2017/01/01 by Christine Whyte · 6 citations
Social Sciences · #African history and culture studies #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Development economics #Economic growth #Economics #Economy #Elite #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #Government (linguistics) #Indigenous #Law #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Position (finance) #Resistance (ecology) #Sociology #Sovereignty #State (computer science) #Underdevelopment
paper · doi:10.1017/s0147547917000084
published in International Labor and Working-Class History 92, 24-46 (Cambridge University Press)
crossref issued 2017/01/01 · crossref published 2017/01/01 · crossref published-print 2017/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2017/01/01 · crossref published-online 2017/11/10 · crossref created 2017/11/10 · crossref deposited 2023/08/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03 · crossref indexed 2026/08/03
Abstract In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Liberia was in the unusual position of being a colony with no metropole. Without military or financial support, the settlers’ control over their territory remained weak. Surrounding European empires preyed on this weakness, and Americo-Liberian rule was often at risk from coalitions of European forces and indigenous African resistance. From the early twentieth century, the political elite took on the concept of “development” as a central part of government policy in an attempt to gain political and economic control of the hinterland areas and stave off European incursions. This policy involved the extension and reinforcement of labor policies and practices that had developed through the nineteenth century as means to incorporate settlers and indigenous people into Liberian society. When these plans failed, huge swathes of territory were turned over to foreign commercial interests in an attempt to bolster Liberian claims to sovereignty. And after the Second World War, new policies of “community development” introduced by international agencies again tried to solve Liberia's “land and labor” problem through resettlement. At each stage developmentalist rationales were deployed in order to facilitate greater government control over the Liberian interior territory.