SHEA BUTTER REPUBLIC
State Power, Global Markets and the making of an Indigenous Commodity
photo: google image
Author: Brenda Chalfin
Review by:
Kishor Subba Limbu
About
Author
Brenda Chalfin is a professor at the Department of
Anthropology at the University
of Florida. She had
earned her PhD in 1998 from the University
of Pennsylvania. She is
the director of African Studies at the University of Florida.
Brenda Chalfin has two book publications: 1) Shea Butter
Republic: State Power, Global Markets, and the Making of an Indigenous
Commodity (Routledge, 2004), and 2). Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of
Sovereignty in West Africa (Chicago,
2010)
Summary
of the book:
Technically, the book is divided into six chapters with an
introduction at the beginning and a conclusion. The book is about the
historical development of an indigenous product, shea butter, its
commercialization, and how it becomes a luxurious global commodity. Brenda
Chalfin has done two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Bawku district of
northern Ghana
from 1994 to 2000.
The Bawku district is in Ghana's
far northeast corner, bordering Togo
in the east and Burkina Faso
in the north. The majority of the locals are indigenous Kusasi, Mossi, Dagomba,
Mamprussi, Business, Bimoba, Hausa, and Zaberma people.The population of the
Bawku is 300,000, according to the Ghana Statistical Service Report of 1998.
Environmental degradation and limited investment by the government cause the
Bawku district to be the most impoverished area of Ghana, with 97 percent of the
population below the national poverty line (p. 32).
The indigenous peoples' homes were made of mud bricks and
roofed with thatch or zinc. Households and patrilineal families house multiple
generations.Containing an array of rooms ringing an inner courtyard and
surrounded by a high mud wall, these compound homes can easily be altered to
reflect changing family needs, wealth, and composition. (p.32)
The household economy depends on the peasantry, and
slash-and-burn cultivation is common in practice. When possible, farmers manure
their plots, especially those close to their homes and livestock corrals. Apply
chemical fertilizer—bullock ploughing and vegetation of food crops such as
millet, sorghum, maize, cowpeas, Bambara beans, peanuts, and the like—if they
can afford it.Household members work for the household's consumption according
to their age and gender. Yield depends on the proportion of rainfall and
climate change; periodic drought and environmental degradation cause more
labour in agriculture and emphasise the importance of off-farm income
generation activities.
Shea trees are indigenous to Africa and grow wild
throughout the vast west African savanna zone stretching from Cameroon to Senegal
and encompassing Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria,
Togo, Benin, Mali,
Niger, and Burkina Faso.
Shea may also be found further east in Uganda
and Sudan
(p. 1). Shea butter extraction is the definitive work and skill of the women in
the Savana region. Traditionally, Savana people have multiple uses for shea
butter; for instance, they use it for food, medicine, health, skincare, making
soap and candles, leatherworking, dying, and the like.
The "shea butter" (known in Francophone countries
as Karite) extraction process is very long and time-consuming. In the rainy
season, females collect the shea fruit; generally, they prefer to order fruit
from the ground because they know that the fallen fruits are mature and have a
rich intake of the oil on the seed. They dry the fruits in the sunlight, remove
the husk, remove the shell with a stone or wooden mallet, and sort the seeds.
They remove the terrible roots and dry them in the sunlight. Drying is always
challenging because of the uncertain rain. If the seed is wet from rain, it
will dry back, and more importantly, the rain will degrade the seed's
quality.The seed must be ground into flour, then roasted, and the roasted flour
must be finely ground.The fine powder of the shea has to be put into a big
vessel. When water is added, women marinate it correctly. It is the job of
power. They are adding water slowly to the paste. Oily particles come on top of
the water as raw butter. Females take it out handful by handful in another
vessel, then boil the natural butter; liquid must filter and pour into the put,
then leave to set. Shea butter is ready when it turns golden in colour and can
be stored for years.
General
discussion
The book is very insightful in understanding shea butter as
an indigenous female's product of the Savana region. Shea butter has multiple
meanings and uses for local women. Shea is a female who generates autonomous
extra income for herself. Despite the fact that shea income is female income,
females spend it on household needs. Because shea has the potential to be a
mass commodity, shea butter has become a global commodity with political
interest.
Chalfry clients her ethnography on the Shea market's
chronological development from the beginning, the colonial era, and continuous
development in the postcolonial era. One of the worthwhile monographs explains
how local products like shea became global commodities and how the expansion of
the shea market led to the economic, political, and social empowerment of
Savana women.
The extraction of shea butter is a time-consuming, skilled,
and labor-intensive process.The extraction process needs several hands and
passion, from shea nut collection to shea butter extraction. Workers in the
reciprocal mutual labour system work in groups to manage multiple labor.The
shea butter extraction skills come from observation and practise from childhood
until old age. The shea butter extraction process is the general division of
labour. Young females take hard work, and old, ageing, experienced females
are caring for and supervising the shea butter extraction process.
"Son Taba" is the traditional reciprocal mutual labour exchange
system practised by the Savan women and the "Nyoor Yini" organised
labour exchange. Nyoor Yini is the female workforce for multiple social needs.
for instance, ritual performances, the building of houses, and so on.
"Susu" is the banking system practised by local women; the Susu
system is run through mutual understanding without any legal registration for
the financial activities. Women save their portion of earnings by selling to
susu collectors in the markets, or sometimes the susu collector visits the
farmer's home to collect and withdraw their balance.
The book deals with three aspects: the first is the
"political economy" of the local product. Shea nut commercialization
in global markets made an Indie great product.Shea nuts became a source of the
colonial period's political and economic commodities. British colonial gold
cost projects expand the global shea nut industry. Commercialization of shea
nuts begins in the 1940s during the Gold Coast colonial era, and the global
market for shea butter accelerates in the 1980s-1990s during the postcolonial
era.
The government of Ghana centralised the shea
industry. Only the state agents, or those licenced by the state, were
authorised to purchase and export shea nuts. The state-based Produce Buying Company
(PBC) has developed networks in the local markets. Shea Nut Farmers Societies
(SNFS) were formed at the local level as the cornerstone of the PBC's shea
purchasing bodies at the local level.
In the 1990s, the shea nut market became free for private
buyers. Then private companies and international suppliers' companies
penetrated the shea market. IMF, World Bank, USAID, and other big multinational
organizations' involvement can be observed in the transformation of the shea
nut market from a "local to global" context.
Second, Shea nuts became popular as a global commodity,
with commercialization in international markets.The limitations of shea butter
products within the savanna region and for subsistence household-based products
cross borders with mass commodities production of shea nuts for the
cosmopolitan consumer, as taste, status markers, and purchasing power all shift
quickly.For instance, ChocolateChocolate's luxurious cosmetic productions—body
lotions, scrubs, lip balms, perfume, shaving cream, diaper ointment, shampoo,
suntan lotion, massage oil, and hair treatments, etc.—became popular in the
global consumer realm. Shea commodities are available in big stores, malls, and
publications about newspapers and other media.
Shea is a highlight in European markets due to the
substitution of cocoa.The great transformation of the "political
economy" in the regime of chocolate was that shea butter has a low melting
point, is cheaper than cocoa butter, is organic, and has flavour qualities that
make it a better option to use shea butter instead of cocoa butter.
The third is the impact of the commercialization of shea
nuts at the local level. Neuton's theory of motion states that "there is
an equal reaction to every action," and positivist social science believes
that "the cause and effect relationship of the social
phenomenon" Thus, the successful trade history of shea has had an
impact on the local level, primarily on the cultural, social, political, gender
relations, consumption practices, and the like of the indigenous peoples who
have close relationships with shea. It is because they are the traditional
users of the shea on a subsistence basis.
When a local product becomes a global commodity that
impacts the traditional local system and the markets, the monograph is a blur
in the local conventional productions and farmers' impacts. Sidny Mintz (1985),
in "Sweetness and Power," explores how the commercialization of sugar
impacts "slave trading" and the "expansion of Christianity among
indigenous peoples." Chalfin presents the economic, social, and political
impact on the local women of shea nut trading. For instance, when shea trading
creates an income-generating opportunity for the local women, the women's
economic growth empowers social status in the household and society. The
empowerment of women in the social and economic sphere provides political and
decision-making rights. For example, despite being nominal and informal, she
must make decisions about the shea market, such as price fixing, and deliver
justice when a dispute arises in the markets and the like.
The changing consumer culture at the local level can be
observed, and farmers prefer to invest in agricultural productions, buying
seeds, fertilizers, and land. Because agriculture is an important source of
food security for household needs, they want to secure it vis-Ã -vis poor
farmers' expenses in their daily household consumption materials and the
well-off farmers' objectives of capital maximization. However, presenting some
of the positive effects of shea nut commercialization is incomplete without
addressing holistic anthropology and social transformation, such as the impact
of shea nut trade on cultural ritual performance, daily life behaviour and
practices, norms and values, education, belief systems, and so on. How do the
indigenous Savana people perceive being researched on "belonging"
with the Chalfin study? What is the situation of the traditional shea butter
extraction after the commercialization of the shea nuts? Shea butter practices?
markets for shea butter? Availability of the nuts and price The learning
process and involvement of the new generation in the traditional shea butter
extraction
In relation to the monograph, the monograph thoroughly
discusses traditional shea butter production and the development of shea nut
trading.Women are the primary producers of shea, and Chalfin defines the shea
economy as extra-income activities run by women.The monograph is more focused
on the "political economy"—national and international politics,
policy, markets—than anthropological subjects to analyze, for instance,
society, culture, ritual, performance, norms, values, human ecology,
biodiversity, and the like. The data generation process is also more focused on
secondary sources, like archival records, state policies, international
treaties, and publications, than on primary sources, like life history,
biography, folklore, myths, experiences, and the people's narration, which are
commonly used in anthropological studies.
Methodological
discussion:
Brenda Chalfin has done ethnographic research in the Bawku
district of northeast Ghana.
She has conducted ethnographic research on indigenous women's practises in shea
butter production, traditional shea markets, and the global commercialization
of shea nuts: shea nut collection, processing, shea butter extraction, shea
markets, collection agents, national and international suppliers, shea
production, shea product sellers, marketing strategies, and shea product
consumers.Secondary data are generated from archival records, government
policies, international market policies, political histories, publications, and
the like. Although she does not clarify ethnographic observation, her data
presentation in the monograph makes sense if she had done a non-participatory
observation on the fieldwork.
"Comparative ethnographic research, archival sources,
macroeconomic data, and policy documents Based on a twenty-month field study
conducted in rural households and markets in 1994, 1995, 1996, and
2000.Alongside state agents and the employees of formal-sector export firms,
the book tells the story of market and state restructuring primarily from the
vantage point of the men and women who work and reside in Bawku District,
located in Ghana's far northeast corner. Multilocal in nature, these data also
include the experiences of merchants, state personnel, and formal-sector
employees based in Ghana's
national capital, Accra,
and other regional centres. This is supplemented by ethnographic observation
and interviews in the United
States carried out among those who sell and
purchase shea as a luxury commodity, in addition to library and Internet
research on international economic policy, corporate strategy and marketing,
and consumption trends (p. 25).
The monograph does not make clear sense to the readers in
terms of methodology.For instance, is observation participatory or
non-participatory? The significance or importance of the field selection,
ethical issues encountered while researching the monograph's publication
Chalfin is more concerned with "political economy" from the top down
-- national and supranational politics, market economy, commodity politics,
national and international agents -- than anthropological concerns such as
culture, traditions, ritual, performance, local knowledge systems, practices,
biodiversity, human ecology, and so on.
Fieldwork is the hallmark of ethnography, and the primary
job of the ethnographer is to generate rich data from the field. "The
ethnographic gesture" is movement, both physical and intellectual, that
leads the scientist to decontextualize himself socially in order to
re-contextualize on the "ground."(Pina-Cabral, 2007). Chalfin has
spent twenty months in the field in 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 2000, which
means she has not been very "engaged" in the field while doing her
ethnographic fieldwork. That is the journalistic position of the
researcher. Simply visiting the field and spending some time there,
observing major events on the field from the top "Egal eyes views" or
"telescopic views" on social phenomena, and collecting data for the
"rites of passage" (Gennep, 1960) is insufficient for an
anthropological ethnographic study. The snapshot view and data collection would
not allow for the collection of rich data for ethnographic research.
There were some examples of the fieldwork's failure while
doing ethnographic fieldwork when I was suffering from my master's dissertation
fieldwork. Once in an informal gathering, talking about fieldwork and myths,
one of the senior anthropologists shared exciting and inspiring stories about
doing fieldwork. Gerald Berreman (1962) and Robert Desjarlais (2002) were
awe-inspiring and inspiring.
Berreman has done his ethnographic fieldwork with the
northeast Himalayan people in India; after successful fieldwork, he returns
from the field, prepares his research job for the final publication, then
revisits the area to validate the data he used in his study. While revisiting
places and informants and cross-checking data for verification, he found
several gaps and misinterpretations in his data collection. He then decided to
reorganise the in-depth fieldwork for the study, and at last, he published his
research as a monograph, "Behind Many Masks: Ethnography and Impression
Management in a Himalayan Village." a famous "theory of impression
management."
The other was the story of the Desjarlais. He has done
ethnographic fieldwork in the Himalayan Yolmo community in Nepal. He had
successfully finished his fieldwork, and he was preparing a backpack to return
from the field. People were relaxing around the hearth in the warm glow of the
fire when he visited his informants to see them off in the evening, having and
sharing homemade beer, roasted potatoes, hot water, and the like.People were
having an informal conversation about their day jobs, social events,
activities, and the like at the time.That makes sense to him then, when
storming with the collected data and planning to stay for a few more days to
cross-check and verify data, when he uses this informal talking method in the
evening time, people aren't in a hurry for work and have no pressure on their
minds, and at that time they share real stories of the events and happenings,
when comparing with his data collection, he finds that the data are entirely
different.Then he revised his research methodology and reorganised the fieldwork.
For the method, he coined the term "KURAGRAPHY," which stands for Kura (Nepali) - talk and Graphy = KURAGRAPHY.The book
"Sensory Biographies: Lives and Deaths Among Nepal's Yolmo Buddhists"
is based on the kuragraphy. The importance of "fieldwork experience"
constitutes a complex web of engaged knowledge, in which the subject of
experience is both the "trained researcher" and the "character
in the local drama" (Pina-Cabral, 1992).
Chalfin justifies her choice of ethnographic field with a
story about her first visit to Northern Ghana
in 1985 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolga and Nvarongo.As an anthropology
graduate, she was intrigued by issues of ethnicity, economy, and domesticity.
"In 1990, I returned to northern Gana to pursue a
ten-week dissertation feasibility study in Bawku district focusing on the
social organisation of trade." In the short time I was there, it became
clear that the presence or absence of state regulation and surveillance shaped
relationships among traders, whether cooperative or competitive, not only in
countries where much African economic activity is trees of
international-financial-institutions-mandated economic reforms, but also in
countries where much African economic activity is not.With Ghana regarded as a
structural adjustment success story ripe for foreign investment and export
diversification, it seemed appropriate to consider the impact of these trends
on economic conditions in the northeast, a region physically separated from
national centres of power and long overlooked in the country's development
agenda."In particular, I wonder about the implications of these policies,
with their focus on market reform—a shorthand for privatisation and market
promotion—for the extensive commercial matrix already in place" (p. x).
Nonetheless, the field comes to mind as a prime location
for shea trading.or is there any significant contribution to the
commercialization of shea butter? Is there an extreme impact of the shea trade
on anthropological concerns?
Qualitative methods have been adopted for data generation
with the support of quantitative data as needed in the situation. Most of the
data used in the monograph is based on secondary sources such as archival
records, national and international policies, treaties, agreements, amendments,
decrees, laws, bylaws, regulations, reports, publications, business records,
and the like instead of focusing on primary data generated from indigenous oral
histories, myths, folklore, biography, life histories, experiences, and
observations, which are the familiar sources of qualitative data generated in
ethnographic research and cultural anthropology. Chalfin deployed observation
as a data generation tool to some extent. However, the monograph is more
influenced by the secondary data and makes less use of the local narratives to
present and analyze. That may raise the issue of the validity of the data
presented in the monograph.
The interdisciplinary approach is more influenced by the
political-economic, market, and globalisation theoretical orientations and is
subordinate to the anthropological academic position. The political economy of
the Shea was led by a "formalist economy" and overshadowed by the
"substantive economic aspect of the Shea" (Polanyi, 1944). The
monograph thoroughly engaged in "vertical generalization" (Viegas,
2009) of the formal economic behaviour of national to supranational actors on
Shea treads, neoliberal capital maximizer markets of Shea, mass productions of
luxurious cosmetics and chocolate production, the politics of Shea demands, the
transformation of Shea needs, and its impact on "The Global to Local"
(Appadurai, 1996) level Shea farmers as a center-periphery level
At last, "Indigenous people" is a relatively
recent term that emerged in the 1970s out of the American Indian Movement's
(AIM) struggle and the Canadian Indian Brotherhood. "It is a term that
internationalises the experiences, the issues, and the efforts of some of the
world's colonised people" (Smith, 1999). In their research and study, indigenous
scholars raise a variety of arguments.They reject the western hegemony in
knowledge production. The researcher's epistemological development with the
western knowledge system, selecting a community to research based on the
researcher's interest, and entering the field as an "outsider" from
the community means that the entire process of "othering" (Said,
1978) to people is done in the name of the native, tribal, indigenous,
subaltern, minorities, fourth people, hunters and gatherers, and the like, and
the western researcher (outsider) produces the knowledge.
My master's dissertation, "KULUNG COMMUNITY AND ALLO
PRACTICES: An Anthropological Study of Relationship Between Allo and the Kulung
Community of Khandabari, Sankhuwa Sabha," was chosen for the monograph. The
dissertation is about how an indigenous community transforms their traditional
product into an indigenous commodity in the global market.In my research, the
local peoples, as well as national and international organizations, are the
actors in the commercialization and introduction of an indigenous product into
global markets.When I saw "state power, global markets, and the making of
an indigenous commodity" as a subtitle of the monograph, I was excited to
read it with the image that the indigenous peoples would be the actors to
transform their indigenous product into a global commodity, or it would be
national and international organisations as the promoters of the indigenous
product as an indigenous commodity in the worldwide market. But when I was thoroughly
reading the monograph, I was looking for the indigenous people's position. The
indigenous product is: where, when, and how? They benefit from commoditized
shea.The monograph is thoroughly engaged in a "vertical or top-down
approach" to analyse the world market hierarchy from the European centre
to the state centre. Then, local markets and farmers are lower in rank.
Finally, I agreed with Linda Tuhiwai Smith's (1999),
"Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples," the
western scholar who creates a western epistemologically driven research project
by selecting one of the communities, naming it an indigenous community,
spending some time and doing fieldwork, and writing about the researched
communities, culture, and claiming that it is an indigenous study.I was
wondering, if the research was done from the indigenous Savana people's insider
perspective, putting indigenous people's knowledge, people, and shea product,
as well as the Savana shea producer's perspective in the research, what are the
contributions of shea commercialization that may trace out for the holistic
development of the indigenous Savana people (in all aspects: socially,
culturally, economically, politically, etc.)?
Conclusion
Brenda Chalfin's "Shea Butter Republic: State Power,
Global Markets, and the Making of an Indigenous Commodity" is an
insightful monograph to understand the Savana region's political economy. The
monograph presents rich information about colonial market strategies,
international resource politics, and national and international actors'
behaviour.
Traditional shea butter extraction is the work of the
Savana women. It is very long and time-consuming; traditionally, shea butter
has multiple uses, such as food, medicine, health, skincare, making soap,
candles, leatherworking, dying, and the like. Shea commercialization occurred
in the colonial era and accelerated in the postcolonial era. Shea's mass
production as luxurious cosmetics includes: body lotions, scrubs, lip balms,
perfume, shaving cream, diaper ointment, shampoo, suntan lotion, massage oil, hair
treatments, etc. The commercialization of shea nuts provides an
income-generating opportunity vis-Ã -vis social empowerment for the Savana
women. Economic empowerment influences Savana women's changing consumer
culture.Although the monograph is helpful in understanding the shea economy and
commercialization, the political economy of markets, and national and
international intervention in shea nut trading, some questions from the
perspective of indigenous peoples may arise.
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