Book Reviews:
Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng. Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade, 1834-1934. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2006, VI + 261 pp.
Jeggan C. Senghor. The Politics of Senegambian Integration, 1958-1994. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang Publishers, 2008, 335 pp.
Professor Abdoulaye Saine, Miami University
Submitted as Ph.D. dissertations in 1974 and 1979 by Alieu Jeng and Jeggan Senghor at Birmingham and Yale Universities in the U.K and the US, respectively, each title covers an important period in the history of The Gambia. Jeng’s dissertation benefited from additional archival research by Kenneth Swindell, while Senghor extended his dissertation, which initially covered the period between 1958-1974 to now include the 1974-1994, period. Additionally, the theoretical foundations/assumptions from which each book proceeded were in large measure informed by the theoretical debates of the time- “Labor/ Peasant” and “Integration” Studies of the 1950s and 1960s. The results are two finely crafted and succinctly argued scholarly books that on their own and collectively make significant contribution(s) to Gambian and African Studies.
Migrants, Credit and Climate tells the story of how Gambian peasants, following the end of the slave trade in the late 1870s, became enmeshed in the new but growing legitimate trade in primary commodities, groundnuts. The consequence of the shift in trade from enslaved Africans to primary production was to irreversibly restructure both economic and social relations of the Senegambia region and The Gambia’s, specifically. This gave rise to and intensified the phenomenon of the “strange farmer” in The Gambia, which not only helped to increase the production of groundnuts for export but also incorporated Gambians and Gambian farmers into a global capitalist-economy. In time, export crops partly because of demand and support it received from the British Colonial Administration undercut production of food crops in The Gambia. The result was the reliance on rice imports, which when combined with seasonal famines and droughts deepened the dependence of farmers on imported rice and European consumer goods. In time, a complex relationship between European subsidiaries and their Gambia intermediaries, Gambian farmers and the colonial state ensued.
Credit to farmers through an emerging African client-group of groundnut “traders” during the “hungry season,” was paid back in cash or in kind after the harvest and sale of groundnuts. With what little money that was left, farmers then purchased rice, imported European goods and paid taxes. Almost penniless and hungry, farmers would be once again forced into taking more loans at very high interest to secure seedlings for the impending planting season and rice to tide them over the “hungry season.” This economic relationship was inherently exploitative; the major beneficiaries being the foreign business sector and the colonial state. The duo often colluded as a monopoly at the expense of Gambian farmers. This structured commercial relationship resulted in a cyclical debt-trap, which in the end, left The Gambia and Gambian farmers in a state of perpetual indebtedness and harrowing poverty. This economic relationship also had the negative effect of stimulating groundnut exports while it dampened production of food crops. This institutionalized process, to this day has resulted in a high import demand for rice to feed farmers and their “strange farmers” in the rural areas.
Also, British Colonial Policy indifference saw little infrastructure development in The Gambia, even when there were many years of revenue surpluses, according to Swindell and Jeng. More often, these surpluses were used, for instance, to support Britain’s campaigns in World War II in which several thousand Gambian men fought and died, with little to show for it after they returned home. In the end, Swindell and Jeng succeeded in capturing the complexity that the shift from illegal to legitimate trade had on The Gambia and its peoples. They highlighted eloquently the nexus between the colonial state, international capitalism and the social and economic relations of production, consumption and exploitation.
Regrettably, the theoretical assumptions of the book were never made explicit. This was deliberate, as Swindell and Jeng “tempered theories which see imperial and colonial forces as monolithic” (p. 243). This turned out to be a weakness of the book. It would have been useful to contrast the authors’ theoretical assumptions against those they termed “monolithic.” That is, the rich literature informed by the“ modes of production,” “World-Systems” debates of the time that were made popular by Wallerstein and applied so well by Donald Wright in his study of Nuimi. Partly because of this, Swindell and Jeng’s conclusions seemed sanitized because the data and the arguments provided were not pushed far enough. Furthermore, by not challenging the “monolithic” theoretical arguments and provide contrasting, and possibly more compelling ones, and simply dismissing them uncritically, the authors weakened what little conceptual base the book had.
What is the “monolithic” view? I am not sure which theories Swindell and Jeng include in this category. I can only surmise from the debates of the 1970s to mid-1980s that these theories would have include: Marxist/Dependency/World-System and the more stridently Marxist “Modes of Production” Approaches that were made popular by the Egyptian-born scholar, Samir Amin, Emmanuel Arrigi and Miles Wolpe. These approaches were and still are critical of slavery, colonialism, capitalism and their economic and social distortions, which these scholars argue (d) resulted in the underdevelopment of the (neo) colony and the colonized. And while they share a lot in common, it would be a bit of an overstatement to term them “monolithic.”
Theoretical issues aside, this is an important book that chronicles a formative period in The Gambia’s history. Consequently, reading it would enable one comprehend the genesis of its contemporary social and economic formations. More importantly, the authors help one understand, (without saying so explicitly in their conclusion), how The Gambia’s incorporation into a global capitalist-economy of unequal exchange laid the economic and social foundation of the country’s underdevelopment. And it is to this and earlier periods that one must turn to partly account the country’s post-independence crisis and external dependence. This perspective is what Swindell and Jeng dismissed as the “monolithic” view.
Confronted with The Gambia’s improbable viability as a country, the British Colonial Office, in collaboration with the United Nations (UN) argued in support of The Gambia’s integration with Senegal. Thus, The Politics of Senegambian Integeration dovetails in several important ways- both theoretical and historical with Swindle and Jeng’s book. At the time Senghor completed his dissertation in1979 at Yale, empirical studies as well as theories of Integration held sway in the academy. A year earlier in 1978, Kalidu Bayo had completed a dissertation at Northwestern University on “Senegambian Integration” and so did Amadou S. Janneh in the early 1990s at the University of Tennessee. Thus, in the late 1970s theories of “political development/ modernization” of which “political/ economic integration” research was a part were in vogue. And by the mid-1980s, these theories were gradually being eclipsed by “Dependency and neo-Marxist” Theories of “Development.”
Not withstanding, Senghor’s book is a seminal contribution to the former body of knowledge and to Senegalo-gambian integration and history, as the book is rich in the history and politics of the sub-region. Senghor painstakingly lays out a neo-functionalist/ institutionalism theoretical foundation and proceeds to chronicle the history of the Senegambia region, colonial rivalries, formal colonization and efforts to integrate both The Gambia and Senegal, following UN feasibility study before independence. This enabled Senghor to then analyze the internal political and economic dynamics and specific challenges within each country. The attempted 1981 coup is also discussed along with the ERP policies of the Jawara/ PPP era in the mid-1980s. The reader is consequently treated to a nuanced historical analysis of the Senegambian Confederation, signing of the protocols in Kaur, which led to its formal establishment in 1982. Senghor highlights the structural foundation that dogged the confederation right from the start; how it was foisted on the populations of The Gambia and Senegal, and how regional instability and conflict between Senegal and Mauritania, specifically deflected attention from the confederation itself.
Added to these were numerous internal challenges to the Senegambian Confederation. These included: mutually reinforcing elite perceptions or misperceptions, particularly President Abdou Diouf’s- that Jawara showed little support for Senegal during its conflict with Mauritania. This resulted in Diouf’s (mis) perception that Jawara lacked the requisite commitment to the Senegambian Confederation, which in his view led Jawara to slowdown the integration process considerably. Also, Jawara’s attempt to renegotiate some key protocols, proved detrimental. In fact, President Jawara’s push to have the presidency of the confederation rotated “was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back (p. 283). Senghor also argued that the lack of support for the Senegambian Confederation by Opposition political parties in both entities further doomed it. Similarly, public perceptions that the confederation was a “marriage of convenience,” coupled with Senegal’s failure to sponsor in The Gambia a sympathetic constituency to shore up the confederation contributed to its demise. In the end, the Senegambian Confederation collapse in 1989, against a backdrop of mounting economic problems in Senegal,
This is a well-researched, written and historically layered book. Yet while Senghor ended his narrative in 1994, there is no mention made of the 1994 coup and its immediate aftermath. Understandably, this was not the focus of the book. However, a discussion of Gambian history and/ or politics to 1994 that does not include a word on the coup leaves out an important formative episode in this country’s history. Despite this omission, Senghor’s book is a seminal contribution. Organizationally, the book could have benefited from a concluding chapter or summary to highlight its main arguments.
In conclusion, both volumes fill important gaps in The Gambia’s history and fittingly, the growing scholarly literature on The Gambia is once more enriched by their publication. The authors must be applauded for their persistence in converting doctoral dissertations first submitted in the 1970s at the Center for West African Studies and Yale University, respectively, into books. I am glad they did, as the books can now be accessible to the specialist and the general reader alike.
**Gambian born Dr. Abdoulaye Saine is a professor of Political Science & Comparative American Studies at The Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA.
Contact: sainea@muohio.edu