Entrepreneurship in Africa

edited by Moses E. Ochonu, with contributions by Ralph Callebert, Chambi Chachage, Gloria Chuku, Gloria Emeagwali, Michael Gennaro, Kwasi Konadu, Isidore Lobnibe, Marta Musso, Mike Odugbo Odey, Lynn Schler

A tapestry of innovation, ideas, and commerce, Africa and its entrepreneurial hubs are deeply connected to those of the past. Moses E. Ochonu and an international group of contributors explore the lived experiences of African innovators who have created value for themselves and their communities. Profiles of vendors, farmers, craftspeople, healers, spiritual consultants, warriors, musicians, technological innovators, political mobilizers, and laborers featured in this volume show African models of entrepreneurship in action. As a whole, the essays consider the history of entrepreneurship in Africa, illustrating its multiple origins and showing how it differs from the Western capitalist experience. As they establish historical patterns of business creativity, these explorations open new avenues for understanding indigenous enterprise and homegrown commerce and their relationship to social, economic, and political debates in Africa today.

Introduction: Toward African Entrepreneurship and Business History / Moses E. OchonuPart One: Mercantile and Artisanal Networks1. Globalization and the Making of East Africa's Asian Entrepreneurship Networks / Chambi Chachage2. The Wangara Factor in West African Business History / Moses E. OchonuPart Two: Female Entrepreneurs and Gendered Innovation3. Women Entrepreneurs, Gender, Traditions, and the Negotiation of Power Relations in Colonial Nigeria / Gloria Chuku4. From Artisanal Brew to a Booming Industry: An Economic History of Pito Brewing among Northern Ghanaian Migrant Women in Southern Ghana / Isidore Lobnibe5. Interconnections between Female Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation in the Nigerian Context / Gloria EmeagwaliPart Three: Entrepreneurship as Political Initiative6. Benin Imperialism and Entrepreneurship in North East Yorubaland From the Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Century / Uyilawa Usuanlele7. Taking Control: Sonatrach and the Algerian Decolonization Process / Marta MussoPart Four: Unconventional Entrepreneurs8. Business After Hours: The Entrepreneurial Ventures of Nigerian Working Class Seamen / Lynn Schler9. Ace Boxing Promoter: "Super Human Power," Boxing, and Sports Entrepreneurship in Colonial Nigeria, 1945-1960 / Michael Gennaro10. Healing Works: Nana Kofi Donk and the Business of Indigenous Therapeutics / Kwasi Konadu11. Entrepreneurs or Wage Laborers? The Elusive Homo Economicus / Ralph CallebertPart Five: African Enterprise in the Shadow of Colonization12. The Socioeconomic Bases of Growth of Microentrepreneurship in the Igede Area of Central Nigeria in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries / Mike Odey13. Ethnicity, Colonial Expediency, and the Development of Retail Business in Colonial Turkana, Northwestern Kenya, 1920-1950 / Martin ShanguhyiaEpilogue: African Entrepreneurship, Past and Present / Moses E. Ochonu