Work and Power in Maale, Ethiopia

This book is one of the most successful examples in the Africanist literature of placing structures in time. It presents a detailed description of the politics of production in Maale during 1975 against a completed past of Imperial Ethiopian history and an uncertain future of revolutionary socialism.

This study challenges the assumption that households in non-capitalist economies are "self-contained labour units" which are not inherently brought into relationship by the production process. Concentrating on the organization of agricultural production and the transfer of scarce labour resources between various households at different stages of their economic development, the book shows how economics and politics relate in both a traditional and non-traditional or changing society. Combining the detailed analysis of an ethnographic case study with the exposition of a broad historical picture and a theoretical debate in economic anthropology, Donham's central theme revolves around the constitution of three forms of work groups and the significance of these groups in connecting domestic and political domains.