Currency Devaluation and Rank: The Yoruba and Akan Experiences

1 September 2007

journal article
Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in African Studies Review

Vol. 50 (2) , 87-109
https://doi.org/10.1353/arw.2007.0077

Abstract

: Jane Guyer has clearly demonstrated in Marginal Gains (2004) that the ranking of people historically was linked to quantitative scales of money. Guyer's study focuses on the Igbo and Ibibio, two societies in which ranking was by achievement rather than ascription. How do ranking and money interface in other African societies with strong monarchical or centralized social systems? What impact does currency instability have on rank in such societies? This paper examines these questions. Focusing on the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Akan of Ghana, it evaluates the degree to which ranking has been affected by currency devaluation and economic instability since the mid-1980s.

Keywords

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:

Culture, Politics, and Money Among the Yoruba
Published by Taylor & Francis ,2018
Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective
The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 2001
Structural Adjustment Reconsidered: Economic Policy and Poverty in Africa
African Studies Review, 1999
Structural Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Population and Development Review, 1996
The Ghanaian Factory Worker
Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1972