ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief description of economic change in a rural community in Upper Volta. It focuses on field data gathered from 1976 to 1978 in Northern Gulma, located in the northeastern portion of Upper Volta. The chapter examines the sociohistorical context within which the drought occurred, as well as the effects of international response to the drought on the local village economy. It outlines general economic change, special attention is paid to the economic roles of women. The chapter provides a brief summary of the colonial and precolonial period, followed by an account of the effects of the drought on the village economy and an analysis of the social mechanisms involved in its transformation. It deals with a discussion of the possible effects of these changes on the social relations of production within the village. Women play pivotal roles in the internal socioeconomic transformations without which the modernization of the rural economy would be impossible.
