Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-7nlkj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T21:43:44.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lebanese Traders in Cotonou: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of Economic Mobility and Capital Accumulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

J. Joost Beuving
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Passenger cars and other small vehicles have for a long time been the backbone of transport in west Africa. The cars are usually second-hand, and they are sourced on overseas car markets, mostly in western Europe. During the 1990s the port town of Cotonou, Bénin, became one of the most prominent hubs in this car trade: car markets mushroomed, attracting large numbers and a wide variety of traders – including a prominent contingent of Lebanese. This article discusses the role of these Lebanese traders in the car trade through a reconstruction of their careers. It reveals that Lebanese business, which can go through a rapid succession of different economic activities, starts as kin-based enterprise, but gradually incorporates peers and friends. Close analysis of this practice suggests that Lebanese immigrant traders are to a large extent driven by the ideal of enjoying life by adopting an expatriate lifestyle.

Résumé

Les voitures de tourisme et autres petits véhicules sont depuis longtemps la cheville ouvrière du transport en Afrique de l'Ouest. Ce sont généralement des voitures d'occasion achetées sur les marchés automobiles étrangers, principalement en Europe de l'Ouest. Au cours des années 1990, la ville portuaire de Cotonou, au Bénin, est devenue la principale plaque tournante du commerce de voitures: les marchés de voitures se sont rapidement multipliés, attirant en grand nombre des commerçants divers et variés, y compris un important contingent libanais. Cet article s'intéresse au rôle de ces commerçants libanais dans le commerce automobile en reconstituant leurs carrières. Il révèle que le commerce libanais, qui peut passer rapidement d'une activité économique à une autre, démarre sous la forme d'une entreprise familiale qui peu à peuintègre des pairs et des amis. Une analyse approfondie de cette pratique suggère que les commerçants immigrés libanais sont dans une large mesure motivés par un idéal de jouissance de la vie en adoptant un style de vie d'expatrié.

Type
Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , August 2006 , pp. 324 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauer, P. T. (1954) West African Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beuving, J. J. (2004) ‘Cotonou's Klondike: African traders and second-hand car markets in Bénin’, Journal of Modern African Studies 42 (4): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beuving, J. J. (2006) ‘Nigerian second-hand car traders in Cotonou: a sociocultural analysis of economic decision-making’, African Affairs 105 (420): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bierwirth, C. (1999) ‘The Lebanese communities of Côte d'Ivoire’, African Affairs 390: 79–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boissevain, J. (1974) Friends of Friends. Networks, manipulators and coalitions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Boone, C. (1994) ‘Trade, taxes and tribute – market liberalizations and the new importers in west Africa’, World Development 22: 453–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boumedouha, S. (1990) ‘Adjustment to west African realities: the Lebanese in Senegal’, Africa 60 (4): 539–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambre de Commerce (CdC) (2002) Répertoire des opérateurs économiques au Bénin. Cotonou: Ministère du Plan, de la Restructuration Économique et de la Promotion de l'Emploi.Google Scholar
Cohen, A. (1969) Custom and Politics in Urban Africa. A study of Hausa migrants in Yoruba towns. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, P. (1998) Le Bénin. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Diouf, M. (2000) ‘The Senegalese Murid trade diaspora and the making of a vernacular cosmopolitanism’, Public Culture 12 (3): 679–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falola, T. (1990) ‘Lebanese traders in southwestern Nigeria, 1900–1960’, African Affairs 89 (357): 523–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, B. (1999) ‘The development state is dead: long live social capital?’ Development and Change 30 (1): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granovetter, M. (1985) ‘Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness’, American Journal of Sociology 3: 481–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Igué, J. O. (1999) Le Bénin et la mondialisation de l'économie: les limites de l'intégrisme du marché. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Igué, J. O. and Soulé, B. G. (1992) L'État-entrepôt au Bénin. Commerce informel ou solution a la crise? Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Johnston, G. and Percy-Smith, J. (2003) ‘In search of social capital’, Policy and Politics 31 (3): 321–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapferer, B. (1972) Strategy and Transaction in an African Factory.Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Kyle, D. (1999) ‘The Otavalo trade diaspora: social capital and transnational entrepreneurship’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 22: 422–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, N. (1977) An Introduction to the Sociology of Rural Development. London and New York: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Long, N. (1979) ‘Multiple enterprises in the central highlands of Peru’, in Greenfield, S., Strickon, A. and Aubey, R. (eds), Entrepreneurs in Cultural Context. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. C. (1983) ‘Case- and situational analysis’, Sociological Review 31: 187–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peleikis, A. (1998) ‘Das globalisierte Dorf in translokalen Kontexten: Libanesinnen zu Hause und in West Afrika’, in Schmidt, H. and Wirsz, A. (eds), Alterität und Innovation. Hamburg: Lit. Verlag.Google Scholar
Perret, C. (2002) Le Commerce des véhicules d'occasion au Bénin: problématique régionale et impacts nationaux. Cotonou: LARES.Google Scholar
Portes, A. (1995) ‘Economic sociology and the sociology of immigration: a conceptual overview’, in Portes, A. (ed.), The Economic Sociology of Immigration: essays on networks, ethnicity and entrepreneurship. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Putzel, J. (1997) ‘Accounting for the “dark side” of social capital: reading Robert Putnam on democracy’, Journal of International Development 9: 939–49.3.0.CO;2-4>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rais, M. (1988) The Lebanese of West Africa: an example of a trading diaspora. Sozialanthropologische Arbeitspapiere 6. Berlin: Das Arabische Buch.Google Scholar
Béenin, Republique du (1994) Deuxième recensement général de la population et de l'habitation. Cotonou: MPRE-INSAE.Google Scholar
Schweizer, T. (1997) ‘Embeddedness of ethnographic cases – a social networks perspective’, Current Anthropology 38 (5): 739–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sengel, M. (2000) ‘Nana-Benz de Noailles’, Hommes et Migrations 1224: 71–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoller, P. and McConatha, J. T. (2001) ‘West African communities in New York’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30 (6): 651–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Laan, L. (1975) The Lebanese Traders in Sierra Leone. Paris: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Laan, L. (1992) ‘Migration, mobility and settlement of the Lebanese in west Africa’, in Hourani, A. and Shedani, N. (eds), The Lebanese in the World. A century of migration. London: Centre for Lebanese Studies and I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Warnier, J. P. (1995) ‘Trois généerations d'entrepreneurs Bamileke (Cameroun)’, in Ellis, S. and Fauré, Y. A. (eds), Entreprises et entrepreneurs Africains. Paris: Karthala and Orstom.Google Scholar
Wolf, K. H. (1964) The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar