Book Review: Small-Scale Production of Food and Traditional Alcoholic Beverages in Benin and Tanzania: Implications for the Promotion of Female Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Small-Scale Production of Food and Traditional Alcoholic Beverages in Benin and Tanzania: Implications for the Promotion of Female Entrepreneurship, by Johanna Maula (Helsinki: The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, 1997), 295 pp., $35.00 (paper only). During the past decade, social science literature on the role of small and micro-enterprises in international development has grown exponentially. Scholars in this field have not only delineated the nature of the so-called in worldwide, but they have effectively destroyed the myths claiming that these second economies were autonomous from the formal economy and apparent only in southern nations (MacGaffey, 1986; Portes, 1989; Feldman, 1991). Throughout this period, however, perhaps the most novel and exciting scholarship in this area has been produced by feminist social scientists and historians who drew our attention to the international division of labor by gender that circumscribed many women, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, to small enterprises and micro-enterprises. Johanna Maula's Small-Scale Production of Food and Traditional Alcoholic Beverages in Benin and Tanzania is another very important addition to this literature. Although ostensibly a study that focuses on the production of alcohol within subSaharan African societies, it is really concerned with the development of entrepreneurship among male and especially female producers and is broadly applicable to businesspersons in a wide range of micro and small-scale activities on the continent. In this regard, this study makes several unique contributions to the literature by taking a comparative approach to this topic. First, Maula's work compares entrepreneurial performance in two countries located in distinct regions of the continent: eastern Africa and western Africa. The only other study of this kind to date is the recent work by Claire Robertson (1995) comparing women's trading activities in Ghana and Kenya. In her research, Maula correctly notes the much longer history of women's entrepreneurship in West Africa, particularly in short- and longdistance trading (Sanday, 1974; Schoepf, 1992; Clark, 1994; Osirim, 1997). To fulfill their domestic responsibilities as daughters, wives and mothers and in striving for economic independence, West African women also began rotating credit schemes (or esusus) much earlier than their East African sisters. Second, Maula's study makes a unique contribution to the literature on small and micro-enterprises in that, unlike previous research, it compares women's and men's activities within the same industries. Such comparative analysis is critical as we attempt to document how structural and cultural factors, especially gender-role socialization patterns, the persistence of patriarchy, and the impact of colonialism combine to restrict women's income-earning opportunities on the continent. Third, Maula engages her readers in other multilayered comparisons, such as the distinctions in brewing and distilling practices among different ethnic groups and between urban and rural areas. To my knowledge this is the first work of its kind to combine these varied levels of comparison in a comprehensive analysis of this subject. Further, the methodology employed in this study combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data from intensive interviews with entrepreneurs and others in select communities in Benin and Tanzania were combined with a baseline community survey in the Dar es Salaam region of Tanzania that included over 1,300 respondents. In the early chapters of this book, Maula demonstrates that she is well acquainted with the growing literature on women and the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa. While she frequently cites the works of MacGaffey, Nelson, Tripp, Downing, and Kuiper, there are some notable absences in her review of the literature, namely, the works of Clark (1994), Horn (1994), and House-Midamba (1995), who have all written or edited books on this subject. …