Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T17:06:26.867Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From Scotch Whisky to Chinese Sneakers: International Commodity Flows and New Trade Networks in Oshikango, Namibia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Abstract

After the end of the colonial period, international commodity flows into Africa at first continued to reproduce patterns of colonial domination. In the last ten years, however, important shifts have become visible. New commodity chains bypassing the old colonial powers have developed and are changing the way Africa is integrated into the global economy. This article looks at four trade networks that converge in Oshikango, a small trade boom town in northern Namibia. It describes how trade in Scotch whisky, Brazilian furniture, Japanese used cars and Chinese sneakers into Oshikango is organized. Whisky trade follows old colonial patterns; furniture trade relies on new South-South business contacts backed by political lobbying; in the used car trade, goods from the North are traded by networks of Southern migrant entrepreneurs; Chinese consumer goods are brought into Africa by Chinese migrants who bridge the cultural gap between the markets. Trade in Oshikango highlights the importance of new trade routes for Africa. Migrant entrepreneurs play an important role in these trade routes. A closer look at them shows, however, that their importance is largely due to opportunities arising from their place in the international system, not to a group's inherent cultural or social characteristics.

Après la fin de la période coloniale, les flux de marchandises internationaux entrant en Afrique ont continué, initialement, de reproduire les schémas de domination coloniale. Or, des changements importants sont apparus au cours de ces dix dernières années. De nouvelles chaînes de marchandises omettant les anciennes puissances coloniales se sont développées et modifient la façon dont l'Afrique s'intègre dans l'économie mondiale. Cet article se penche sur quatre réseaux d'échanges commerciaux qui convergent à Oshikango, petite ville du Nord de la Namibie dont le commerce est en plein essor. Il décrit comment s'organise le commerce du whisky écossais, des meubles brésiliens, des voitures d'occasion japonaises et des chaussures de sport chinoises à Oshikango. Le commerce du whisky suit les anciens schémas coloniaux; le commerce des meubles s'appuie sur de nouvelles relations commerciales Sud-Sud soutenues par un lobbying politique; le commerce des voitures d'occasion du Nord est assuré par des réseaux d'entrepreneurs migrants du Sud; les biens de consommation chinois sont amenés en Afrique par des migrants chinois qui comblent la fracture culturelle entre les marchés. Le commerce à Oshikango souligne l'importance des nouvelles voies d'échanges commerciaux pour l'Afrique. Les entrepreneurs migrants jouent un rôle important dans ces voies d'échanges. Un examen plus détaillé de ces voies montre, cependant, que leur importance tient essentiellement aux opportunités qui découlent de leur place dans le système international, et non aux caractéristiques culturelles ou sociales inhérentes à un groupe.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abimóvel, (2004) Panorama do Sector Moveleiro do Brasil, Junho 2004. São Paulo: Abimóvel.Google Scholar
Ahmad, A. (2005) ‘Used car dealers on a bumpy ride’, (http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/05/04/16/161046.html), accessed 26 July 2007.Google Scholar
Akyeampong, E. (1996) Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: a social history of alcohol in Ghana c. 1800 to recent times. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Alden, C. (2005) ‘China in Africa’, Survival 47 (3): 147–64.Google Scholar
Alden, C., Large, D. and Soares de Oliveira, R. (eds) (2008) China Returns to Africa. London: Christopher Hurst.Google Scholar
Allman, J. 2004 Fashioning Africa: power and the politics of dress. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Arnould, E. and Wilk, R. (1984) ‘Why do the natives wear Adidas?’, Advances in Consumer Research 11: 748–52.Google Scholar
Beck, K. (2001) ‘Die aneignung der maschine’ in Kohl, K.-H. (ed.), New Heimat. New York: Lukas and Sternberg.Google Scholar
Belk, R. (1988) ‘Third World consumer culture’, Research in Marketing, Supplement 4: 103–27.Google Scholar
Brautigam, D. (2003) ‘Close encounters: Chinese business networks as industrial catalysts in sub-Saharan Africa’, African Affairs 102 (408): 447–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, T. (1996) Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: commodification, consumption and cleanliness in modern Zimbabwe. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Craft, L. (2004) ‘Bizzare bazar: USS and the used car craze’, Japan Inc. (https://japaninc.net/article.php?articleID=1346&page=5), accessed 5 June 2007.Google Scholar
Crush, J. and Ambler, C. (eds) (1992) Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa. Athens OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Dobler, G. (2007) ‘Old ties or new shackles? China in Namibia’ in Melber, H. (ed.), Transitions in Namibia: which changes for whom? Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Dobler, G. (2008a) ‘Solidarity, xenophobia and the regulation of Chinese businesses in Oshikango, Namibia’ in Alden, C., Large, D. and Soares de Oliveira, R. (eds), China Returns to Africa. London: Christopher Hurst.Google Scholar
Dobler, G. (2008b) ‘Oshikango: the dynamics of growth and regulation in a Namibian boom town’, Journal of Southern African Studies (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1992) ‘The cultural topography of wealth: commodity paths and the structure of property in rural Lesotho’, American Anthropologist 94: 5573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hahn, H. (2004) ‘Global goods and the process of appropriation’ in Probst, P. and Spittler, G. (eds), Between Resistance and Expansion: explorations of local vitality in Africa. Münster: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. T. (2000) Salaula: the world of secondhand clothing and Zambia. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Haugen, H. and Carling, J. (2005) ‘On the edge of the Chinese diaspora: the surge of Baihuo business in an African city’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28 (4): 639–62.Google Scholar
Heap, S. (1998) ‘“We think prohibition is a farce”: drinking in the alcohol-prohibited zone of colonial northern Nigeria’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 31: 2351.Google Scholar
La Hausse de, Lalouvière P. (1988) Brewers, Beerhalls and Boycotts: a history of liquor in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, W. R. (1896) ‘German intrigues in the Transvaal’, Contemporary Review 69: 292304.Google Scholar
Mager, A. (2005) ‘“One beer, one goal, one nation, one soul”: South African Breweries, heritage, masculinity and nationalism 1960–1999’, Past and Present 188: 163–94.Google Scholar
McAllister, P. (2003) ‘Culture, practice and the semantics of Xhosa beer drinking’, Ethnology 42: 187207.Google Scholar
Olorunfemi, A. (1984) ‘The liquor traffic dilemma in British West Africa: the southern Nigerian example, 1895–1918’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 17: 229–41.Google Scholar
Pan, L. (1975) Alcohol in Colonial Africa. Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies (Monograph 2).Google Scholar
Prestholdt, J. (2003) ‘East African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization’. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan (University of Michigan Dissertation Online).Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. (1996) ‘The consumption of an African modernity’ in Arnoldi, M. and Geary, C. (eds), African Material Culture. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Storrie, M. (1962) ‘The scotch whisky industry’, Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers) 31: 97114.Google Scholar
van Onselen, C. (1976) ‘Randlords and rotgut, 1886–1905: an essay on the role of alcohol in the development of European imperialism and South African capitalism’, History Workshop, 2.Google Scholar
Vierke, U. (2006) Die Spur der Glasperlen: akteure, strukturen und wandel im europäisch-ostafrikanischen handel mit glasperlen. Bayreuth: African Studies Series Online.Google Scholar
Weiss, B. (1996) The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: consumption, commoditization, and everyday practice. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Wyndham, H. A. (1930) ‘The problem of the West African liquor traffic’, Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs 9 (6): 801–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, C. (2003) ‘The end of the post-colonial state in Africa? Reflections on changing African political dynamics’, African Affairs 103 (410): 2449.Google Scholar