The Peasant Cotton Revolution in West Africa: Côte d'Ivoire, 1880-1995

Abstract

The Peasant Cotton Revolution in West Africa: Cote d'Ivoire, 1880-1995. By Thomas J. Bassett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xix, 243; 29 plates (photos), 30 figures. $64.95. Thomas Bassett brings solid historical analysis, data from longitudinal farming systems surveys, insightful interpretations from current documents, and extensive interviews over time to weave an important story of African agrarian development and policy. This book convincingly achieves the author's goal of contradicting "the dominant development narrative which portrays peasants as the simple recipients of technological innovations conceived and diffused by Western development experts" (p. xiv). Current enthusiasts for introducing genetically modified cotton as a technological breakthrough for African development would do well to heed Bassett's sound advice "to consider the temporal and social dimensions to innovation as much as the technological and institutional forms that an innovation assumes" (p. 7). Unfortunately, most of these enthusiasts have little time for Bassett's indispensable historical lessons, institutional insights, and farmer-level understanding that could lead them to reconsider their current project. Others-from historians to practitioners-should readily welcome the rich harvest from the author's historical and development analyses. Those familiar with African agrarian history will welcome Bassett's careful use of colonial archives in the Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, and France to substantiate a decidedly non-romanticized view of the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which "African farmers' actions are constitutive of the institutional environment which in turn influences their activities.... " (p. 3). The author's analysis nicely complements other historical studies of "the interplay of local forces with the larger world economy."1 It also fills an important gap in understanding the role of cotton, not just coffee and cocoa, as cultures revolutionnaires in the history of the Cote d'Ivoire.2 In addition to the invaluable socioagronomice history of cotton varieties, Bassett's concepts of the "rational peasant," "compulsory development," and "paternalistic development" discourses successfully capture his richly documented story of the colonial debates and conflicts among and between administrators and businesses. Students of contemporary West African agrarian development should find such concepts useful tools to cut through current development rhetoric. By focusing on the broad sweep of social and political changes surrounding one crop from the late 1880s into the mid-1990s, Bassett persuasively demonstrates the significance and contribution of historical analysis to a richer understanding of current development efforts. A shorter period of study would have confirmed the generally accepted "failure" of colonial project and the inability of the "repeated attempts" by colonial administrators to intensify cotton cultivation over the period 1912 to 1946. …