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Remaking Africa's informal economies: youth, entrepreneurship and the promise of inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-15, 20:56 authored by Dinah RajakDinah Rajak, Catherine Dolan
In recent years, the quest for 'inclusive markets' that incorporate Africa's youth has become a key focus of national and international development efforts, with so-called bottom of the pyramid (BoP) initiatives increasingly seen as a way to draw the continent's poor into new networks of global capitalism. SSA has become a fertile frontier for such systems, as capital sets its sights on the continents vast 'under-served' informal economies, harnessing the entrepreneurial mettle of youth to create new markets for a range of products, from solar lanterns and shampoo to cook stoves and sanitary pads. Drawing on ethnographic research with youth entrepreneurs, we trace the prcesses of individual and collective 'transformation' that the mission of (self-) empowerment through entrepreneurship seeks to bring about. We argue that, while such systems are meant to bring those below the poverty line above it, the 'line' is reified and reinforced through a range of discursive and strategic practices that actively construct and embed distinctions between the past and the future, valuable and valueless, and the idle and productive in Africa's informal economies.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

The Journal of Development Studies

ISSN

0022-0388

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

4

Volume

52

Page range

514-529

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-06-30

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-08-23

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2015-07-01

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