ABSTRACT
This chapter explores issues related to participation and empowerment in rural development, a topic of considerable interest to David W. Brokensha and to the Institute for Development Anthropology, of which David is a co-founder and co-director. It presents an overview of the history, impact, and potential of efforts to organize rural cooperatives in Africa during the colonial and post-colonial periods. The chapter focuses on a critical note concerning the relationship between “participation” and empowerment in African cooperatives. The history in Africa of efforts to organize local cooperative organizations is long and covers the entire continent. The history of rural cooperatives in Africa, often erroneously referred to as the history of the “cooperative movement”, has been one almost exclusively of unilateral state interventions. The history of cooperatives as mechanisms for assisting and empowering disadvantaged rural populations in their attempts to gain greater access to and control over productive resources, and improving their livelihoods, is a history of disappointment.
