alternative pattern of development. University of Edinburgh, Centre for African Studies, 157–74.Google Scholar
Mintz, S. W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: the place of sugar in modern history. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Mkandawire, T. 2005. ‘African intellectuals and nationalism’, in Mkandawire, T., ed. African Intellectuals: rethinking politics, language, gender and development. London: Zed Books, 10–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mkandawire, R., Jaffee, S. & Bertoli, S.. 1990. Beyond ‘Dualism’: the changing face of the leasehold estate sub-sector of Malawi. New York: Institute for Development Anthropology.Google Scholar
National Statistics Office (NSO). 2000. 1998 Malawi Population and Housing Census: report of final census results. Zomba: National Statistics Office.Google Scholar
Ng'ong'ola, C. 1986. ‘Malawi's agricultural economy and the evolution of legislation on the production and marketing of peasant economic crops’, Journal of Southern African Studies 12, 2: 240–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, A. 2000. ‘“Green gold”? Burley tobacco, smallholder agriculture, and poverty alleviation in Malawi’, World Development 28, 2: 347–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, A. & Mwale, B.. 2001. ‘Adapting to adjustment: smallholder livelihood strategies in southern Malawi’, World Development 29, 8: 1325–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, A., Mwale, B. et al. 2001. ‘Market liberalisation, household food security and the rural poor in Malawi’, European Journal of Development Research 13, 1: 47–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E. 1996. ‘Failed magic or social context? Market liberalization and the rural poor in Malawi’, Development Discussion Paper 562, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International Development.Google Scholar
Peters, P. E. 1999. ‘Agricultural commercialization, rural economy and household livelihoods 1990–1997’, Final Report to USAID, Lilongwe, Malawi.Google Scholar
Peters, P. E. 2006. ‘Rural income and poverty in a time of radical change in Malawi’, Journal of Development Studies 42, 2: 322–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, P. E., Herrera, M. G et al. 1989. ‘Cash cropping, food security and nutrition: the effects of agricultural commercialization among smallholders in Malawi’, Cambridge MA: Harvard Institute for International Development.Google Scholar
Rutherford, B. A. 2001. Working on the Margins: black workers, white farmers in postcolonial Zimbabwe. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Sahn, D. E. & Arulpragasam, J.. 1991. Development through Dualism? Land tenure, policy and poverty in Malawi. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, S. 1975. ‘Economic developments in Malawi since independence’, Journal of Southern African Studies 2, 1: 30–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tobin, R. J. & Knausenberger, W. I.. 1998. ‘Dilemmas of development: burley tobacco, the environment and economic growth in Malawi’, Journal of Southern African Studies 24, 2: 405–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trigg, A. B. 2001. ‘Veblen, Bourdieu, and conspicuous consumption’, Journal of Economic Issues 35, 1: 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
USAID. 1994. Malawi Agriculture Sector Assistance Program (ASAP) PAAD Amendment. Lilongwe: USAID.Google Scholar
van Donge, J. K. 2002a. ‘Disordering the market: the liberalisation of burley tobacco in Malawi in the 1990s’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28, 1: 89–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Donge, J. K. 2002b. ‘The fate of an African “chaebol”: Malawi's Press Corporation after democratisation’, Journal of Modern African Studies 40, 4: 651–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veblen, T. 1899. The Theory of the Leisure Class: an economic study in the evolution of institutions. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Whiteside, M. 1998. When the Whole is More than the Sum of the Parts: the effect of cross-border interactions on livelihood security in southern Malawi and northern Mozambique. Oxford: Oxfam GB.Google Scholar
Wilshaw, C. 1994. A Century of Growth: Malawi's tobacco industry, 1893–1993. Blantyre: Central Africana Ltd.Google Scholar
World Bank. 1994. Project Completion Report: Malawi – Agricultural Sector Adjustment Credit (Cr. 2121-MAI). Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. 1997. Accelerating Malawi's Growth: long-term prospects and transitional problems. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Zeller, M. 1997. Growth Linkages of Smallholder Tobacco Production in Malawi. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Zeller, M., Diagne, A. et al. 1998. ‘Market access by smallholder farmers in Malawi: implications for technology adoption, agricultural productivity and crop income’, Agricultural Economics 19: 219–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar