ABSTRACT
Circulatory movements are an important facet of the economic life of West Africa, which can be observed among young men leaving the Sudan-Sahel, to become daily farm workers, contract workers or share croppers in the better endowed and developed coastlands. Alternatively some men leave the rural areas in the dry season and find work in towns. Thus some migrants mix two types of farming, whilst others combine farming with work in the non-agricultural sector. Labour migration in West Africa received a great stimulus at the end of the nineteenth and in the early years of the twentieth century, when the colonial authorities encouraged the production of cash crops, standardized currencies, reformed taxation and abolished domestic slavery. In a broader context seasonal movements must be recognized as a vital aspect of pre-industrial agriculture, related to the uneven spread of farm workloads (either for cash crops or subsistence), together with geographical and structural imperfections in the farm labour market. Apart from the contemporary significance of seasonal migration in underdeveloped countries, it was a common feature of agriculture in nineteenth-century Europe (Collins, 1976: 38–59).
