Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, Environment, and

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

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.
Country USA
Brand Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer Oxford University Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9780199358687
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780199358687
ReleaseDate 2015-08-14

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