Comparative Historical Analysis of Occupational Structure and Urbanization Across Sub-Saharan Africa
This session presents and discusses papers from the AFCHOS project, based at Cambridge University, which brings together scholars from a dozen countries (https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/internationaloccupations/afchos/). The aim is to construct datasets on occupational structures and urbanization across Africa, in the colonial and post-independence periods, which will be commensurable both with each other and with the INCHOS project on Eurasia and North America. Quantitative analysis of occupational structures is especially pertinent to our understanding of structural change in African economies, supplementing the much-criticized national income accounts. Studying the changing sectoral composition of African economies can illuminate the mechanisms of economic expansion, and the constraints upon it, particularly during structural shifts such as the growth of agricultural exporting during the colonial period, the state-led development strategies in the first decades after independence, the adoption of ‘Structural Adjustment’ in the 1980s, and the recent period of general economic expansion – without industrialization – since c.1995.
Organizer(s)
- Gareth Austin, Cambridge University, Austin
Session members
- Gareth Austin, Cambridge University, Austin
- Jutta Bolt, Lund University and Groningen University, Bolt
- Johan Fourie, Stellenbosch University, Fourie
- Ewout Frankema, Wageningen University, Frankema
- Stefania Galli, Gothenburg University, Galli
- Erik Green, Lund University, Green
- Michiel de Haas, Wageningen University, de Haas
- Ellen Hillbom, Lund University, Hillbom
- Dácil Juif, Wageningen University, Juif
- Duncan Money, Free State University, Money
- Karin Pallaver, Bologna University, Pallaver
- Rory Pilosoff, Free State University, Pilosoff
- Filipa Ribeiro da Silva , International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands, Ribeiro da Silva
- Marlous van Waijenburg, Northwestern University (moving to Michigan University, van Waijenburg
Proposed discussant(s)
- Leigh Shaw-Taylor, Cambridge University, Shaw-Taylor
- Damilola Adebayo, Cambridge University, Adebayo