Rural-urban dynamics: livelihoods, mobility and markets in African and Asian frontiers

233 Pages·2009·20.98 MB·English

by  Jytte Agergaard

Rural–Urban Dynamics
It has increasingly been recognised that rural and urban areas are inextricably
interlinked. This book adopts a fresh approach to the issue of rural–urban
dynamics through a study of the changing nature of livelihoods, mobility and
markets in ten study sites across four countries of Africa and Asia. Building
on detailed fieldwork conducted in Ghana, Tanzania, Vietnam and Thailand,
the authors explore how settlements and livelihoods are being transformed as
long-term inhabitants and recent migrants embrace new economic activities,
many of which are linked to global markets.
The book is structured around the concept of ‘frontier’ which is concep-
tualised as being a dynamic space where the forces of economic, demographic
and social change are brought to bear. The study sites include agricultural
frontiers (coffee, cocoa, pineapples and fresh fruit), handicraft and manu-
facturing frontiers, and mining frontiers (gold and diamonds). In all of the
cases, global value chain dynamics have played a pivotal role in shaping local
livelihoods. Some settlements are developing into new urban centres whilst
others are suffering from a boom and bust experience due to the unreliability
of export markets. The similarities and differences between the frontier
settlements are drawn out by comparing frontiers of similar types and by

highlighting the theoretical and policy implications of the findings from all of
the frontiers.
The originality of the book lies in its combination of conceptual clarity,
methodological coherence and empirical richness. By combining detailed
empirical findings with theoretical insight from debates on livelihoods, global
value chains, mobility patterns, settlement dynamics and rural–urban rela-
tions, the book sheds new light on these issues within an overall framework of
development trajectories in Africa and Asia. Given scholars’ and inter-
national agencies’ current interest in the spatial dimensions of economic
development, this contribution is particularly timely with its fresh geograph-
ical approach to development issues. This book is a pertinent and authorita-
tive read for anyone researching or learning in the field of development.
Jytte Agergaard is an associate professor in the Department of Geography
and Geology at the University of Copenhagen. Her main research focus is on
mobility, migration and livelihoods. She has in particular focused on devel-
opment issues in Nepal, researching frontier development, migration, gender
inequalities and community-based schooling. Recently, she has been engaged
in development in Vietnam, and lived in Hanoi and Dak Lak Province for ten
months in 2005–2006. She has also been concerned with recent trends
in human geography, especially current trends in social geography and
geographies of globalisation. She is a member of a number of networks on
development research in Denmark and abroad.
Niels Fold is professor in the Department of Geography and Geology at the
University of Copenhagen. His current research interests revolve around the
dynamics of cross-continental food commodity chains and food trade in
the Asia-Pacific region. He has worked on globalisation and economic
restructuring in Africa, in particular on global agro-industrial chains
with relevance for perennial crops in Ghana (cocoa, oil palm, shea nuts).
Previously Niels was engaged in research on industrial development in
Malaysia, both on upgrading processes in the palm oil industry and on local
industrialisation trajectories (Penang).
Katherine V. Gough is a British-trained geographer who is employed as
associate professor in the Department of Geography and Geology at the
University of Copenhagen. Her main research focus is urbanisation in the
Global South with a particular interest in urban land and housing markets,
urban governance and civil society, home-based enterprises, urban youth and
urban mobility. Her principal research areas are Latin America and West
Africa though more recently she has started working in the Asia-Pacific
region. She has a particular interest in conducting comparative research and
longitudinal studies. Katherine works in an advisory capacity to the Danish
International Development Agency (DANIDA) on urban issues.
Routledge Studies in Human Geography
This series provides a forum for innovative, vibrant, and critical debate within
Human Geography. Titles will reflect the wealth of research which is taking
place in this diverse and ever-expanding field.
Contributions will be drawn from the main sub-disciplines and from
innovative areas of work which have no particular sub-disciplinary allegiances.
Published:
1. A Geography of Islands
Small island insularity
Stephen A. Royle
2. Citizenships, Contingency and the Countryside
Rights, culture, land and the environment
Gavin Parker
3. The Differentiated Countryside
Jonathan Murdoch, Philip Lowe, Neil Ward and Terry Marsden

4. The Human Geography of East Central Europe
David Turnock
5. Imagined Regional Communities
Integration and sovereignty in the global south
James D. Sidaway
6. Mapping Modernities
Geographies of Central and Eastern Europe 1920–2000
Alan Dingsdale
7. Rural Poverty
Marginalisation and exclusion in Britain and the United States
Paul Milbourne
8. Poverty and the Third Way
Colin C. Williams and Jan Windebank
9. Ageing and Place
Edited by Gavin J. Andrews and David R. Phillips
10. Geographies of Commodity Chains
Edited by Alex Hughes and Suzanne Reimer
11. Queering Tourism
Paradoxical performances at Gay Pride parades
Lynda T. Johnston
12. Cross-Continental Food Chains
Edited by Niels Fold and Bill Pritchard
13. Private Cities
Edited by Georg Glasze, Chris Webster and Klaus Frantz
14. Global Geographies of Post Socialist Transition
Tassilo Herrschel
15. Urban Development in Post-Reform China
Fulong Wu, Jiang Xu and Anthony Gar-On Yeh
16. Rural Governance
International perspectives
Edited by Lynda Cheshire, Vaughan Higgins and Geoffrey Lawrence
17. Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth
Young rural lives

Edited by Ruth Panelli, Samantha Punch and Elsbeth Robson
18. World City Syndrome
Neoliberalism and inequality in Cape Town
David A. McDonald
19. Exploring Post Development
Aram Ziai
20. Family Farms
Harold Brookfield and Helen Parsons
21. China on the Move
Migration, the state, and the household
C. Cindy Fan
22. Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods
Connecting people, participation and place
Sara Kindon, Rachel Pain and Mike Kesby
23. Time-Space Compression
Historical geographies
Barney Warf
24. Sensing Cities
Monica Degen
25. International Migration and Knowledge
Allan Williams and Vladimir Balázˇ
26. The Spatial Turn
Interdisciplinary perspectives
Barney Warf and Santa Arias
27. Whose Urban Renaissance?
An international comparison of urban regeneration policies
Libby Porter and Kate Shaw
28. Rethinking Maps
Martin Dodge, Rob Kitchin and Chris Perkins
29. Rural–Urban Dynamics
Livelihoods, mobility and markets in African and Asian frontiers
Edited by Jytte Agergaard, Niels Fold and Katherine V. Gough
Not yet published:
30. Design Economies and the Changing World Economy
Innovation, production and competitiveness
John Bryson and Grete Rustin
31. Critical Reflections on Regional Competitiveness
Gillian Bristow

Rural–Urban Dynamics
Livelihoods, mobility and markets in
African and Asian frontiers
Edited by Jytte Agergaard, Niels Fold and
Katherine V. Gough
First published 2010
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
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© 2010 Selection and editorial matter: Jytte Agergaard, Niels Fold and
Katherine V. Gough; individual chapters the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rural–urban dynamics: livelihoods, mobility and markets in African
and Asian frontiers / [edited by] Jytte Agergaard, Niels Fold and
Katherine V. Gough.

p. cm. — (Routledge studies in human geography)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Rural–urban relations—Africa. 2. Rural–urban relations—Asia.
I. Agergaard, Jytte, 1960– II. Fold, Niels, 1955– III. Gough,
Katherine V., 1963–
HT384.A35R87 2009
307.74—dc22 2009003521
ISBN 0-203-87394-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–47562–7 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–87394–7 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–47562–4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–87394–6 (ebk)
Contents
List of illustrations xi
List of figures xii
List of tables xiv
Notes on contributors xvi
Acknowledgements xix
1 Introduction 1
JYTTE AGERGAARD, NIELS FOLD AND KATHERINE V. GOUGH
2 Conceptualising and performing comparison of
rural–urban dynamics 9
KATHERINE V. GOUGH, JYTTE AGERGAARD, NIELS FOLD AND
LASSE MøLLER-JENSEN
3 Small town development in the Ghanaian cocoa frontier 23
MICHAEL HELT KNUDSEN
4 Living from coffee in Vietnam’s Central Highlands:
Susceptible livelihoods and diverse
settlement transformations 41
JYTTE AGERGAARD
5 Rise and fall of smallholder pineapple production in Ghana:
Changing global markets, livelihoods and
settlement growth 59
KATHERINE V. GOUGH AND NIELS FOLD
6 Transforming livelihoods and settlements: Fruit
production and urbanisation in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta 74
HOANG XUAN THANH AND CECILIA TACOLI