The impact of Chinese business on market entry in Ghana and Senegal

In this article we analyse the currently observable changes in the norms and orders that regulate market entry in the Ghanaian and Senegalese trade sectors. We portray the three distinct ways in which - facilitated by the presence of independent Chinese migrants - previously excluded actors are now able to enter the market, without needing to rely on the networks that typically mediate access to start-up capital needs - such as selling space, marketing skills and, not least, capital stock. Creatively appropriating the new situation, these previously excluded actors have thus found in the Chinese presence a means of bypassing restrictive economic, social and religious networks. In-depth ethnographic fieldwork in 2011 and 2012 has revealed that while aspiring traders from Ghana and Senegal applaud the newly opened pathways to gainful economic activity, more established local merchants in the urban centres of both countries feel and express, in contrast, a discontent with the growing Chinese presence - as they see their role as gatekeepers of the market order being increasingly undermined.Nous observons tant au Sénégal qu'au Ghana des changements dans les normes d'accès au commerce ainsi que dans l'ordre établi qui régule le marché. Effectivement, la présence des migrants chinois à Dakar et Accra permet à de nouveaux acteurs - de facto exclus des réseaux religieux, sociaux et économiques en place qui permettent formation, accès au marché et au capital et finalement au commerce - de contourner les normes d'accès au commerce en tirant judicieusement tirer parti de la présence chinoise. Un travail de terrain effectué en 2011 et 2012 nous a permis de constater comment ces nouveaux "commerçants" ont le don de tirer parti des activités commerciales chinoises et neutralisent par là le rôle des opérateurs économiques établis et l'ordre d'accès au marché qu'ils se transmettent. L'objectif de cet article est d'en présenter et d'en analyser les comportements novateurs, les stratégies utilisées, nous en distinguons trois, et d'en montrer les conséquences au niveau de l'ordre établi, tant commercial que social

Market Men and Station Women: Changing Significations of Gendered Space in Accra, Ghana

It is impossible to understand the gendered relation between women and public space without taking into account its other, that is, male engagements with and in space. Our joint paper contrasts the public spaces of a market and a bus station in central Accra, Ghana. While the former is historically associated with female entrepreneurship, masculinity is deeply inscribed in the activities defining the latter. However, recent developments gradually undermine this gendered divide. Evermore men enter into the predominantly female occupation of market trade. Simultaneously, the public space of the bus station, complementary to many of the market’s economic activities and to its gendered significations, is increasingly shaped by intensive negotiations between male station personnel and ‘intruding’ female entrepreneurs over the scarce resource ‘space’. By focusing on interpersonal claims to entrepreneurial places in these two locations, we contest that structural determinants such as trade liberalization and employment strictures sufficiently explain the complex renegotiation of gendered entitlements to space. We illustrate how the configurations (and co-constructions) of gender and space are exposed to on-going, often subtle shifts, which are impelled by dialectically grounded transformations of quotidian spatial practices and social relations. Expanding upon the notion of viri-/uxorilocality, we explore shifts in the gendered strategies of newcomers establishing their presence in the two spaces and the extent to which these practices may alter gendered spatial significations

Networks, Spheres of Influence and the Mediation of Opportunity: The Case of West African Trade Agents in China

Abstract Drawing on theories of networked socio-economic life in West Africa, we advance that the types of Ghanaian and Senegalese communities' social organization in Yiwu, Guangzhou and Hong Kong have important effects on their members' entrepreneurial success and upward social mobility. We argue that as an expression of "vernacular cosmopolitanism&quot

Ressentiments gegen chinesische Händler in Ghana und Senegal

Am 14. November 2011 berichtet die Financial Times, dass die Containerhäfen in Westafrika vom steigenden Handel mit China profitieren; etwa 60 Prozent der Containerschiffe kommen direkt aus Asien. Die Ghana News Agency meldet am 17. November 2011 die Verhaftung von 24 illegal eingewanderten chinesischen Bergleuten bei Dunkwa in der ghanaischen Central Region. Chinas intensive Handelsbeziehungen mit Afrika rufen wachsende Unruhe bei einheimischen Unternehmern in Ghana und Senegal hervor. Seit einigen Jahren führen die Händlerorganisationen in beiden Ländern immer wieder Demonstrationen gegen chinesische Händler und deren Importe durch. Obwohl staatliche Stellen die Gefahr der chinesischen Konkurrenz bestreiten, nimmt die Wahrnehmung der anscheinend existenzbedrohenden chinesischen Unternehmer xenophobe Dimensionen an. Tatsächlich soll hier offenbar mit politisch instrumentalisierter Fremdenfeindlichkeit unliebsame wirtschaftliche Konkurrenz ausgeschaltet werden. In Senegal und Ghana werden chinesische Einwanderer von einheimischen Händlerverbänden öffentlich beschuldigt, die Märkte mit billigen Waren aus China zu überfluten und durch den verschärften Wettbewerb einheimische Händler zu verdrängen. Seit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts tauchen tatsächlich vermehrt chinesische Kleinunternehmer auf den Märkten der städtischen Zentren Westafrikas auf. Im Wettbewerb um afrikanische Konsumenten stellen sie jedoch nur eine Einflussgröße dar. Schon lange zuvor hatten einheimische afrikanische Händler die Märkte Senegals und Ghanas mit preisgünstigen chinesischen Waren beliefert. Aktuellen Handelsstatistiken zufolge sind unter den Importeuren chinesischer Waren weiterhin ghanaische und senegalesische Unternehmer in der Spitzenposition. Offenkundig versuchen einheimische Interessenvertreter mit zweifelhaften Behauptungen, erfolgreiche Wettbewerber mit fremdenfeindlicher Agitation politisch auszuschalten

Coronavirus-Pandemie: Die Feiertage und den Jahreswechsel für einen harten Lockdown nutzen : 7. Ad-hoc-Stellungnahme zr Coronavirus-Pandemie - 08.Dezember 2020

Die gegenwärtige Situation ist nach wie vor ernst und droht sich weiter zu verschärfen. Trotz des seit Anfang November in Deutschland geltenden Teil-Lockdowns sind die Infektionszahlen auf einem sehr hohen Niveau. Jeden Tag sterben mehrere Hundert Menschen. Die Krankenhäuser und insbesondere das medizinische Personal sind bereits jetzt an ihren Grenzen und die Gesundheitsämter überlastet. Um die Kontrolle über das Infektionsgeschehen zurückzuerlangen, empfiehlt die Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina in der Ad-hoc-Stellungnahme „Coronavirus-Pandemie: Die Feiertage und den Jahreswechsel für einen harten Lockdown nutzen“ ein zweistufiges Vorgehen. Die Rahmenbedingungen ‒ Weihnachtsferien in Bildungseinrichtungen und eingeschränkter Betrieb in vielen Unternehmen und Behörden – bieten die Chance, in der Eindämmung der Pandemie ein großes Stück voranzukommen

Combined searches for the production of supersymmetric top quark partners in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A combination of searches for top squark pair production using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment, is presented. Signatures with at least 2 jets and large missing transverse momentum are categorized into events with 0, 1, or 2 leptons. New results for regions of parameter space where the kinematical properties of top squark pair production and top quark pair production are very similar are presented. Depending on themodel, the combined result excludes a top squarkmass up to 1325 GeV for amassless neutralino, and a neutralinomass up to 700 GeV for a top squarkmass of 1150 GeV. Top squarks with masses from 145 to 295 GeV, for neutralino masses from 0 to 100 GeV, with a mass difference between the top squark and the neutralino in a window of 30 GeV around the mass of the top quark, are excluded for the first time with CMS data. The results of theses searches are also interpreted in an alternative signal model of dark matter production via a spin-0 mediator in association with a top quark pair. Upper limits are set on the cross section for mediator particle masses of up to 420 GeV

Observation of tW production in the single-lepton channel in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

A measurement of the cross section of the associated production of a single top quark and a W boson in final states with a muon or electron and jets in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV is presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36 fb(-1) collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC in 2016. A boosted decision tree is used to separate the tW signal from the dominant t (t) over bar background, whilst the subleading W+jets and multijet backgrounds are constrained using data-based estimates. This result is the first observation of the tW process in final states containing a muon or electron and jets, with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations. The cross section is determined to be 89 +/- 4 (stat) +/- 12 (syst) pb, consistent with the standard model.Peer reviewe

Biometric payment and gendered kinds in Ghana

This paper explores how biometric payment practices in Ghana reinforce historically grown, patriarchal frames of representing women’s economic participation. As central modes of participation in social life, payment practices tie closely into national narratives of modernity and economic development. In this light, Ghana’s current biometric identification agenda, of which biometric payment constitutes a central element, has come to associate female entrepreneurs with normative gender identities which question their discipline, autonomy, and meaningful contribution to the economy. Two different institutions seeking to classify Ghanaian women in the interest of altering their behavior will be at the heart of the discussion. In the first case, I will focus on development experts’ routine representation of (Ghanaian) women as “dependent” on assistance. In the second case, I focus on the regulatory institutions of Ghana’s financial sector and the pursuit to formalize what is generally framed as “deviant” female entrepreneurship. The article addresses how the articulation of these normative gender identities reproduces historically rooted conceptions of Ghanaian women’s autonomy and economic participation, to the effect of their continued exclusion from relevant public decision-making processes. The paper finally explores the unconventional ways in which female Ghanaian entrepreneurs-turned-activists index emancipatory gender identities to seek recognition for their economic contribution