Tobacco, Transformation and Development Dilemmas from Central Africa

This book takes the reader through the expansion, restructuring and possible salvation of Malawi’s main industry, tobacco. Malawi has been dependent on tobacco exports for a century, but now, with demand for Malawian tobacco declining fast, the country needs to diversify rapidly. The authors combine an innovative range of theory and methods to provide a comprehensive and incisive analysis of the dilemmas faced by countries which still rely on a limited number of agricultural commodities in the 21st century. This work will be ideal for scholars and researchers interested in political economy and African development.

Martin Prowse is Lecturer at the University of Manchester, UK. He has worked at the Overseas Development Institute, UK, and at universities in Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. His research focuses on equity in agricultural intensification, value chains and climate change, mostly in Africa.

Paul Grassin is a doctoral student at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, with expertise in social stratification, cultural anthropology and comparative politics. His research focuses on the production of social order, the sociology of the police and police-people relations in urban and rural Malawi.