Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers Mobilizing Labor and Land in the Lake Kivu Region, Congo and Rwanda (1918-1960/62) (African History, 9)

In Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers Sven Van Melkebeke offers an account of the divergent development of coffee production in eastern Congo and western Rwanda during the colonial period. Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers: Mobilizing Labor and Land in the Lake Kivu Region, Congo and Rwanda (1918–1960/62) Copyright Contents List of Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1 Relevance of This Research 1.1 A Historiographical Sketch of Belgian Africa 1.2 Theoretical Framework 2 Geographical and Temporal Scope 3 Coffee Cultivation in Belgian Africa 4 Methodology and Sources 5 Administrative Note 6 Outline Prelude The Lake Kivu Region in the Nineteenth Century 1 Lake Kivu's Communities 2 Peculiarities of the Region Part 1: Structural Basis 1 Coffee Production: From the Global to the Local 1 The Roots 2 Producing for the Global Market 3 Conclusion 2 Explaining the Divergence 1 Historiography Divergence in Rural Production Systems 2 The Lake Kivu Region Why Diversity? 3 Diversity in Reverse 4 Conclusion Part 2: On the Ground 3 Mobilizing Land for the Coffee Sector 1 The Congolese Kivu Customary Land Systems and the Early Colonial Period 2 The Rwandan Kivu 3 Conclusion 4 Mobilizing Coffee-cultivating Labor 1 Colonial Coffee Labor 2 Coffee Labor in the Mandate 3 Conclusion 5 Coffee Labor on the Spot 1 Workforce West of Lake Kivu 2 Workforce East of Lake Kivu 3 Conclusion 6 African Feedback 1 "Weapons of the weak" 2 Lake Kivu Peasants 3 Conclusion Conclusion A Merger Based on Diversity and Compromise 1 On Differentiation 2 On Compromise Annex 1 Decree on Coffee Limitations (1938) Archives 1 African Archives Brussels (aab) 2 Other Collections References Index "In Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers Sven Van Melkebeke compares the divergent development of coffee production in the Eastern Congo and Western Rwanda during the colonial period. The Lake Kivu region offers a remarkable case-study to investigate diversity in economic development. In Rwanda, on the eastern side of the lake, coffee was mainly cultivated by smallholder families, while in the Congo, on the western side of the lake, European plantations were the dominant mode of production. Making use of a wide array of largely untapped archival sources, Sven Van Melkebeke convincingly succeeds in moving the manuscript beyond a case-study of colonizers to a more nuanced history of interaction and in presenting an innovative new social history of labor and land processes"-- Provided by publisher