Seminar Series 'Trust and Trust Making in Africa's Global Connections', Part III: Global business and charity networks

Photo: JF de Hasque.

The AEGIS Collaborative Research Group 'Africa in the World' is happy to invite you to the third part of its Seminar Series 'Trust and Trust Making in Africa's Global Connections': The case of global business and charity networks.

During three sessions of 1,5 hours divided over the third week of November 2021, we will reflect on trust, distrust and trust making in global business and charity networks connecting Africa to other parts of the globe. Of old, interregional trade networks like those connecting both sides of the Sahara desert and the shores of the Indian Ocean, have importantly functioned through trust relationships, carefully maintained and fashioned by ethnic and family ties, trusted middlemen, and chains of reciprocity. Current global trade networks such as those of the Mouride sufi order (Diouf 2000) also importantly function by way of informal relations in which trust is embedded in religious and kinship ties. But increasingly, business partners come from very different backgrounds and are not familiar with the others’ strategies and rules of the game, such as in complex multi- actor infrastructural projects like the Kribi port project in Cameroun (Nkot and Amougou 2020), or in the case of Chinese motor cycle companies trading in Burkina Faso (Khan Mohammad 2020).
Read the full seminar announcement.

Monday 15 November 2021, 4pm-5.30pm (CET) – Trust and Trust Making in the Distribution and Consumption of Chinese Manufactured Electronics in Ghana

Speaker: Mark Kwaku Mensah Obeng, University of Ghana, Legon
Although trust is central to almost all human interactions, it is generally taken for granted and assumed that every party will diligently play its part. Key to this neglect is the tendency to deal with people with whom we share strong social ties. Trust however becomes a critical subject when one has to deal with a third party or someone outside the network (weak or arms-length ties). In this lecture, I discuss trust and the making of trust between Ghanaian transnational traders, distributors, and consumers of made-in-China electronics to highlight how the taken-for-granted phenomenon of trust is “resurrected” in the importation and distribution of made-in-China products as a result of the uncertainties involved in having to navigate the institutional, linguistic, historical and normative complexities of transnational trade with China. I also discuss how the absence of trust is skillfully resolved by the importer, distributor and the consumer to enhance their various interest through trust-making measures such as adopting piecemeal payment arrangements, employment of key celebrities as brand ambassadors and offering and acceptance of product warranty and after-sales services. This lecture combines various aspects of my ethnographic research on Africa-China over a period of ten years.

Tuesday 16 November 2021, 4pm-5.30pm (CET) - Une perspective de l’Afrique sur l’organisation internationale philanthropique du Lions’ Club : La place de la confiance lorsque des accords entre individus servent un business model

Speaker: Jean-Frédéric de Hasque
Dans le contexte globalisé, les relations entre individus et collectivités ont été affectées par ce que l’on pourrait appeler la méfiance se traduisant par un repli sur soi, autour de son groupe, son pays, sa tribu et qui a généré une revendication d’appartenance pour contrer la perte d’identité (Geschiere 2009, Apter 2007). Les conséquences ont été le rejet de l’altérité, le durcissement des politiques migratoires (Mazzochetti 2011), mais aussi l’intérêt grandissant pour la création ou l’affiliation à des réseaux qui se déploient en dehors de la sphère étatique et familiale (West & Sanders 2003, Rothkoff 2008, Freeland 2012). C’est d’ailleurs l’une des hypothèses que l’on peut avancer pour expliquer le succès du Lions Club sur le continent Africain. La confiance semble être la condition sine qua non à la création d’un réseau, quelle est sa nature ?

Le Lions club est constitué de 45 000 clubs, c’est une gigantesque structure au service de la philanthropie, mais également de sa propre survie. Le fonctionnement bureaucratique du club repose sur un système méritocratique, les membres bénévoles suivent des règlements très précis qui leur permettent de se valoriser en présentant de bons résultats aux supérieurs hiérarchiques (en terme d’effectifs, de services philanthropiques prestés). Le réseau s’agrandit sans perte d’efficacité grâce au contrôle, il existe donc une confiance qualifiée d’entente utilitaire au bénéfice d’une entreprise. Cependant, lors de la sélection des nouvelles recrues les relations familiales se re créent, les nouveaux sont choisis par cooptation et invités à intégrer « la famille » ou tous s’appellent des « amis ». La notion de confiance retrouve son terrain lignager, la proximité et le déploiement d’une histoire écrite en commun (Cornu 2003).

Le club propose donc un agencement qui crée une connivence locale, qui serait la confiance, et une entente au sein d’une structure globale performante qui transforme la confiance en une transaction pragmatique. Mais dans le contexte africain, les « œuvres philanthropiques » vont révéler l’ambivalence de ces relations modulées par la taille du groupe, en rappelant la nature lucrative des rapports qualifiés comme étant de « confiance » dans les réseaux globaux de philanthropie.

17 November 2021, 4-5.30pm (CET) - Reflections on Trust and Trust Making in the Work of Islamic Charities from the Gulf region in Africa

Speaker: Mayke Kaag, African Studies Centre Leiden, Leiden University, the Netherlands
My research on Islamic charities from the Gulf region and their work in Africa has not only led me to a reflection on the importance of trust in aid relationships more generally, but also on the active trust making done by these organisations. Indeed, as transnational charity providers they are embedded in a web of relationships that they need to maintain and/or further, and for which trust is indispensable. First of all, they need to prove their trustworthiness towards their donors in the Gulf countries. Secondly, they need to create trust in the local African contexts in which they come to work. Lastly, Islamic charities, especially those from the Gulf, face a lot of distrust in the global context post 9/11, which they need to deal with and counter. I will discuss these challenges and Gulf charities’ strategies to address them. In particular, I will show that their strategies of trust making toward different audiences may create tensions, implying the need for navigating different narratives of trustworthiness. How does this influence their work on the ground in Africa?

The seminar series will be online and take place via Zoom:

https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/j/62933524596?pwd=NnJ1ODlISGdoWHh6dk15MmYvaUJ6QT09

Organising committee:

Mayke Kaag (African Studies Centre Leiden, the Netherlands)

Jean-Frédéric de Hasque (UC Louvain, Belgium)

Abdourahmane Seck (Université Gaston Berger, Saint-Louis, Senegal)

Alena Thiel (University of Halle, Germany)

István Tarrósy (University of Pécs, Hungary)

Contact: Mayke Kaag: kaag@ascleiden.nl