Making Businesses in the Open

Coping with Economic and Institutional Risk and Insecurity in the Kafue Flats, Zambia

Bibliographic Data

ID14769677
AuthorsTobias Haller (0000-0002-1098-6788, University of Bern, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume84-1
Pages60-79
Publication date2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal des africanistes (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0399-0346 • E-ISSN: 1957-7850
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/africanistes.3214
OpenAlexW2273113190
LanguageEN
References cited13

This paper deals with the difference between risk and insecurity from an anthropological perspective using a critical New Institutionalist approach. Risk refers to the ability to reduce undesirable outcomes, based on a range of information actors have on possible outcomes; insecurity refers to the lack of this information. With regard to the neo-liberal setting of a resource rich area in Zambia, Central Africa, local actors – men and women – face risk and insecurity in market constellations between rural and urban areas. They attempt to cope with risk using technical means and diversification of livelihood strategies. But as common-pool resources have been transformed from common property institutions to open access, also leading to unpredictability of competitors and partners in “free” markets, actors rely on magic options to reduce insecurity and transform it into risk-assessing strategies as an adaptation to modern times

Business · Competitor analysis · Development economics · Diversification (marketing strategy · Economics · Embeddedness · Face (sociological concept · Geography · Livelihood · MAGIC (telescope · Perspective (graphical · Resource (disambiguation · Social science · Sociology · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Land Rights and Reforms · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Marketing

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