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The self in self-interest: land, labour and temporalities in Malawi's agrarian change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Harri Englund
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Extract

This article examines agricultural labour contracts and household-based production in Dedza District, Malawi. Deepening impoverishment seemingly creates conditions for profound social changes. In agriculture, small-scale contracts rather than big work parties mobilise the bulk of ‘extra-domestic’ labour. Although labourers are paid in cash or in kind, they are most often the recruiter's relatives or affines. The pattern fits, therefore, uneasily with the ideas of labour as a commodity and persons as mutually independent individuals. Claims about changing values must be accompanied by careful analyses of personhood. Among Dedza villagers the notion of the self in the idioms of morality discloses social relations as the origins of a person's interests. By recruiting labour, wealthy villagers make their valued relationships visible. These observations caution against viewing ‘agrarian change’ as a uniform and teleological process in which the buying and selling of labour necessarily entail individualism. As an example of how, in any case, moral sentiments are historical phenomena the article examines the predicament of landless refugees in Dedza District. Under conditions of social and material alienation, agricultural labour contracts became exploitation.

Résumé

Cet article examine les contrats de main-d'œuvre agricole et la production des ménages dans le District de Dedza, au Malawi. En apparence, l'appauvrissement croissant crée des conditions propices à de profonds changements sociaux. Dans l'agriculture, ce sont les contrats à petite échelle, et non les grandes équipes de travail, qui mobilisent la masse de la main-d'œuvre “extradomestique”. Bien qu'ils soient payés en numéraire ou en nature, les ouvriers ont le plus souvent une parenté directe ou par alliance avec le recruteur. Ce modéle ne correspond done pas bien à l'idée selon laquelle, d'une part, la main-d'œuvre est une marchandise et, d'autre part, que les individus ne sont pas interdépendants. Toute affirmation concernant les changements de valeurs doit s'accompagner d'une analyse précise de la personne. Parmi les villageois du District de Dedza, la notion du soi dans les idiomes de moralité révèle que les rapports sociaux sont à Porigine des intérêts de l'individu. En recrutant de la main-d'œuvre, les riches villageois laissent transparaître les rapports qu'ils privilégient. Ces observations mettent en garde contre l'opinion selon laquelle la “réforme agraire” est un processus uniforme et téléologique dans lequel Pachat et la vente de main-d'œuvre impliquent ńecessairèment l'individualisme. Pour illustrer comment, dans de nombreux cas, les sentiments moraux constituent des phénomènes historiques, l'article étudie la situation difficile des réfugiés sans terres du District de Dedza. Sur fond d'exclusion matérielle et sociale, les contrats de main-d'œuvre agricole sont devenus une forme d'exploitation.

Type
Suffering and the seld in southern Malawi
Information
Africa , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , January 1999 , pp. 139 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1999

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