This project will document the changes in farming in Burkina Faso, Upper Volta. The researcher will combine ethnographic fieldwork with archival research to analyze the changes over the colonial past in farming practices and the social relations entailed. The project will study the links between the transformation of social relations, modifications in the management of farms and production trends in local farming with the establishment of effective administration and the broadening of markets. Changes in the composition of work groups, the ownership patterns of work tools, and the gender pattern of workers and tasks will be analyzed. During the ethnographic portion of the research the anthropological researcher will be assisted by a folklorist who will study the oral narrative accounts of farming system changes. This research is important because changes in agriculture and their impact on social relations are not well understood in Africa, while the changes have been radical. Understanding the past African experience will help us improve that experience in the future as well as provide a comparison that will help us understand and improve the social relations of farming in our own country.
