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ASR FORUM: ENGAGING WITH AFRICAN INFORMAL ECONOMIES

Capital’s New Frontier: From “Unusable” Economies to Bottom-of-the-Pyramid Markets in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2013

Catherine Dolan  and
Kate Roll
Catherine Dolan
Affiliation:
Catherine S. Dolan is a reader in the Department of Anthropology, School for Oriental and African Studies, and an associate fellow at the Saïd Business School and Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. She specializes in the cultural economy of development, primarily in Africa, and over the past fifteen years has directed interdisciplinary programs on poverty, globalization, commodity chains, corporate social responsibility, and gender. E-mail: cd17@soas.ac.uk
Kate Roll
Affiliation:
Kate C. Roll is a D.Phil. candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. Her current research concerns the role of veterans’ benefits programs in Timor-Leste on the political reintegration of former resistance members and postconflict state consolidation. She formerly served as a research assistant for Brown University’s Watson Institute of International Studies’ project on Targeting Terrorist Finances and Targeted Sanctions. E-mail: kate.roll@gtc.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract:

Over the last decade, the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) approach has gained prominence as a tool of “inclusive” capitalism in sub-Saharan Africa. This approach reframes development as a seamless outcome of core business activities, one that can ameliorate poverty by bringing much-needed products and services to the poor and generating employment opportunities for informal and subsistence workers as “micro-entrepreneurs.” Yet while transnational capital has set its sights on Africa’s “underserved” yet potentially buoyant markets, BoP initiatives do more than seize upon the entrepreneurial talent and aspirations of Africa’s informal economies. This article argues, rather, that these initiatives create BoP economies through a set of market technologies, practices, and discourses that render the spaces and actors at the bottom of the pyramid knowable, calculable, and predictable to global business. The article describes how these technologies extend new forms of market governance over the informal poor, reconfiguring their habits, social practices, and economic strategies under the banner of poverty reduction.

Résumé:

Au cours des dix dernières années, une approche dite “par le bas” a gagné de l’importance comme outil dans l’expansion d’un capitalisme “inclusif” en Afrique sub-saharienne. Cette approche recadre la notion de développement comme un aboutissement naturel d’activités commerciales essentielles, pouvant améliorer le niveau de pauvreté en apportant des produits et des services de nécessité aux gens dans le besoin et en employant des ouvriers du secteur informel et de subsistance comme “micro-entrepreneurs.” Cependant, alors que la capitale transnationale s’intéresse aux marchés “sous-exploités” quoique prometteurs, les initiatives du Bas de la Pyramide (BOP) font plus que profiter des talents entrepreneuriaux et des aspirations des économies informelles africaines. Cet article soutient que bien au contraire, ces initiatives créent les économies BOP à travers un certain nombre de technologies de vente, de pratiques établies, et de discours qui permettent de connaître les espaces et les acteurs du BOP, de les quantifier et de les prédire pour les besoins du marché mondial. Cet article décrit comment ces technologies, pour réduire la pauvreté, mettent de nouvelles formes de gouvernance du marché à la portée des plus démunis, faisant ainsi évoluer leurs habitudes, leurs configurations sociales et leurs stratégies économiques.

Keywords

Bottom of pyramidconsumptionentrepreneurenterpriseinternational development
Type
ASR FORUM: ENGAGING WITH AFRICAN INFORMAL ECONOMIES: SOCIAL INCLUSION OR ADVERSE INCORPORATION?
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , December 2013 , pp. 123 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2013 

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