Twenty years after The Economist called Africa "the hopeless continent", the view has profoundly changed. The dominant mood is decidedly positive. This issue aims to explore ethnographically the links between businesspeople and their associations, private sector support from the state and international development agencies and capitalism in Africa. Lire la suite
Twenty years after The Economist called Africa "the hopeless continent" (13 May 2000), the view has profoundly changed. At least until the pandemic, the effects of which are unclear at the present time, the dominant mood had been decidedly positive, one of “Lions on the Move”. This euphoria was supported by perceived dynamics in economic fields like agriculture, mobile phones, microfinance and supermarkets (with regard to agricultural supply chains), as well as social transformations such as urbanisation, educational expansion, improved health care and the rise of the middle classes. In this context, the focus of development policy has shifted, with Private Sector Development (PSD) as the dominant paradigm.
Against this background, this issue aims to explore ethnographically the links between businesspeople and their associations, private sector support from the state and international development agencies and emergent (or not) capitalism in Africa. At an analytical level, our contributors study the relationship between business and politics in their specialist countries, while at a policy level, they seek to gauge the real-life effects of PSD, and in particular what kind of “business” is described and celebrated as “emerging”.
Sommaire / Contents
Dossier : Les entrepreneurs et leurs associations : ethnographies du secteur privé en Afrique / Entrepreneurs and business associations: Ethnographies of the private sector in Africa 7
Ethnographies of entrepreneurs, business associations and rentier capitalism in Africa. Introduction 9
Thomas Bierschenk, José-María Muñoz
Squandermania or Nigerian urban renaissance? 29
Alexander Bud
Les entrepreneurs camerounais face aux pouvoirs publics 51
Gérard Amougou
CTA, state, donors and entrepreneur-brokers in Mozambique 69
Anésio Manhiça
Business associations in Benin "at work" 87
Agnès Badou, Thomas Bierschenk
Fabriquer son « accès » à l'État 107
Sidy Cissokho
Les cheffes d'entreprise du Togo et la reproduction des hiérarchies politiques et sociales 125
Charlotte Vampo
Business associations at work – working for whom? Postface 143
Helmut Asche
Varia 151
Future horizons at the fishing harbour in San Pedro (Côte d’Ivoire) 153
Claire Chevallier
Les dispositifs éducatifs humanitaires 171
Marion Fresia, Andreas von Känel, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont
Ethnographie d’un dispositif technique de serres de tomates dans les Andes péruviennes 189
Emmanuelle Piccoli
L’« économie de la survie » à Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) 207
Roberta Rubino
Lu et à lire 223
The Business of Development in Post-Colonial Africa (Véronique Dimier and Sarah Stockwell, eds.) 225
Lara Petersen
Du côté des thèses 229
Cotton and Cabaret. Domestic Economy and Female Agency in Burkina Faso 231
Sigrun Helmfrid
Le barrage de Ziga et l’invention d’une paysannerie sans terre au Burkina Faso 233
Kiss-Wend-Sida Romaine Zangré-Konseiga
Conceptualiser le « renforcement des capacités » dans la politique de développement : le cas du programme RDC-UNICEF « village assaini » au Kongo central en RDC 237
Pascal Sundi Mbambi