The moral economy of rural Hausaland: a perspective from long-term field research

ABSTRACT This essay explores a model for inequality in Nigerian rural Hausaland based on fieldwork carried out from 1977 to 1979, with follow-up visits in 1996 and from 1997 to 1998. In the model, rural differentiation in areas of high population density and intensive market networks is theorized as resulting from a trajectory of non-capitalist accumulation. Capital accumulation in such areas is limited by ‘polygynous accumulation’ and ‘cliental accumulation’. Three accumulative forms are integrated by a culturally specific Islamic morality of hidima (social responsibility for others). This morality prevents the emergence of capitalist class differences. Case studies of accumulators from the summers of 2017 and 2018 show that rural accumulators continue to build polygynous households of extraordinary size. At the same time, economic growth in the national capital, Abuja, and to a lesser extent in other northern cities, has maintained high real labour rates. Rural accumulators continue to follow the trajectory of non-capitalist accumulation.