African Entrepreneurship and the Fetish of Personal Responsibility

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Here is a link to my think piece on African entrepreneurship, which was just published online by the journal, Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE). This is my contribution to the journal's ongoing series on capitalism in Africa. Some of these arguments/analyses extend or mirror those I made in the introduction and epilogue of my edited book, Entrepreneurship in Africa: A Historical Approach (Indiana University Press, 2018). I intend the piece to be a provocation to debate and discussion, so your feedback is welcome.

http://roape.net/2020/05/26/african-entrepreneurship-the-fetish-of-personal-responsibility/?fbclid=IwAR2OAn0GrCgocIlCzEPzDOKo50cJGOb0-z8lReb9Z8HR_lU6XfJoduzqZ2g

[Biko Agozino]

Interesting opinion, thanks for sharing. You are right that entrepreneurship is not separate from other spheres of social and economic activities in Africa and so Western models could not be transplanted to Africa with their false emphases on assumptions of the free market and relative autonomy from the meddling state. 

You could have cited the robust critique of Weberian modernization theory by Jerry Dibua as an original interpretation of the role of the state as an 'activist' in economic development especially in the West where subsidies and bail-outs, tax breaks and corporate welfare handouts from the state are the order of the day. You could have reflected on the fact that the state fails to be an activist in Africa but also actively sabotages entrepreneurship by looting the economy and stashing the loot abroad, by persecuting indigenous entrepreneurs and promoting foreign ones, by failing to provide infrastructures like technology, transportation, and security and social services like education and healthcare and by refusing to fund research and development. As China shows, even the socialist state plays a major role in entrepreneurship development.

Your Mazruist idea that warring traditions are also forms of entrepreneurship is analogical with trade wars between states today but the view that warriors might be entrepreneurs may not sit well with evidence of war crimes. You could have used musicians, Nollywood artists, textile weavers, carvers, preachers, and architects to illustrate your point better than invoke war as an entrepreneurial tradition in Africa of all places.

While you lambasted doctoral students in Africas for seeking appropriate theoretical frameworks for their dissertations, you concluded by proposing the search for such a framework to study entrepreneurship in Africa. Why? Although you mentioned some female contributors to your book, you did not take the hint to reflect adequately on market women the ways that Ifi Amadiume and Oyeronke Oyewumi, among others, would. Instead, you chose the picture of a male craftsman as the patriarchal frame for your reflection on militarism as entrepreneurship. Why? Some African cultures are said to be more entrepreneurial; than others, what do you think beyond the mentioning of richest individuals from different cultures? Are you familiar with work by Agozino and Anyanike on 'Imu Ahia: Traditional Igbo Business School and Global Commerce Culture' with an explanation that apprenticeship is the engine for the reproduction of entrepreneurship in Africa?

Biko

On Tuesday, 26 May 2020, 09:26:14 GMT-4, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Here is a link to my think piece on African entrepreneurship, which was just published online by the journal, Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE). This is my contribution to the journal's ongoing series on capitalism in Africa. Some of these arguments/analyses extend or mirror those I made in the introduction and epilogue of my edited book, Entrepreneurship in Africa: A Historical Approach (Indiana University Press, 2018). I intend the piece to be a provocation to debate and discussion, so your feedback is welcome.

http://roape.net/2020/05/26/african-entrepreneurship-the-fetish-of-personal-responsibility/?fbclid=IwAR2OAn0GrCgocIlCzEPzDOKo50cJGOb0-z8lReb9Z8HR_lU6XfJoduzqZ2g

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPrVOrvWVOkKVw6hpK1Rq%3D%3D5oF0HUhdZRE%3DHm3X87nLMeg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Okey Iheduru]

Dear Moses:

Jorg Wiesgratz, one of the editors of ROAPE, last week invited me to write a riposte to your ostensibly provocative blog post. As I told him, I don't know if I'll be able send him the write-up due to several distractions I have to resolve soon or else I drown. 

In the meantime, I'd suggest that, in addition to the reference Biko suggested, you'd benefit by perusing the piece in the link below that compares and contrasts the Dangote (one iroko in the desert) model with the Innoson (communal, ubuntu thriving forest of many luxuriant trees) model of capitalism/business/ entrepreneurship. There's a link in the article to the famous TED Talk on Igbo venture capital by the guy at Harvard Business School and other video clips that you may find enriching. 

*Igbo Apprenticeship System: Dangote Group, Innoson Motors and Ubuntu*

https://www.tekedia.com/the-igbo-apprenticeship-system-dangote-group-innoson-motors-and-ubuntu/.

Regards, 

Okey Iheduru 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/715284219.6652064.1590513834490%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Okey,

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. Jorg and Leo have invited me to do a longer article as we had to work within a tight spatial constraint on this one. I'm considering the invitation and trying to see if I can fit it into my summer/fall workload. If I do write the article your link will be helpful. 

I think you should consider joining the conversation/debate. I wasn't aware of the series until Jorg sent me a link to previously published pieces. I found several of the essays to be quite strong and illuminating, especially the two that I referenced. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGCbkjp4vJ6aJORFhP-ZGh6fwW5mTRBTaOL5CS%3DvS8vUf6Vm9g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Biko,

Thanks for your comments and critiques. I was not aware of Jerry Dibua's work, so thanks for that suggestion. Indeed, everything you wrote about the state in Africa standing in the way is true, but I couldn't get into them because 1) space was limited as this is a think piece/blog; 2) I wanted to take a largely historical perspective. The editors have invited me to submit a longer, formal article for review. If I accept their invitation, I will definitely get into these details.

Point taken about about the potential of the warriors and warring example to be read against the stereotypes and war crimes of the present. I am a historian and I'm sometimes not sensitive to such presentist readings. At any rate, my point of advancing that example was to use a counterintuitive example of the least obvious entrepreneurial formation to make the point that, yes, musicians, dibias (healers), preachers, weavers, carvers, artists, and people in virtually all vocations were/are entrepreneurs even if the neoliberal semantics of entrepreneurship exclude them. In my edited volume that I referenced, Kwesi Konadu's chapter is on healers in Ghana; Gloria Emeagwali's focuses on pottery makers; and Isidore Lobnibe's analyze pito (grain beer)makers in Ghana, etc.

No, I did not lambast students for "seeking appropriate theoretical framework for their dissertations." Absolutely not. I made three interventions on the subject and in none of them did I do what you wrote. Instead, here, itemized, are the points I made in those interventions:

1. I criticized the requirement that every dissertating student in the qualitative social sciences and humanities should have a section in their dissertation on "theoretical framework," a requirement that is often observed mechanically and jarringly.

2. I argued that not all dissertations in those fields require theoretical framework or the invocation of theories, so the decision to employ a theoretical framework should be dictated by the topic, discipline, and the approach the student, working with his/her adviser, wants to take.

3. I argued that the requirement is mechanical and counterproductive, since in MOST cases (at least from what I've seen), the students do not even understand the theories being invoked, let alone being able to put them in critical conversation with their works.

4. If you must employ theories and a theoretical framework as a student, make sure that you not only understand the theory but that, 1) it is relevant to your work, and 2) you are able to demonstrate how your work extends, critiques, disproves, or confirms the theory in question. In MOST dissertations that I've seen from Nigeria, this demonstration is absent. The students simply summarize what the (often Western theorist/scholar) claims as though it is the gospel truth and without even bothering to show how the theory is relevant to what is being discussed.

5. I critiqued the habit of invoking outmoded theories (I see many from the 1950s and '60s and '70s that have since been transcended and rendered obsolete by more recent debates and consensuses)

6. I critiqued the widespread practice of invoking and privileging mostly Western theories and scholars (with perspectives and theories founded on Western empirical data and experiences), neglecting theories and concepts developed by Africana scholars from African experiences.

7. I argued that, instead of encouraging students to blindly copy foreign theories they don't understand to fulfill a rigidly stupid requirement, advisers and policymakers in Nigerian higher ed should encourage them to develop their own theories from their own empirical data, which are rooted in African/Nigerian experiences and phenomena.

In any case, what I'm calling for at the end of the piece is not a theoretical framework per se but rather a new vocabulary, a new approach, and a new conceptual apparatus to understand African entrepreneurship. I understand that, taken together or even separately, these may amount to or produce a set of theoretical statements and postulations. I also recognize that searching for a new language and a new concept can result in or flow from new theoretical reflections. But since I am not against theory (the production of it or critical engagement with it), and since I myself engage in theoretical critique and the generation of theory from my own work, I am comfortable calling for, yes, a new theoretical toolkit for making sense of African entrepreneurship. 

Theory is great when used or invoked properly and, more crucially, when used critically rather than adopted uncritically. And it is better when the empirical and analytical work informs the critical theoretical engagement rather than vice versa. These are my overarching points. Theory, as I tell my Nigerian student mentees, is not a gown you put on your work when the work is completed to adorn or beautify or embellish it. In not In this particular case, the empirical African entrepreneurial scene calls for a new set of conceptual and analytical tools because, as I argued, it defies the existing Western perspectives on entrepreneurship.  And that is my contention.

Daalu.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/715284219.6652064.1590513834490%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Biko Agozino]

Moses

I for say now. 

As I commented back then, what you were getting at is the difference between deductive logic that starts from a general theoretical framework and proceeds to specific evidence to test the theoretical assumptions and inductive logic that starts with specific evidence and builds up to a broad theoretical conclusion in line with grounded theory. They are both valid approaches to research and you are right that the nature of the topic will determine the logic of research design but African students should do more theorizing and not less for obvious reasons. 

The error of mechanical adoption of poorly examined theoretical frameworks is not the exclusive preserve of doctoral students from Africa. Having supervised graduate students on three continents, I can say without fear of contradiction that it is a common error that the advisory committees could help to correct even though the students are independent and are welcome to refuse good advice. 

The difficulties of supervisors in Africa is the workload of supervising millions of doctoral students alone in addition to teaching lorryloads of students in undergraduate classes who also go on to compete undergraduate theses under their supervision. It is almost impossible to put the super in supervision or to give everyone adequate individual attention but the miracle is that brilliant students still excel and go on to be international stars that shine as bright or brighter than peers from anywhere else. There will always be students who struggle even in the best universities in the world and there will always be students who are enterprising even in the poorly ranked institutions of the world.

Biko

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPonh9eNc9rVcoacVpL-cLKSbF4%3D0eB%3DycNRp7WrQOC3mw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Harrow, Kenneth]

hi moses

i liked the piece a lot, especially since it is new to me. i had a few thoughts

the critique of western entrepreneurs seemed too absolute:
"eir business empires relate with host governments and political formations in ways that would offend contrived, self-righteous, and hypocritical business sensibilities in the West. Text-bookish neoliberal Western formulations proclaim the autonomies of the business and political spheres, but these autonomous zones do not exist in the West as many corporate and political corruption scandals have revealed."

not my field, but this is my impression: some businesses engage the political directly and fundamentally; others don't. putting all into one basket of hyprocritical ccontrived etc seems way too much: are there tons of business, including small entrepreneurs, who work quite differently from large corporations? not everyone is enron.

the african ties to the social, also, left me wanting more nuance. the ties to the social could function like blackmail, depending on the circumstances; they could entail positive concerns for the community, or ones that generate enormous resentment, pulls on the successful person's resources. you can frame it positively or negatively.... i'd look a little for both.

the example of war was striking; others, like minerals? like ties with china now compared w europe in the past? are we seeing a change in entrepreneurialism since 1990?

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 3:44 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Entrepreneurship and the Fetish of Personal Responsibility

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPonh9eNc9rVcoacVpL-cLKSbF4%3D0eB%3DycNRp7WrQOC3mw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Moses Ochonu]

By the way, Biko, I had nothing to do with the image used for the piece. It was the decision of the editors. I was not consulted and I saw the image for the first time this morning when I opened the link to the piece, which the editors sent overnight.

Sent from my iPhone

On May 26, 2020, at 1:31 PM, Okey Iheduru <okeyi...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGCbkjp4vJ6aJORFhP-ZGh6fwW5mTRBTaOL5CS%3DvS8vUf6Vm9g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Ken,

These are fair critiques. On the first point, my defense is that in a think piece of this kind, qualifiers, nuances, and distinctions of the type you rightly outlined about the diversity of the Western entrepreneurial landscape cannot be fully accommodated due to space constraint. In a formal scholarly article, such fine-grained caveats and distinctions would be necessary. I should also say that to the extent that it is the big Western corporations and companies and their practices that feed into neoliberal assumptions and formulations, it is legitimate to to use the identities and practices of those same business entities as paradigmatic representations of Western business cultures and thus the empirical foundations of the Western neoliberal entrepreneurial claims that I was signaling.

Your second point is an excellent one and I agree. But again, in a short piece like this when one is trying to make several arguments, those kinds of nuances are difficult to capture fully. My attempt to at least gesture at that nuance is encapsulated in my phrase "although open to perversion and abuse...." Indeed, the business-politics link sometimes was forced and enforced by power formations, and even when it started out as a voluntary arrangement, it could be abused and lead to corruption. My intention was not to romanticize the precolonial or modern African entrepreneurial scene and its existence at the intersection of the political, social, and economic. I recognize that abuses occurred, that compulsion and coercion were sometimes used, and that entrepreneurs sometimes had no choice but to grudgingly bend to the demands of sociopolitical power formations. Nonetheless, I think that the broader point should not be lost in the weeds of nuance. The larger argument concerns the entwinement of the business, social, and economic realms in ways that contradict the pretentious neoliberal rhetoric on the autonomy of the business or entrepreneurial realm. The ways in which such entwinements occurred and what led to them are valid questions but they're not germane to my intervention in this piece. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR12MB24564D3AC9615086BC420CCADAB00%40DM5PR12MB2456.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

[Harrow, Kenneth]

hi moses

the second point is the only one that really matters. i agree you have to paint broadly, and that you are attempting to avoid romanticizing. what i have in the back of my head is the way geschiere links the practices--of any kind--with the social structures. the beliefs get tied to who is at home, who pushes what buttons, how the work, how they change, what makes them change.

the same for an entrepreneuer who has family or colleagues or fellow villagers or whoever might have helped his or her career, who wants the chips to come due, who feels linked to the entrepreneur in some way that person can't ignore. sometimes the pressures seem undue. i know that, we've all heard complaints of that sort all the time; but the opposite, to ignore family or friends or colleagues, seems impossible.

once i heard a story in yaounde about the mayor's son. the mayor was a very powerful figure, and people from his village would make a point of coming to yaounde and stay with him. one time the mayor's son had it with one visitor who overstayed. so...guess what? instead of booting him, he said, sorry i have to catch a plane for an overseas engagement. made the whole thing up. packed up bags, got into the limo, took off for the airport. the guest had to leave.

just a distant relative from the village, but couldn't be turned out.

that's very superficial, for me mentioning geschiere. but it's how i think about community as you evoke it. i know it is real. i contribute to my grandson's college expenses. i have a family too. what would life be without our families? well, in america, if you just show up at meal time you are thought crass. in africa, at least the africa i knew, you put on extra food in the pot before you serve dinner so there will be food for any unplanned for guests.

would those expectations, those social pressures, be changing, especially with the rise of entrepreneurial values??  what happens when the village is a memory, and the city is the only place where entrepreneurs come from, as is mostly the case here?

ken

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 7:59 PM

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPrYRGy7%3DVPr%3DZB78PuCoL%3DYh57TUWuXiX0z-pBz1fnsUQ%40mail.gmail.com.