Description
Book SynopsisAfrica abounds with examples of material and immaterial innovations that were envisaged, developed and designed elsewhere yet came to be innovatively and sometimes unexpectedly transformed in Africa. The authors in this volume explore how external innovations (products, technologies, services, institutions and processes) have been appropriated in African societies in order to be acceptable and relevant to local conditions, expectations and demands. Written from different disciplinary perspectives, the chapters demonstrate the depth and richness of innovation in Africa with, in some cases, surprising outcomes. The case studies presented are on subjects as diverse as the wine industry, trading stores, land reforms, washing powder, M-Pesa, cassava, weddings, international borders, guest houses, urban water supply, car technology, shallow wells, and railways and blacksmithing.
Table of ContentsContents Maps, figures, tables, boxes and photos Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Transforming innovations in Africa; explorative studies on appropriation in African societies Jan-Bart Gewald, André Leliveld & Iva Peša 2 Who killed innovation in the Cape wine industry? The story of a stuck fermentation c. 1930-1986 Paul Nugent 3 Entrepreneurship, colonial monetary economy and the limits of creativity: Appropriating trading stores in Northern Namibia, 1925-1980 Gregor Dobler 4 Frugal innovation in Africa: Tracking Unilever’s washing-powder sachets Cees van Beers, Peter Knorringa & André Leliveld 5 Mobile cash for nomadic livestock keepers: The impact of the mobile phone innovation (M-Pesa) on Maasai pastoralists in Kenya Moses Mwangi & Marcel Rutten 6 From Gao: Sawaba and the politics of decolonization and insurrection in the Songhay Zone of Mali and Niger (1957-1964) Klaas van Walraven 7 From self-help group to water company: The Wandiege Community Water Supply Project (Kisumu, Kenya) Samuel O. Owuor & Dick Foeken 8 ‘It is time to start my own farm’: The unforeseen effects of two waves of resettlement on household formation in Zimbabwe Marleen Dekker & Bill Kinsey 9 ‘Cassava is our chief’: Negotiating identity, markets and the state through cassava in Mwinilunga, Zambia Iva Peša 10 The social cocktail: Weddings and the innovative mixing of competences in Botswana Rijk van Dijk 11 Of labradors and libraries: The transformation of innovation on a farm in Kibale, western Uganda Jan-Bart Gewald 12 Engine of change: A social history of the car-mechanics sector in the Horn of Africa Stefano Bellucci & Massimo Zaccaria 13 Water innovations among the Maasai pastoralists in Kenya: The role of outside interventions in the performance of traditional shallow wells Moses Mwangi & Marcel Rutten 14 Stealing from the railways: Blacksmiths, colonialism and innovation in Northern Nigeria Shehu Tijjani Yusuf List of authors
