Subjectivization Analysed by the Biography of the Subject-Entrepreneur in a Precarious Environment

In: Historical social research: HSR-Retrospective (HSR-Retro) = Historische Sozialforschung, Band 48, Heft 4, S. 33-54

Abstract

Drawing on the life story of the emerging subject-entrepreneur outside the dominant powers in Cameroon, this paper shows how the tool of biography helps to grasp a key aspect of the dynamics of subjectivization at work in African societies. Although they do not constitute a totally objective representation of present-day realities, the life stories of our interviewees show how the figure of the subject emerges by evading the dual grip of ethnic and socially ascribed identities. Biographical backgrounds structure the understanding of subjectivization as the work of the self on the self, which leads to a logic of action that is opposed to the dominant social and political systems and holds out the hope of an alternative society emerging. In a precarious environment, the figure of the significant other sustains this utopia by reinforcing a sense of entrepreneurial commitment that is shaped by an imaginary that wants to be institutive, while placing the experience of the subject and biographical becoming in Africa within the Global Sociology perspective.