This is a paper I wrote for the senior seminar for our major based on Jane Guyer’s proposition to account for the multiplicity of money, which touches on the substantivist versus formalist schools of thought in economic anthropology. Can we use market transaction metaphors to describe how all societies exchange goods and ascribe value?
Nigeria has the largest oil and natural gas sector in Africa, but the industry is characterized by repeated grievances of scandal and mismanagement by rent-seeking elites. What is the role of monetary systems in understanding the politics of the oil-rich Niger Delta? How can examining the historical role of hard and soft currency be used to understand struggles between ethnic minorities and the dominant culture of accumulation, patron-clientelism, and state dysfunction? This paper will consider the years of Nigeria’s military dictatorship from 1979 to 1999, the devastating history of structural adjustment in the 1980s, increasing militarization of the Delta in the 1990s, up to today’s relative peace. It will also review the changing roles of currency and wealth in these times. How can a broader view of money outside of quantitative economics and its logics shed light on how different stakeholders view the political economy of oil?
