Joanna Davidson (Department of Anthropology, Emory University)

Thank you for visiting the Writer's Well, Joanna, can you tell us about your project?


Joanna Davidson, Guest of The Writer's Well March 07-11-2011



I am in the process of writing a book manuscript entitled Sacred Rice: Identity, Environment, and Development in Rural West Africa.  Based on over ten years of ethnographic and historical research among Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau, the book explores how rural residents in this region are responding to a range of environmental and economic changes that challenge their capacity to continue the rice cultivation methods that have long defined them as a people.  The story of how Diola are responding to their dramatically changed circumstances resonates with a larger story, in which we all participate, about acknowledging a disappearing resource base, whether in a rice economy, an oil-based economy, a postindustrial town, or a megalopolis reaching its limits. 

Sacred Rice tackles the broad problem of systemic change by zooming in on the intricate details of individual life stories, and zooming out to elucidate the wider context, constraints, and opportunities that shape—and are shaped by—such individuals.  These few days at the Writer’s Well have been enormously productive, as I have been able to “zoom in” and draft a chapter on one of the book’s central characters: AmpaBadji.  Born in 1960 in a rural Diola village, AmpaBadji has lived through the most significant milestones of the past half century: the waning era of Portuguese colonialism, the 11-year independence war, the arrival of many missionaries, the still-shaky transition to independence, the ongoing turbulence of an economically weak and often violent state, the introduction of schooling, and a fluctuating set of environmental conditions and unpredictable pattern of rainfall throughout.  His life story tell a compact history of the last century in Guinea-Bissau, as he reflects upon his parents and grandparents, provides candid accounts of his own biography, and hazards predictions about what is to come for his children and grandchildren.

AmpaBadji is also a member of one of the first cohorts of Diola boys who were brought into the Italian Catholic mission that established itself in his village just prior to his birth.  Against his parent’s will, he stayed in the mission school and completed fourth grade, after which he was eligible to become a teacher himself.  Although he was an early adopter of schooling, he has nonetheless spent his life in the rice paddies, trying to sustain his family with ever-dwindling harvests.  He considers this his true work, despite his long-term position as a teacher in a nearby village school.  AmpaBadji’s story speaks to the various pushes and pulls in contemporary Diola society, in which Diola farmers acknowledge the decline in rice that makes it unfeasible as the centerpiece of their society, and yet are compelled (and often compel each other) to continue rice cultivation as their primary occupation.

It’s been a pleasure – although also a challenge – to re-immerse myself in AmpaBadji’s words through the countless interviews and interactions I’ve had with him over many years.  As I piece together his life history, I have been trying to articulate what it has to tell us about changing cultural economies in rural West Africa.  In a larger sense this has forced me to reflect on how any individual account can illuminate broad processes of social reproduction and improvisation.

"Joanna Davidson joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology as a specialist in African Anthropology. She earned a Ph.D. at Emory University and currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship there. Her specialties include, among other things, political ecology, rurality and agrarian societies, cultural conceptions of knowledge, and critical international studies. She has long experience working with NGOs on projects relating to social entrepreneurship and rural development in Africa, Latin America, and other regions."

http://www.bu.edu/anthrop/people/faculty/j-davidson/

http://www.bu.edu/anthrop/news-events/events/

http://www.bu.edu/cas/about/faculty/new-faculty/2009/