Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, Environment, and Development in Rural West Africa (Issues of Globalization:Case Studies in Contemporary Anthropology)

Davidson, Joanna

ISBN 10: 0199358680 / ISBN 13: 9780199358687

Published by Oxford University Press, 2015

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, Environment, and Development in Rural West Africa (Issues of Globalization:Case Studies in Contemporary Anthropology)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199358680
• ISBN 13: 9780199358687
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Sacred Rice explores the cultural intricacies through which Jola farmers in West Africa are responding to their environmental and economic conditions given the centrality of a crop--rice--that is the lynchpin for their economic, social, religious, and political worlds.

Based on more than ten years of author Joanna Davidson's ethnographic and historical research on rural Guinea-Bissau, this book looks at the relationship among people, plants, and identity as it explores how a society comes to define itself through the production, consumption, and reverence of rice. It is a narrative profoundly tied to a particular place, but it is also a story of encounters with outsiders who often mediate or meddle in the rice enterprise. Although the focal point is a remote area of West Africa, the book illuminates the more universal nexus of identity, environment, and development, especially in an era when many people--rural and urban--are confronting environmental changes that challenge their livelihoods and lifestyles.

About the Author

Joanna Davidson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Boston University.