Who's for work? The management of labour in the process of accumulation in three Adja villages, Benin

Abstract

In the rural Adja region of south-west Bénin there is a labour problem. People who want to expand their businesses need cheap and reliable labour, but such labour is difficult to find and to manage. The sort of ‘big men’ known asalo-su amè dji—those mainly interested in investing in and dominating people—would like to keep up the appearance of being a ‘big man’ with many people under their control, but they cannot avoid the modern temptation of aspiring to personal wealth. Their style of management is to use mainly domestic labour, yet they face problems as the young begin to distrust the intentions of their household heads: the latter are suspected of looking after their own interests, while their followers doubt whether they will get a fair share of the assets when there are so many of them in a large family. Furthermore, sons and dependants find a long, very low-paid ‘apprenticeship’ increasingly unacceptable.There is growing awareness of the difficulties of working with domestic labour and of the splintering effect of redistributing assets between a great many people. A small but growing number want accumulation for themselves and a limited number of descendants. This new style is associated with the sort of accumulators calledeho wu amè, people who try to maximise financial gain. They work with much less family than hired labour (and prefer a much lower rate of polygyny). But hired labour at economic rates is not easy to find and there are organisational problems.