Making business in the open: coping with economic and institutional risk and insecurity in the Kafue flats, Zambia

Haller, Tobias (2014). Making business in the open: coping with economic and institutional risk and insecurity in the Kafue flats, Zambia. Journal des Africanistes, 84(1), pp. 60-79. Société des Africanistes

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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.
Keywords: Risk, insecurity, institutional change, neo-liberal market,
common pool resources, livelihood strategies, magic, Zambia.

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