… called Baobab. The description in the current edition of the newspaper:

…it will delve into politics, econoics and culture, and comment on the successes of Africa’s peaceful elections and foreign investment as well as on Africa’s troubles.

This is hoping that the language in which the discussions and analyses are framed will not be one of despair (remember The Economist’s own ‘The Hopeless Continent’ headline?), and of disaster, war and warlordism (see this Guardian op-ed). Anthropologists know quite well that the language in which a discussion is framed influences the content of the discussion, and even frames the understanding of the content.

Africa is a different place from how it is often portrayed in the popular media. Thanks to sound economic policies in many countries over the past decade or so, Africa has been able to withstand this crisis much better than has been the case in the past. The fact that the crisis hit Africa anyway does not mean that the policies were wrong. On the contrary, those policies helped to buffer Africa from the worst of the crisis, and they should now be strengthened. All three national leaders with whom I met—President Kibaki of Kenya, President Zuma of South Africa, and President Banda of Zambia—conveyed to me their strong sense of the policy agenda ahead.

Read the whole article.

If you count the book sales on Amazon and plot them according to frequency, the curve hugs the vertical and horizontal axes, indicating a few very large numbers (the blockbusters) and many small ones (the ‘long tail’ of books like yours and mine). This is a typical manifestation of something called a ‘power-law’ distribution. This is a relationship between the size and frequency of a variable, where the frequency decreases faster than the size increases. If the data are plotted on a log-log scale, the result is a straight line sloping down from left to right. Thus an earthquake that is twice as strong will occur four times more rarely. If this pattern holds for earthquakes of all sizes, it is said to ‘scale’, meaning that there is no typical size that could be said to be representative of earthquakes as a class of phenomena, as is the case with normal distributions. Power laws are found in a wide range of natural and manmade instances. But research on them has grown rapidly in recent decades. Power laws have been discovered for the frequency of words used in natural language; and the distribution of molecular reactions in cells reveals a few hubs linked to most reactions and many weakly connected molecules.

Keith Hart in the essay goes on to discuss the science of networks, the differences in the ability of people to act as hubs or connectors in networks, and the paradigm shift in ideologies that accept the inevitability of, say, inequality in income distribution.

This whole paradigm shift in scientific and statistical models coincides with the breakdown of the nation-state’s monopoly of society and with it the corporatist premises of twentieth century economy, such as jobs for life and social planning. For three decades neo-conservative liberals subordinated national economy to global markets; and the digital revolution has given us a new emergent model of society in the internet. The norm of this new world market was stark inequality. The egalitarian premises of nation-states, seeking to curb capitalism’s polarizing tendencies, gave way to a world society where the winner takes all. All of this has been thrown into stark relief by the economic crisis of 2008-9. But for now the power-law is king. It’s a different model of statistics, for sure. Perhaps it captures society poised between national and world forms. Or maybe we reverted temporarily to the imbalance between market and state typical of the Gilded Age, before national regulation aspired to curb domestic capitalism. The pressing political question for humanity, now given a new urgency by the collapse of the credit boom, remains whether new forms of association will enable us to harness the polarities of the network economy for common ends.

The whole article.

is the title of a Reuters report on Africa. Read this excerpt:

The International Monetary Fund believes growth in sub-Saharan Africa will be 1 percentage point above the global average, and puts eight African countries in its top 20 fastest-expanding economies in 2010. Oil-rich Angola and Congo Republic will lead the charge with growth rates of more than 9 and 12 percent respectively, both beating China, according to the IMF’s most recent projections.

According to the report, China is an important part of the mix:

Massive Chinese investment, in return for resources to fuel its own economic boom, has helped drag the awful roads in many parts of Africa into the 21st century. Trade with China now tops $100 billion a year, and China has overtaken the United States as Africa’s main partner.

In giving the countries where the resources lie an economic boost, China’s need for oil and raw materials has transformed them into an investment proxy for the Asian giant’s growth, and handed the continent as a whole unprecedented negotiating clout.

China last year promised $10 billion in infrastructure funding over three years, amid talk by Chinese officials that Africa can experience a boom like the one in their country. But the challenges — or opportunities — are still vast.

And:

“Not investing in Africa is like missing out on Japan and Germany in the 1950s, Southeast Asia in the 1980s and emerging markets in the 1990s,” said Francis Beddington, head of research at emerging market investment house Insparo Capital.

He believes that in the long term, Africa has the potential to be home to a sizeable chunk of the factories and warehouses of tomorrow’s world.

The Africa of old — aid-dependent, and with large tracts of the economy controlled by corrupt and capricious governments — has not disappeared.

But for all the previous false dawns, there is a growing belief that the continent — home to 53 countries, a rapidly urbanizing young population of a billion people and as much as a third of the world’s natural resources — is changing.

The full report. The future might just be that bright.

COMMISION ON URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY, IUAES

ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Gioiosa Marea, Sicily, 7-9 May 2010

The Informal and the Formal: Contested Categories of Socio-Economic Life

Convenor: Italo Pardo (University of Kent)

OUTLINE

This conference recognizes both the empirical difficulty in categorising human activities as belonging strictly to the formal sector or the informal sector of the economy and the blurred boundaries between these sectors. It brings together anthropologists who specialise in different ethnographies with the main aim of addressing the complexity of the informal sector, the attendant challenges in attempting to define it and the problematic relationships between activities that take place within and without the officially set boundaries of the formal sector.

The ethnographer is often confronted with small-scale businesses and other economically significant actions and forms of exchange (individual or collective) that, not exclusively rooted in what is officially defined as ‘the informal sector’, generally address the market as a whole.From a worm’s eye viewpoint, it could be reasonably suggested that such activities may not always be strictly legal and they may not always agree with the ‘laws’ of market capitalism, but not for this should they be misread as evidence of marginality – cultural, economic, political and moral. On the contrary, it should be asked whether even people with a disadvantaged background may be actively engaged in negotiating the messiness of their lives and redefining their place in society. Contested knowledge acquired through prolonged involvement in the flow of local life brings out the weakness of the distinction between employment and work and of a view of informal work activities as a separate mode of production or as belonging to a ‘casual economy’. Of course, such complexity must be set against the background of the graded relationships between the legal and the illegal sectors that colour many dealings at various levels and in various sectors of associated life, which raises stimulating questions as to the extent to which the blurred boundaries of the ’divide’ mirror other aspects of social and cultural life (such as kinship, marriage and social and moral networks) in each specific ethnographic setting. It is not unusual to find complex links, in terms of production, distribution and consumption, between the formal sector and activities that are rooted in the informal sector, at the limits or beyond the limits of the strictly legal. For example, ethnographically diversified findings suggest that small- to medium-range formal businesses often rely on workshops that produce goods illegally (evading tax on the purchase of raw materials and the sale of finished products, as well as employment tax and other welfare state contributions) and that a proportion of such products finds its way into the legal market. In this context, the complex relationship between the legal and the illegal is a key issue, the empirical analysis of which may help us to clarify broader, far-reaching economic processes in view of ever-growing global competition. Such an approach needs to account for problematic processes whereby what is illegal at a given time in a given place may be legal in another place or may become legal at another time in the same place; it should indeed be borne in mind that changes in the law may turn given situations on their head.

Bringing together diversified ethnographic analyses, this Conference will stimulate a comparative view of this complex topic.

Participants are asked to draw on their diverse research experiences to examine ways to address effectively the analytical and theoretical issues raised by this topic.

This event will be organized in such a way as to allow ample time for presentation of working papers and discussion.

Proposals (max 500 words) should be sent by 15 March 2010 to Dr Marcello Mollica:

Chief Coordinator, CUA

Department of Social Anthropology

University of Fribourg

Bd de Pérolles 90

Bureau G 302

1700 Fribourg Switzerland

Tel. ++41 26 300 74 79

Fax ++41 26 300 96 64

e-mail: marcello.mollica@unifr.ch

… is the title of a review of anthropologists Jean and Jean Comaroff’s book, Ethnicity, INC. An excerpt of the review:

From the very beginning of their study, the authors ask us to take a step back and stop thinking about ethnicity only as a political tool. Rather, we should extend new attributes and opportunities to the social and economic entity that an ethnic group is. What if, the authors ask, the future of ethnicity lies in its capacity to incorporate identity (incorporate as in creating a legal corporation based on ethnic grounds) and couple this normative shift with the progressive commodification of one’s ethnic group culture? The authors think that the new product could efficiently represent the interests of its members. They argue that the commodification of culture doubled by the branding of the newly marketed entities could trigger the formalization and the institutionalization of the consumption of culture in ways that would be beneficial to those creating and generating culture in the first place.  The Comoroffs go further in their analysis and suggest that this process and the subsequent cultural products would be managed by legal entities which will finally allow their members to reap the fruits of their culture’s commodification.

“Why not branding ethnicity instead of labeling it?” appears to be one of the extremely interesting questions that scholars interested in ethnic studies should ask themselves. The authors ask this and many more questions in an intriguing and refreshing manner, in times when ethnic studies (at least on Africa) are saturated by traditional discourses that mostly focus on the connection between violence, political / economic instability and ethnic warfare.

And:

While I agree with most of the arguments presented in this book, I have my reservations with respect to some of the issues presented in Ethnicity INC. Based on my understanding, one which is still in formation with respect to contemporary African realities, the biggest “fault” of the Comaroffs is that they implicitly suppose that humans are rational actors who play their part within a much larger framework which is laid out by the international political and economic order. If that were the case, then it would be unreasonable not to do your best as statesmen and public institutions to encourage the ethno-cultures the Comaroffs deal with in their book. After all, we are all consumers of cultures or, I would go even further and say, we are consumers of otherness. By exploring the others we rediscover our own roots, passions and ultimately the ideals we stand on. The others are just a reconfirmation of the self. And those who have a culture and seek to both preserve it and promote it should also find ways to capitalize on these cultures since, after all, nothing is for free. But this is not always the case.

The full review. The book is going on my to-read list for the year.

is China. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, China overtook Germany in 2009:

China took over the mantle of the world’s top merchandise exporter from Germany in 2009, according to the latest figures, aided by a global economic crisis that has taken a greater toll on other trading powers.

China exported $957 billion of goods in the first 10 months of 2009, compared with $917 billion for Germany, according to customs data compiled by Global Trade Information Services, a Geneva-based firm.

No changes in November or December are expected to overturn the Chinese lead, trade experts say. China is likely to publish trade figures for the full year next week.

China’s claiming of the title of world’s largest exporter was widely expected, with annual growth in its exports regularly exceeding 20% during the past decade.

China in 2007 overtook Germany as the world’s third-largest national economy, and is on track to soon surpass Japan to become the second-largest economy after the U.S.

“China has been growing much more rapidly than Germany on all sorts of dimensions and has a population of 1.3 billion, while Germany has 83 million,” said Douglas Irwin, a professor at Dartmouth College.

China’s ascendancy has been accelerated by the international financial crisis, from which it has suffered less than other major economies. Continue reading.

Commentary on the same WSJ article in Der Spiegel.

The first in a series of posts on the financial crisis by economic anthrologist Keith Hart, at the ASA Globalog. The series will engage:

long-run historical questions like what this crisis is, with the news as it unfolds in real time and with issues that matter practically to people who don’t have to be reminded that “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Read it in full here.

Krugman speaking on Finland: Speaking at a forum on Finland’s economic development organised by the Finnish Innovation Fund, Sitra, Krugman said that technically the global economy began to rebound at the end of the summer. He added, however, that unemployment could worsen for up to a year and a half, despite growth.

“Prospects for slow growth–maybe even some quarters of negative growth are really quite strong. The forces of recovery now are largely temporary factors. We don’t have very much reason to think we’ve got a solid recovery on tap,” said Krugman.

While Krugman sees some bright spots, he added that the recession in Finland could last for quite some time. The effects of the government’s stimulus efforts are wearing off and exports offer little remedy in global markets still gripped by the downturn.

“From the general grounds that Finland is a manufacturing, exporting economy, I would expect GDP growth to turn positive quite soon because we’re seeing a worldwide bounce back in manufacturing–but that’s a long way from full recovery,” Krugman explained.

For now, Krugman says Finland’s best bet is to stick to its stimulus efforts to protect jobs.

“There are times when it’s good to run deficits and this is one of them, so don’t try to balance the budget right now,” advised Krugman.

I just read here that Nigeria is the

“fastest growing generator” of sovereign wealth over the last five years, recording a growth of 291 percent.
Nigeria outperformed other countries that had also made significant progress including Oman, which grew its sovereign wealth by 256 percent; Kazakhstan (162 percent); Angola (84 percent); Russia (74 percent), and Brazil (65 percent).

This comes two weeks after I read that J.P Morgan is returning to Nigeria, planning to establish a 40-man strong office.

Is the Nigerian economy really that attractive?