[Book Review] Morality and Economic Growth in Rural West Africa. Indigenous Accumulation in Hausaland by Paul Clough

Abstract

This book is the product of research which the author, Paul Clough, carried out over more than twenty years, among the Hausa farmer-traders in Nigeria. The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa and, through their amalgamation with the Fulani, have dominated Nigerian politics since the country’s independence. The study draws on the notion of accumulation with special reference to capital accumulation: the investment of money or a financial asset to generate more money as profit, rent, interest, capital gain, royalties and other returns, enabling wealth to appreciate in value. While gleaning important insights from Karl Marx’s writings around the concept and processes involved, Clough’s study underlines the limits of theories having a Eurocentric bias. In the words of Canadian sociologist D. W Livingstone (1995, p. 64): “Marx as well as subsequent orthodox Marxists and most critical Western Marxist intellectuals have operated from a Eurocentric world view which has regarded European civilisation as the dynamic core of global life.” The same goes for non-Marxist classical European social theorists such as Max Weber and a host of other western intellectuals. As the book underlines, one must treat their conceptual tools carefully when applying or reinventing them in different non-Western contexts, as is the case with Nigeria [excerpt].