Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women / Edition 1

by Gracia Clark

Overview

In the most comprehensive analysis to date of the world of open air marketplaces of West Africa, Gracia Clark studies the market women of Kumasi, Ghana, in order to understand the key social forces that generate, maintain, and continually reshape the shifting market dynamics.

Probably the largest of its kind in West Africa, the Kumasi Central Market houses women whose positions vary from hawkers of meals and cheap manufactured goods to powerful wholesalers, who control the flow of important staples. Drawing on more than four years of field research, during which she worked alongside several influential market "Queens", Clark explains the economic, political, gender, and ethnic complexities involved in the operation of the marketplace and examines the resourcefulness of the market women in surviving the various hazards they routinely encounter, from coups d'etat to persistent sabotage of their positions from within.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226107806
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	01/01/1995
Edition description:	1
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.70(d)

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Preface
1. Stepping into the Market
2. The Regional Web
3. Persistent Transformation
4. Buying and Selling
5. Control of Resources
6. "We Know Ourselves"
7. Queens of Negotiation
8. Multiple Identities
9. Home and Husband
10. The Market under Attack
11. Surviving the Peace
Appendix: Survey Methodology
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Economic anthropologist Clark focuses on the women in the marketplace in the city of Kumasi, Ghana. She looks at such aspects of their lives and livelihood as getting into the market, the regional web, buying and selling, the control of resources, negotiations, and home and husband. Based on interviews conducted on seven consecutive days in July 1979. Paper edition (unseen), $22.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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