essay
Traditional market economy in south Dahomey
Markets in Africa • (9) • Published In 1962 • Pages: 89-102
By: Tardits, Claudine, Tardits, Claude.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Originally published as a chapter in an edited volume on “Markets in Africa,” this document provides detailed description of the market economy in South Dahomey. It shows that the region has long established trading centers connecting rural villages with cities and the international economy. When conducting fieldwork in the region in 1954-1955, the authors observed that “one can walk scarcely five or six miles without coming across a market place.” One of these markets, which provided detailed information for this study, was a densely populated rural village that served as an active market place for exchange among farmers inhabiting different agro-ecological zones. Marketing as an economic activity was well-integrated in the gender-based division of labor; men specialized in farming or fishing while women marketed the produce. Women exercised control over income from profits and this gave them significant economic power including the ability to engage in a lucrative deal of lending money to their husbands against their future crops.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Community structure
- Internal trade
- Exchange transactions
- External trade
- Division of labor by gender
- Gender status
- Gender roles and issues
- Family relationships
- Production and supply
- Buying and selling
- Wholesale marketing
- Retail marketing
- Saving and investment
- Credit
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Fon
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2016
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Teferi Abate Adem ; 2014
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1954-1955
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1954-1955
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Benin (Dahomey)
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Claudine and Claude Tardits
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 61012383
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Fon (African people)