TY  - BOOK
AU  - Davidson,Joanna
TI  - Sacred Rice: an Ethnography of Identity, Environment, and Development in Rural West Africa 
SN  - 9780199358687
AV  - DT613.45.D56 D38 2016
U1  - 305.896 22
PY  - 2016///]
CY  - New York
PB  - Oxford University Press
KW  - Diola (African people)
KW  - Guinea-Bissau
KW  - Social life and customs
KW  - Agriculture
KW  - Rice farmers
KW  - Rice
KW  - Social aspects
KW  - Climatic changes
KW  - Economic aspects
N1  - includes bibliographic reference and index
N2  - 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. --
ER  -