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Risky Business: Economic Uncertainty, Market Reforms and Female Livelihoods in Northeast Ghana

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  • Brenda Chalfin

Abstract

This article examines the implications of economic uncertainty for rural markets and the livelihoods of female traders. It does so through a case study of a community in northern Ghana caught in the throes of a structural adjustment‐driven privatization initiative. In order to fully comprehend the nature of the economic uncertainties in which rural economic actors are enmeshed and the manner in which they resist, engage or engender these conditions, two theoretical lenses are interposed. One, focusing on structural dissolution and an overall process of rural, and especially female, disempowerment, is drawn from recent approaches to African political economy. The other, gleaned from the field of economic anthropology, attends to the agency and knowledge of rural entrepreneurs in the face of unstable and imperfect market conditions. By bringing together these different analytic traditions, the critical significance of uncertainty within the complex process of rural economic transformation and reproduction becomes evident. Rather than functioning as a diagnostic of economic crisis and insecurity, uncertainty can be a strategic resource integral to the constitution of markets, livelihoods and economic coalitions. Such a perspective, privileging the institutional potentials of local social practice, makes apparent the forceful role played by female traders in the structuring of rural marketing systems even in the face of externally‐induced and sometimes dramatic shifts in material conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Brenda Chalfin, 2000. "Risky Business: Economic Uncertainty, Market Reforms and Female Livelihoods in Northeast Ghana," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 31(5), pages 987-1008, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:31:y:2000:i:5:p:987-1008
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-7660.00186
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    Cited by:

    1. Maitreyi Bordia Das, 2003. "The other side of self-employment : household enterprises in India," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 27873, The World Bank.
    2. Akpalu, Wisdom & Alnaa, Samuel Erasmus & Aglobitse, Peter B., 2012. "Access to microfinance and intra household business decision making: Implication for efficiency of female owned enterprises in Ghana," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 513-518.
    3. Derose, Laurie F, 2007. "Women's Work and Breastfeeding Simultaneously Rise in Ghana," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(3), pages 583-612, April.
    4. Laurie F. DeRose, 2007. "Women’s Work and Breastfeeding Simultaneously Rise in Ghana," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 583-612.

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