Paper short abstract:

Utilising qualitative longitudinal life trajectory and biographical interviews, this paper documents the bricolage experiences of young informal economy proletariat in Accra, Ghana, in their attempt at sustaining and driving their businesses into the future.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of bricolage has primarily been used in exploring how entrepreneurs in the formal sector, in addition to social entrepreneurs, mobilise resources in developing their businesses. Little is known, however, about the bricolage experiences of young informal entrepreneurs in the rapidly changing technologically driven mobile telephony sector. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative field research on young people involved in informal support services in the mobile telephony sector in Accra, Ghana, the paper reveals the existence of various kinds of bricolage processes employed in the running and sustenance of their businesses. The findings show evidence of the young people switching from one business to another, engaging in business diversification, utilising pre-existing skills, and employing bottom-up approaches through their social networks in mobilising resources - all of which relate to bricolage processes of improvisation, making do and refusing to be constrained by limitations in the resource environment. Although young people are shown to utilise strategies of self-support and ingenuity in running and sustaining their businesses, the paper concludes by calling for a more supportive institutional framework in order to propel the businesses of the young people into the future.

Paper short abstract:

La présentation analyse les contradictions autour de l'accès au marché pour les entreprises béninoises dans un environnement marqué par la présence de l'Etat ainsi que de nombreux partenaires, porteurs de plus d'une cinquantaine de projets/programmes au profit du secteur privé.

Paper long abstract:

Le tissu entrepreneurial au Bénin comprend environ 200.000 entreprises dont seulement 15.000 sont formalisées. Il est marqué par des entreprises assez jeunes de moins de 20 ans. Ces entreprises sont caractérisées par des problèmes spécifiques que sont l'accès aux capitaux, aux marchés, à l'énergie, à la main d'œuvre qualifiée et à l'absence d'un dispositif de protection. Les appuis très émiettés avec des phases courtes inhérentes à l'approche projet, se sont focalisés durant plus de deux décennies, sur des dimensions sectorielles et n'ont pas pu porter l'ensemble des défis fédérateurs du secteur privé. Si les différents soutiens au secteur privé n'ont renversé aucune tendance majeure pour une condition optimale de production et de conquête de nouveaux marchés au profit des entreprises, quelles sont les processus et dynamiques qui sont à la base et qui entraînent une si difficile émergence d'un entreprenariat solide et fort ? Cette présentation se base sur les dispositifs d'aide à l'émergence du secteur privé ainsi que le parcours biographique professionnel de 20 grands et moyens entrepreneurs Béninois pour analyser les contradictions autour du relèvement du défi que constitue l'accès au marché intérieur, régional ou international pour les entreprises dans un environnement pourtant marqué par l'existence de plusieurs accords de libre échanges commerciaux, la présence de l'Etat et de nombreux partenaires, porteurs de plus d'une cinquantaines de projets/programmes recensés depuis 1994 au profit du secteur privé.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographies with Nigerian television/film stage-set companies, smaller furniture-carpentry firms and location managers, the paper challenges several tenets associated with entrepreneurship, especially in relation to innovation and productive activity.

Paper long abstract:

The paper draws on ethnographic research carried out with leading Nigerian television/film stage-set companies, smaller carpentry firms producing furniture for domestic use and location management businesses. It challenges several tenets associated with entrepreneurship, especially in relation to innovation and productive activity.

First I analyse the sector comprising location management companies (which secure movie locations) and the house/hotel location owners in Igboland. I argue against the applicability of the territorial innovation system approach, which focuses on the "spatial organization of production" through the sourcing inputs. Instead, I propose that location management should be seen as part of an experience-economy scene. Such a scene involves the "spatial contextualization of consumption" through the artful composition of landscapes of sociable consumption, often for the purpose of attracting visitors.

Through the analysis of the TV/film set and home-carpentry firms, I put forward an alternative to the focus on novelty characteristic of the innovation and entrepreneurship literatures, instead drawing on the "cultural improvisation" and "aesthetic formation" approaches. These approaches emphasize the role of materials and mediums and how they interact with and embody communities through an accumulated trail of performances. In this vein, the dynamics of imitation are considered in the case of Nigerian home furnishings copied from imported interior design catalogues. In a second case, furnishings were created with the property of "filmability" (i.e. specifically for the purpose of filming), resulting in the emergence of a new Nigerian interior style.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I will discuss the status quo of the manufacturing elites in Kenya and their relations with the Kikuyu-dominated government.

Paper long abstract:

During the last years, Africa's economies have been growing at impressive rates. According to the World Economic Forum, the continent has achieved a real economic growth of 5.4 percent from the year 2000 to 2010, and even though growth slowed since, the African economies still grew about 3.3 percent on average. Still, the question of sustainability of this growth, which requires strong entrepreneurial activities and innovation capacity, remains mainly unanswered.

Although currently "entrepreneurship" and "state business relations" dominate the development narratives, so far little research has been done on private sector elites and their ability to influence governments to create an enabling environment for their business activities.

This paper will focus on the economic elite in Kenya - the owners and managers of large companies and their ties to the Kenyan government officials. This social group consists mainly of family dynasties on the private as well as the public side, with the Kenyan Asian Families dominating manufacturing in the region and the Kenyatta family as the most powerful politicians as well as entrepreneurs in the country. The paper will show how these elites work to secure and expand their power and wealth in the East African country.

This discussion can be seen as a continuation of the Kenyan debate, in which academics discusses the paradigms of Kenyan entrepreneurial development in the 1970s and 1990s.

The paper is based on empirical research from several field trips from 2016 to 2018 as well as literature and press analysis.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing inspiration from the anthropology of development, this paper analyses the role of HR managers in foreign mining companies established in the Congolese copperbelt as capital brokers who participate in the co-production of mining capitalism in Africa.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing inspiration from the anthropological literature on development borkers, this paper aims to provide insights on the everyday work of HR managers in the foreign companies that started new mining projects in the Congolese copperbelt over the last two decades. It is structured around three main questions: 1) in a country where there is no formal training in HR, how did they access this job position, and what specific skills do they associate with it?; b) How do they deal with expatriate management?; and c) what is their role in the implementation of new mining companies' HR policies?

Based on research between 2016 and 2018, the analysis shows that Congolese HR managers accessed their position by developing specific organizational,legal, and cultural skills on the job, and obtaining expatriate executives' trust. Eager to show that they are legitimate in their function, they often play an active role in the organizational changes that foreign mining companies put in place. While this loyalty to management put HR managers in a gatekeeper position, it also exposes them to workers' and local communities' hostility.

From a theoretical perspective, the paper proposes to study Congolese HR managers as capital brokers, who derive power from their ability to control access to jobs in foreign companies, and participate in the co-production of mining capitalism in central Africa.

Paper short abstract:

Oil marketers in Ghana incorporate national, regional and familial concerns in business logics, dealing with the complexities of industry legacies, reform and multifaceted political engagements. This paper presents an analysis of oil marketers in Ghana's downstream petroleum industry.

Paper long abstract:

The state oil marketing company, Ghana Oil Company and various multinational oil companies have served Ghana's downstream petroleum industry for decades. In the mid-2000s, a deregulation reform was initiated along with several state funded schemes to promote private sector entrepreneurs to enter the petrol-industry. Schemes and policies to promote "indigenization" of the industry had a large impact on the number of registered companies, but many remained unsure about the sustainability of the industry due to its historically heavy foreign and state profile. Nonetheless, discoveries of commercial quantitates of oil and gas offshore enticed a larger number of entrepreneurs to start ventures in the newly reformed industry. This paper examine the structural, yet negotiable, frames in which Ghanaian oil marketers operate. It demonstrate how these frames shape business trajectories in conjunction with personal visions, narratives and everyday socio-political entanglements. The paper focuses on narratives of business owners from northern part of Ghana that draw on politics, religion and development as part of their drive to succeed in the industry. The paper draws on extensive fieldwork in the industry from 2012 to 2017.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the phenomenon of "pure water," ubiquitous plastic sachets of drinking water sold throughout urban Nigeria, an example of how innovative entrepreneurs hustling to survive create vibrant "informal economies" that provide basic infrastructure where the Nigerian state does not.

Paper long abstract:

In Nigeria, people say that "every household is its own local government." What they mean is that politicians and government institutions have not delivered—and cannot be trusted to ensure—even the most basic services that people expect as citizens of Africa's richest and most populous nation. Households and communities have to fend for themselves. In this paper, I examine the phenomenon of "pure water," ubiquitous plastic sachets of drinking water sold throughout urban Nigeria. It is an example of how innovative entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens hustling to survive create vibrant "informal economies" that provide basic infrastructure where the Nigerian state does not. But the state may not be so much absent as complicit, to the extent that the circumstances of infrastructural deficiency constitute a major arena for the practice and consolidation of state power. Further, Nigerians' efforts to cobble together basic infrastructure through a multitude of entrepreneurial activities and enterprises are as much social and political endeavors as they are individual economic activities, and therefore they constitute part of the very substance of citizenship in contemporary Nigeria.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores two instances of the changing economic climate of the 1990s in Kenya and its effects on business trajectories. In the cases businesses were founded because employment was unavailable, however, only one became a successful enterprise while the other struggles to uphold this image.

Paper long abstract:

Based on in-depth biographical data of small-scale entrepreneurs in the Western Kenyan town of Kisumu, this paper explores two instances of the changing economic climate of the 1990s and its effects on business trajectories. The first instance is the abolishment of the employment guarantee offered to graduate students by the Kenyan government. With the help of a case study, I will show how this policy change affected the life plans of graduates at the time and how they made alternative plans, in this case subsequently leading to a prospering business.

The second instance are retrenchments following from the structural adjustment procedures the Kenyan economy underwent in the 1990s up to the early 2000s. The loss of long-term employment and a shrinking labour market drove many into small-scale business. My second case study details a failed transition from employment into self-employment, which is nonetheless maintained in the absence of other alternatives.

The paper, hence, presents two cases where the foundation of a business was perceived as the solution to economic troubles, as it is presented in the developmental narrative, but only in one case does this promise hold true, while in the other the image of a successful enterprise is only scarcely upheld. By employing a life course perspective, it furthermore becomes obvious that business trajectories don't usually follow the 'rising star' narrative so often depicted in the media, but are characterized by continuous ups and downs as nascent businesses face hurdles and struggle to overcome these.