Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to identify some unique features of moral economy in Africa, by comparing Goran Hyden’s notion of ‘the economy of affection’ and other empirical case studies with the ‘moral economy’ thesis developed by James Scott in the context of Southeast Asia.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to review theories and practices of moral economy in Africa from a comparative perspective. Focusing on Goran Hyden's notion of 'the economy of affection,' it examines his argument on African peasantry in comparison with the 'moral economy' thesis developed by James Scott in the context of Southeast Asian peasantry. One can find theoretical similarities in the two theses, in the sense that both address themselves to communal and consumption-oriented values inherent in subsistence economy of peasants, in stark contrast to production-oriented utilitarianism which characterizes industrialized economy. At the same time, their arguments differ in details over how the moral-based economy actually works in peasant life, reflecting significantly different historical and cultural background of each region. This paper further attempts to identify some culturally unique features of moral economy in Africa, by examining unique socioeconomic relationships and ideas created by Africans in response to disintegrating forces of capitalism and colonialism.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on data from interviews with students-traders from a range of African countries in Zhejiang, China, this study creates a composite profile of the young, well-travelled, well-educated Africans that come to China to study, work, and find their place in an increasingly competitive global order.

Paper long abstract:

Driven by macro-level trade and investment, engagement between China and African countries has grown significantly in recent years, giving rise to increased migration flows between the two regions. This paper examines the emergence of a class of young African student-entrepreneurs in greater Zhejiang Province, China. Whereas the vast majority of existing literature on Sino-African relations focuses on China's economic and developmental impacts in Africa and the increasing number of Chinese on the continent, literature on Africans in China is comparatively lacking. The little scholarship that does exist concentrates overwhelmingly on African petty traders in Guangzhou. This study fills a wide gap by investigating the region with China's second-largest (and rapidly growing) African population, and identifying a new subset of young, worldly Africans that have come to China to "chuang shijie闯世界"—take the world by storm.

Drawing primarily on data from semi-structured interviews with students-traders from a wide range of African countries and school administrators at universities in Zhejiang, as well as businesspeople and local officials in the nearby international trade city, Yiwu, this study seeks to create a composite profile of the young, well-travelled, and well-educated Africans that come to China to study, work, and find their place in an increasingly competitive global order. Further contextualized by ethnographic participant data from living with a cohort of African student-traders during the 2014-2015 academic year, this paper analyzes their backgrounds, goals, motives, and trajectories, and ultimately argues that this little-studied group plays significant and constructive role within the wider matrix of Sino-African Relations.

Paper short abstract:

Building on the history of the post(colonial) Senegalese state, this paper aims to assess the presence and evolution of the Mouride trade diaspora both in Senegalese “informal” economic sector as in the current structure of regional and global political economy.

Paper long abstract:

Building on the history of the post(colonial) Senegalese state, this paper aims to assess the presence and evolution of the Mouride trade diaspora both in Senegalese "informal" economic sector as in the current structure of regional and global political economy.

I will argue that the formal/informal divide in the case of Senegal (as elsewhere) does not represent a hermetic closure between these two realms but instead an intersection and a point of exchange between them.

What I want to show by using the Mouride example is the different perspective of the economic exchanges (either formal or informal) from the angle of a non-state actor.

Indeed, from its very origins, the mouride economy has combined a series of economic relationships with both formal and informal capitalism. Since its rural origins, the brotherhood participated intensely in the colonial peanut economy but always kept the possibility of trading the produce in the informal markets of Gambia, thus keeping distance with the official economic channels when marketing prices paid to farmers were considered too weak.

With time, this same dynamic has persisted with the integration of mouride traders into the informal sector of the Senegalese postcolonial in the context of the adoption of structural adjustment economic policies and diminishing state assistance.

Thus we cannot argue that for the Senegalese citizen-mouride disciple this divide is irrelevant because it signals different political, social, economic, and cultural behaviors that account for different political contexts and subjectivities as well.