Skip to main content

The Broken Hoe

Cultural Reconfiguration in Biase Southeast Nigeria

In this study of the Biase, a small ethnic group living in Nigeria’s Cross River State, David Uru Iyam attempts to resolve a long-standing controversy among development theorists: must Third World peoples adopt Western attitudes, practices, and technologies to improve their standard of living or are indigenous beliefs, technologies, and strategies better suited to local conditions?

The Biase today face social and economic pressures that seriously strain their ability to cope with the realities of modern Nigeria. Iyam, an anthropologist and a Biase, examines the relationship between culture and development as played out in projects in local communities.

Western technologies and beliefs alone cannot ensure economic growth and modernization, Iyam shows, and should not necessarily be imposed on poor rural groups who may not be prepared to incorporate them; neither, however, is it possible to recover indigenous coping strategies given the complexities of the postcolonial world. A successful development strategy, Iyam argues, needs to strengthen local managerial capacity, and he offers suggestions as to how this can be done in a range of cultural and social settings.

248 pages | 28 halftones, 7 line drawings, 11 tables | 6 x 9 | © 1995

African Studies

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
1: Issues in Rural Development
2: The Biase of Southeastern Nigeria
3: Use of Environmental Resources
4: Managing the Environment
5: The Economy
6: Biase Social Organization and the Reconstruction of Gender Roles
7: Rural Politics in a State Polity
8: Ideology
9: Implications for Anthropology
Glossary of Agwagune Words
References
Index

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press