Jane I. Guyer

In America, almost all the money in circulation passes through financial institutions every day. But in Nigeria's "cash and carry" system, 90 percent of the currency never comes back to a bank after it's issued. What happens when two such radically different economies meet and mingle, as they have for centuries in Atlantic Africa? The answer is a rich diversity of economic practices responsive to both local and global circumstances. In Marginal Gains, Jane I. Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous currency zones, and within the modern popular economy. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Guyer demonstrates that the region shares a coherent, if loosely knit, commercial culture. She shows how that culture actually works in daily practice, addressing both its differing scales of value and the many settings in which it operates, from crisis conditions to ordinary household budgets. The result is a landmark study that reveals not just how popular economic systems work in Africa, but possibly elsewhere in the Third World.

Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa

Marginal Gains

LaRay Denzer

Adigun A. B. Agbaje

This study examines the operations of the popular economy and social life of southern Nigerian people under the incoherent conditions that followed Nigeria's first currency devaluation in 1986. It describes in detail the institutional and cultural innovations that fostered local economic activity and strengthened social groupings. The book questions standard views of either chaos or stagnation in the African popular economy under autocratic rule and incoherent policy. It shows how over 100 million people continued to make a living and maintain high levels of equanimity and productivity even in the face of chronic turbulence. Despite economic challenges, regrouping, institutional innovation and cultural elaboration did take place, often in ways that reforged the relationship between formal and informal economic practices and among local, regional, and global economies. The book's case studies, taken together, identify distinct patterns and directions of growth at a time when many observers thought that chaos seemed the most likely outcome. This is an important contribution to the literature on the social history of globalization and to interdisciplinary analyses of local social, cultural, and political economic systems.

Jane I. Guyer

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