LUCY ADRIAN Emeritus Fellow and Director of Studies, Newnham College, Cambridge, UKDEBORAH FAHY BRYCESON Africa Studies Centre, Leiden, NetherlandsBERND CHRISTIANSEN Institute for Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, the Tropics University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, GermanyPAUL CLOUGH Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta, MaltaBEN CROW Food Research Institute, University of Stanford, California, USAGEORGE JONES Emeritus Research Fellow, Agricultural Economics Unit, Oxford University, UKPRISCILLA MAGRATH Natural Resources Institute, UKJOS MOOIJ Department of Agrarian Law, Agricultural University, Wageningen, NetherlandsWENDY OLSEN Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, UKMATTHIAS VON OPPEN Institute for Agricultural Economics and Social in the Tropics University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, GermanyTHEODOSIOS PALASKAS Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, UKLUZ ALICIA JIMENEZ PORTUGAL Institute for Agricultural Economics and Social in the Tropics University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, GermanyELSBETH ROBSON Department of Geography, Keele University, UK

'The book explores real rural lives and economies beyond the usual reductions of economists. It is both steadfastly empirical and substantively analytical in exploring the impact of markets in developing rural economies.' - Teodor Shanin, Professor of Sociology, University of Manchester and Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences 'This is a most unusual book for the empirical study of marketing systems in that it consistently emphasises the importance of the institutions through which market transactions are conducted. The book is a must for all those who are interested in the study of real markets, either for reasons of methodology or for policy purposes. The book contains a wealth of information for the fieldwork study of food marketing systems in developing countries, and will prove an invaluable reference work for social Scientists conducting work in this area.' - Frank Ellis, Professor of Development Studies, University of East Anglia 'The book is a must for both inexperienced and experienced researchers who want to do fieldwork in other cultures - in order to avoid learning these lessons from their own mistakes. The many potential pitfalls of collecting information on exchange processes and the functioning of markets usually belong to the 'hidden' part of research projects - with very few details in the final publication. This book is refreshingly honest in discussing the problems field researchers often encounter. It also demonstrates the consequences when theory as point of departure for research is absent or wrongly used.' - Aad van Tilburg, Associate Professor of Agricultural Marketing, Wageningen Agricultural University

• Preface List of Contributors Introduction: Visible Hands; B. Harriss-White PART ONE: EXCHANGE Village Level Exchange: Lessons from South India; W. Olsen Social Stratification and Exchange in West African Conditions: A Participatory Approach to the Classification of Producers and Net Consumers of Marketed Surplus; B. Christiansen PART TWO: MARKETS AS SYSTEMS The Post Harvest System in Indonesia; P. Magrath Researching the System in Bangladesh; B. Crow Rapid Methods for Tracing Rapid Market Change: Urban Grain Supply Networks in Tanzania; D. F. Bryceson PART THREE: PRICE PERFORMANCE AND MARKET EFFICIENCY Unstandardised Measures and the Analysis of Price Efficiency: An Application in Benin; B. Christiansen The Use of Hedonic Price Analysis in Agricultural Research: Market Prices and the Quality Characteristics of Beans in Colombia; L. Portugal and M. Oppen Large Databases: The Nineteenth-Century English Com Returns: ` Not Worth the Paper that they are Written On'?; L. Adrian The Analysis of Integration: New Methodologies for Domestic Commodity Markets; T. Palaskas Testing Market Integration: Some Critical Comments; G. Jones PART FOUR: MARKETS AND INSTITUTIONS, MARKETS AS INSTITUTIONS Power in Peasant Markets; B. Harriss-White Gender, Markets and Fieldwork in Developing Countries: With Special Reference to West Africa; E. Robson The Relevance of Religion and Culture to Commercial Accumulation: Fieldwork on Muslim Hausa Exchange and Agricultural Trade in Northern Nigeria; P. Clough The Black Box of the State: Studying State Interventions in Food Markets; J. Mooij Epilogue: Best and Worst Practice. Surprises and Lessons; B Harriss-White Index