State Must Be Our Master of Fire: How Peasants Craft Sustainable Development in Senegal FROM THE PUBLISHER
Over several centuries, the Serer of the Siin region of Senegal developed a complex system of land tenure that resulted in a stable rural society, productive agriculture, and a well-managed ecosystem. Dennis Galvan's book tells the story of what happened when French colonial rulers, and later the government of the newly independent Senegal, imposed new systems of land tenure and cultivation on the Serer of Siin. Galvan's book is a painstaking and skillful autopsy of ruinous Western-style "rational" economic development policy forced upon a fragile self-sustaining society. It is also a disquieting demonstration of the futility of such an approach and an attempt to articulate a better, more sensitive, and ultimately more productive model for change -- a model Galvan calls "institutional syncretism."
SYNOPSIS
Galvan studies how peasants in rural Senegal creatively combine remembered elements of local culture into modern development efforts, thus generating innovative institutional blends that can render development more sustainable by meeting the needs of state-building without sacrificing community-based solidarity, local culture, and historic identity.
Home
