Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T02:32:37.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

POLLY HILL: CROSSING AND CONTESTING THE BOUNDARIES OF ANTHROPOLOGY, ECONOMICS, AFRICAN STUDIES, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP STUDIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2021

Robert W. Dimand  and
Kojo Saffu
Robert W. Dimand*
Affiliation:
Robert W. Dimand: Department of Economics, Brock University;
Kojo Saffu
Affiliation:
Kojo Saffu: Goodman School of Business, Brock University.
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: rdimand@brocku.ca.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Polly Hill spent her long, productive, and at times controversial career crossing and contesting disciplinary boundaries. She graduated in economics at Cambridge, but her doctorate was in social anthropology—with economist Joan Robinson as dissertation supervisor. Her thirteen years at the University of Ghana were initially in economics, then in African studies, and her readership at Cambridge was in Commonwealth studies. As a woman in several male-dominated academic disciplines without a secure base in any (and with distinctive, unorthodox opinions in each), she never obtained a tenure-track appointment despite ten books and fifty scholarly articles. Her books drew attention to the underrecognized agency of indigenous entrepreneurs while her Development Economics on Trial: The Anthropological Case for the Prosecution (1986) critiqued a discipline, disciplinary boundaries, and outside experts, both mainstream and radical.

Type
Symposium: Economics and its Boundaries
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 279 - 296
Copyright
© The History of Economics Society, 2021

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.)

Footnotes

We are very grateful to Gerardo Serra for sharing his transcripts from the Polly Hill Papers.

References

ARCHIVAL COLLECTION

Polly Hill Papers, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (see Barbara K. Hammond and Musifiky Mwanasali 1994, and subsequent online revisions). Cited as PH.Google Scholar
A bibliography of Polly Hill’s published writings appeared in 2006 in Cambridge Anthropology 26 (1): 62–69.Google Scholar

REFERENCES

Agarwal, Bina. 1994. A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ardichvili, Alexander, Cardozo, Richard, and Ray, Sourav. 2003. “A Theory of Entrepreneurial Opportunity Identification and Development.” Journal of Business Venturing 18 (1): 105–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aslanbeigui, Nahid, and Oakes, Guy. 2009. The Provocative Joan Robinson: The Making of a Cambridge Economist. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 1997. “Introduction” to Polly Hill, The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana. Classics in African Anthropology edition. Oxford: James Currey and International African Institute, pp. ix–xxviii.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2003a. Human Pawning in Asante, 1820–1950: Markets and Coercion, Gender and Cocoa. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2003b. “African Rural Capitalism, Cocoa Farming and Economic Growth in Colonial Ghana.” In Falola, Toyin, ed., Ghana in Africa and the World: Essays in Honor of Adu Boahen. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, pp. 437–453.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2005. Labor, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labor in Asante, 1807–1956. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2011. “A. G. Hopkins, West Africa and Economic History.” In Falola, Toyin and Brownell, Emily, eds., Africa, Empire and Globalization: Essays in Honor of A. G. Hopkins. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, pp. 51–80.Google Scholar
Bardhan, Pranab, ed. 1989. Conversations between Anthropologists and Economists: Methodological Issues in Measuring Economic Change in Rural India. Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bardhan, Pranab, and Ray, Isha, eds. 2008. The Contested Commons: Conversations between Economists and Anthropologists. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Basu, Kaushik. 1997. Analytical Development Economics: The Less Developed Economy Revisited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter. 1948. The Rubber Industry: A Study in Competition and Monopoly. London: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter. 1954. West African Trade: A Study of Competition, Oligopoly and Monopoly in a Changing Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter. 1957. Economic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter, and Yamey, Basil. 1957. The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries. Cambridge Economic Handbooks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bharadwaj, Krishna. 1974. Production Conditions in Indian Agriculture as Reflected in the Farm Management Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bharadwaj, Krishna. 1989. Themes in Value and Distribution: Classical Theory Reappraised. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Bliss, Christopher, and Stern, Nicholas. 1982. Palanpur: The Economy of an Indian Village. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice, ed. 1975. Marxist Analyses and Social Anthropology. London: Malaby Press.Google Scholar
Bohannon, Paul, and Dalton, George, eds. 1962. Markets in Africa. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Cook, Scott, and Young, Michael W.. 2016. “Malinowski, Herskovits and the Controversy over Economics in Anthropology.” History of Political Economy 48 (4): 657–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, George. 1968. “Economics, Economic Development and Economic Anthropology.” Journal of Economic Issues 2 (2): 173–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desai, Vandana, and Potter, Robert, eds. 2008. The Companion to Development Studies. Second edition. London: Hodder.Google Scholar
Dimand, Robert W., and Saffu, Kojo. 2017. “Polly Hill (1914–2005).” In Cord, Robert A.., ed., The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics. Volume 2. London, Basingstoke, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 857–870.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, James, Hanke, Steve, and Walters, Alan, eds. 1998. The Revolution in Development Economics. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.Google Scholar
Easterly, William. 2016. The Economics of International Development: Foreign Aid versus Freedom for the World’s Poor. IEA Hayek Memorial Lecture. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
Epstein, T. Scarlett. 1962. Economic Development and Social Change in South Asia. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, T. Scarlett. 1973. South India: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Mysore Villages Revisited. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, T. Scarlett. 2005. Swimming Upstream: A Jewish Refugee from Vienna. London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell.Google Scholar
Firth, Raymond, ed. 1967. Themes in Economic Anthropology. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Gacs, Ute, Khan, Aisha, McIntyre, Jerrie, and Weinberg, Ruth, eds. 1988. Women Anthropologists: Selected Biographies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack. 1995. The Expansive Moment: Anthropology in Britain and in Africa, 1918–1970. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregory, Christopher A. 2006. “Polly Hill (1914–2005).” In Clark, D. A., ed., The Elgar Companion to Development Studies. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 223–226.Google Scholar
Hammond, Barbara, and Mwanasali, Musifiky. 1994. Guide to the Polly Hill Papers. Evanston, IL: Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University (later updates online).Google Scholar
Hann, Chris, and Hart, Keith. 2016. Economic Anthropology: History, Ethnography, Critique. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Geoffrey C. 1993–94. “Krishna Bharadwaj, August 21, 1935–March 8, 1992: A Memoir.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 16 (2): 299–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, Keith, 2005. “Polly Hill: An Academic Who Pinpointed a Unique Class of African Farming Entrepreneurs.” The Guardian, 26 August, p. 31.Google Scholar
Hill, Archibald V. 1960. The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings. New York: Rockefeller Institute Press in association with Oxford University Press. Reprinted London: Scientific Book Guild, 1962.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1940. The Unemployment Services: A Report Prepared for the Fabian Society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1956. The Gold Coast Cocoa Farmer: A Preliminary Survey. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1962. “Some Characteristics of Indigenous West African Enterprise.” Economic Bulletin of Ghana 6 (1): 3–14.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1963. The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana: A Study in Rural Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1966. “Notes on Traditional Market Authority and Market Periodicity in West Africa.” Journal of African History 7(2): 295–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1970. Studies in Rural Capitalism in West Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1972. Rural Hausa: A Village and a Setting. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1977. Population, Prosperity, and Poverty: Rural Kano, 1900 and 1970. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1978. “Problems with A. G. Hopkins’ Economic History of West Africa .” African Economic History 6: 127–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1982 . Dry Grain Farming Families: Hausaland (Nigeria) and Karnataka (India) Compared. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1986. Development Economics on Trial: The Anthropological Case for a Prosecution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Polly. 1992. Fante Villages in Southern Ghana: Migration and the ‘Hopelessness’ of Food Farming. Cambridge, UK: African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hill, Polly, and Keynes, Richard, eds. 1989. Lydia and Maynard: The Letters between Lydia Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes. London: André Deutsch.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Antony G. 1973. An Economic History of West Africa. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Antony G. 1978. “An Economic History of West Africa: A Further Comment.” African Economic History 6: 139–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jerven, Morten. 2013. Poor Numbers: How We are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jerven, Morten. 2015. Africa: Why Economists Get It Wrong. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Kerr, Prue. 2017. “Joan Violet Robinson (1903–1983).” In Cord, Robert, ed., The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics. London and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 673–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirzner, Israel. 1997. “Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach.” Journal of Economic Literature 35 (1): 60–85.Google Scholar
Kirzner, Israel. 2009. “The Alert and Creative Entrepreneur: A Clarification.” Small Business Economics 32 (2): 145–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Frank. 1941. “Anthropology and Economics.” Journal of Political Economy 49 (2): 247–268, with rejoinder by Melville Herskovits, pp. 269–278. Both reprinted in Melville Herskovits, ed., Economic Anthropology . New York: Knopf, 1952.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, Adam. 1973. Anthropologists and Anthropology: The British School 1922–1972. Hardmondsworth, UK: Penguin.Google Scholar
Lodewijks, John. 1994. “Anthropologists and Economists: Conflict or Cooperation?” Journal of Economic Methodology 1 (1): 81–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan. 1996. “Interview with Polly Hill,” 20 July. Available at http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/ancestors/Hill.html and https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1121408. Accessed February 21, 2021.Google Scholar
Mills, David. 2009. “Hill, Mary Eglantyne [Polly] (1914–2005).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, article 96631. https://www.oxforddnb.com/page/Free-ODNB. Accessed February 21, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nir, Sarah Maslin. 2019. “In Africa, Taking up Farming to Change Attitudes.” New York Times International Weekly. June 8, p. 4.Google Scholar
Ogburn, William, and Goldenweiser, Alexander, eds. 1927. The Social Sciences and Their Interrelations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Perham, Margery. 1937. Native Administration in Nigeria. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Perham, Margery. 1960. Lugard: The Years of Authority, 1898–1945. London: Collins.Google Scholar
Perham, Margery, ed. 1946 . The Native Economies of Nigeria . Volume 1. London: Faber.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard. 1980. “Anthropology and Economics.” Journal of Political Economy 88 (3): 608–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, Claire. 1984 . Sharing the Same Bowl: A Socioeconomic History of Women and Class in Accra, Ghana. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Joan. 1979. Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment. Modern Cambridge Economics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen, and Cooley, Jane C.. 1999. “Outstanding Female Economists in the Analysis and Practice of Development Economics.” World Development 27 (8): 1397–1411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saffu, Kojo, and Anum, Adote. 2005. “Growth Strategies of Ghanaian Female Entrepreneurs.” Conference Proceedings of 6th International Academy of African Business and Development. Dar-es-Salaam. Best Paper Award in Entrepreneurship.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph. [1911] 1934. The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Serra, Gerardo. 2018. “Pleas for Fieldwork: Polly Hill on Observation and Induction, 1966–1982.” Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology 36B: 93–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simms, Ruth. 1981. “The African Woman as Entrepreneur: Problems and Perspectives on their Roles.” In Steady, F. C., ed., The Black Woman Cross-Culturally. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, pp. 141–168.Google Scholar
The Economist. 2002a. “A Voice for the Poor: As Friedrich Hayek Was to Socialism, Peter Bauer Is to Foreign Aid.” May 4, p. 76.Google Scholar
The Economist. 2002b. “Peter Bauer.” May 11, p. 76.Google Scholar
The Economist. 2018. “Sweet Dreams: Cocoa Processing Is Not a Golden Ticket for West Africa.” November 17, p. 54.Google Scholar
Tribe, Keith. 2018. “The Colonial Office and British Development Economics, 1940–60.” In Alacevich, M. and Boianovsky, M., eds., “The Political Economy of Development Economics: A Historical Perspective.” Annual Supplement to History of Political Economy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 97–113.Google Scholar
Yamey, Basil. 1987. “Peter Bauer: Economist and Scholar.” Cato Journal 1 (1): 21–27.Google Scholar