Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law (African Issues) [Hardcover]

Janet MacGaffey (Author), Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 22, 2000 | Series: African Issues

Congo-Paris
Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law
Janet MacGaffey and Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga

Globalization as practiced by Congolese traders who operate a thriving second economy linking Central Africa and Europe.

Congo-Paris investigates the transnational trade between Central Africa and Europe by focusing on the lives of individual traders from Kinshasa and Brazzaville who operate across national frontiers and often outside the law. Challenging the boundaries of traditional anthropology, Janet MacGaffey and Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga follow complex international networks to examine the ways in which the African second economy has been extended transnationally and globally on the margins of the law. Who are these traders? What strategies do they have, not only to survive but to shine? What kinds of networks do they rely on? What implications does their trade have for the study of globalization? The personal networks of ethnicity, kinship, religion, and friendship constructed by the traders fashion a world of their own. From Johannesburg to Cairo and from Dakar to Nairobi as well as in Paris, the Congolese traders are renowned and envied. This lively book shows that it is not just the multinationals who benefit from jets and mobile phones.

Janet MacGaffey, Professor of Anthropology at Bucknell University, is author of Entrepreneurs and Parasites and coauthor of The Real Economy of Zaire.

Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga teaches at the Centre d'Études Africaines, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and is author of Les Voies du politique au Congo: Essai de sociologie historique.

African Issues—Alex de Waal and Stephen Ellis, editors
Published in association with the International African Institute, London

Contents
Traders, Trade Networks, and Research Methods
Resisting Exclusion and Reacting to Disorder
Commodities, Commercialization, and the Structuring of Identity
Contesting Boundaries: The Defiant Search for Success
The Organization of the Trade: The Importance of Personal Ties
To Surve and Shine: Two Oppositional Cultures
Conclusion: The Wider Context

Editorial Reviews

Review

Congo-Paris is another book in the impressive African Issues series, and it combines the high standards and frank realities that have characterised the series...a meticulous and illuminating empirical case-study, based on a thorough set of research methods. - Khalid Koser in JOURNAL OF ETHNIC & MIGRATION STUDIES This fascinating book explores a neglected topic in African studies: petty transnational illegal trade between central Africa and Europe. Congo-Paris is unusual in at least three ways. First, it is concerned with the informal sector, focused as it is on the commercial activities of young traders who seek their 'fortune' by setting up links between France and Africa. Second, it discusses in some detail the question of African identity as it evolves in the course of such a long bi-continental roving existence. Finally, it examines the relationship between seemingly insignificant trading activities and the evolution of globalization - as it applies to Africa ... based on a relatively new form of anthropological research... - Patrick Chabal in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ...an impressive illustration of the vigour of coping in the most daunting conditions of economic and political collapse - Nigel Harris in DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW ...intriguing book... AFRICAN BUSINESS The strength of the work is in ethnographic detail and argument. ASAAP --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Janet MacGaffey is Professor of Anthropology at Bucknell University, author of Entrepreneurs and Parasites, and coauthor of The Real Economy of Zaire.

Re[acute accent over the e]my Bazenguissa-Ganga teaches at the Centre d'Etudes Africaines, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and is author of Les Voies du politique au Congo: Essai de sociologie historique.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 190 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (July 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253337704
• ISBN-13: 978-0253337702
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,334,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crossing boundaries, in more ways than one, March 14, 2001

By 

Bruce Whitehouse (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law (African Issues) (Paperback)

"Congo-Paris" is a fine example of the recent trend in anthropology away from the localized study of communities and towards analysis that transcends geographic boundaries. Not that this study is "multi-sited" (to use the dominant buzzword): MacGaffey and Bazenguissa conducted their fieldwork for the book entirely in Paris, interviewing dozens of subjects from both Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa. But Paris is just one venue in these transnational subjects' life histories as they range back and forth across national, legal, commercial, and cultural frontiers.

While the authors set out to validate the Congolese quest for relief from political and economic hardship at home, the image they present of this loosely-defined community of traders will do nothing for its image abroad. These individuals define themselves through the act of quietly circumventing the rules (particularly import duties and immigration laws), resisting governmental authority without manifesting any visible signs of dissent. This is understandable, given the corrupt and authoritarian Congolese regimes of recent decades. But the transnational traders' ethos of stealthy noncompliance extends to their overseas existence as well, with the result in these Parisian cases being a gamut of criminal activity from smuggling and apartment squatting to drug dealing and theft. "Model immigrants" they are not, regardless of whether their behavior represents a survival strategy. One wonders just how representative this underworld is of the larger community of Congolese living in Paris, and whether those Congolese living more lawful existences there object to being tarred with this brush of illegality.

Such moral qualms aside, I give "Congo-Paris" high marks for its thorough and penetrating analysis of its subjects, a very difficult group to interview given its members' legal status and clandestine activities. No doubt its success owes much to the collaboration between MacGaffey (British) and Bazenguissa (Congolese). The book also skillfully negotiates the difficult and shifting theoretical territory of anthropology to bring outside perspectives to bear on its subjects. Finally, it makes a strong case for redefining anthropology in the context of ongoing processes of globalization. I suspect that we will be seeing a good many more studies like this one in the future.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This lively book shows benefit from jets and mobile phones., April 6, 2002

By 

David Fick "Author: Africa: Continent of Econ... (Overland Park, Kansas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law (African Issues (International African Institute).) (Hardcover)

Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law is about globalization as practiced by Congolese traders who operate a thriving second economy linking Central Africa and Europe. She investigates the transnational trade between Central Africa and Europe by focusing on the lives of individual traders from Kinshasa and Brazzaville, who operate across national frontiers and often outside the law. Challenging the boundaries of anthropology, Janet MacGaffey follows complex international networks to examine the ways in which the African second economy has been extended transnationally and globally on the margins of the law. Who are these traders? What strategies do they have, not only to survive but also to shine? What kinds of networks do they rely on? What implications does their trade have for the study of globalization? The personal networks of ethnicity, kinship, religion, and friendship constructed by the traders fashion a world of their own. From Johannesburg to Cairo and from Dakar to Nairobi as well as in Paris, the Congolese traders are renowned and envied. This lively book shows that it is not just the multinationals that benefit from jets and mobile phones.