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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'La Crise': Lexicon and Ethos of the Second Economy in Lubumbashi
Authors:Petit, PierreISNI
Mutambwa, Georges MulumbwaISNI
Year:2005
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:75
Issue:4
Pages:467-487
Language:English
Geographic term:Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Subjects:informal sector
terminology
urban areas
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
Urbanization and Migration
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3556957
Abstract:The second, or informal, economy developed later in Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of Congo) than it had in Kinshasa. The Katanga metropolis, long protected from the process of informalization thanks to its large industrial complexes, suffered seriously from the crisis of the 1990s which led to the collapse of the mining industry and, more generally, of the whole salaried sector. After a brief history of the city and of the state of play of the informal economy, this article gives a detailed analysis of this economy's lexicon. Expressions newly created from Swahili, French, and other languages provide an excellent point of entry into the concrete practices of this sector as well as the representations and morality on which such practices are based. Strongly associated with expressions of energy, cunning and conspiracy, the vocabulary emerging from the second economy bears witness to the appreciation of the 'anti-hero' and demonstrates the inception of a new moral economy in which the State and the powerful have become targets of legitimate predation based on the principle of redistribution. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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