Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTThis article presents the cases of two migrant men, a Senegalese and a Nigerian, who spent many years in Istanbul. Although their backgrounds, personalities and circumstances were different, they both did export-related commercial work in the city. After describing sub-Saharan migration to Turkey and the literature concerning it, the text focuses on the stories these migrants spontaneously presented as they explained why they had become migrants. It was striking that with very different personal details, events and coincidences, both stories attribute the decision to migrate to Istanbul to a traumatic accident that forced the protagonists to change a life that until that point did not involve transnational migration. In the stories the protagonist's ambition, determination and will are rendered invisible and he is presented as a victim. I call this rhetorical topos 'great mishap'. It resonates with stories I have heard from other migrants. I interpret it as an expression of compunction, of social responsibility weighing on the actor for abandoning close others in favour of an individual quest for self-realisation.

AbstractFor about five decades, the French colonial government in the Volta region of West Africa failed in its repeated attempts to replace the local monetary form of cowry shells with its own monetary system of francs, largely because of local opposition. This article provides an account of these events and explores the reasons for the opposition and why the opposition was successful. Despite government prohibition, the cowries even acquired increased vitality as they became the main money in the emerging urban market. Government measures were partly motivated by practical difficulties that stemmed from the conflicts that the colonial system and monetary policy generated. The article ends with a critical discussion of how money and the colonial transition are treated in anthropology.

Innovation and Individuality in African Development: Changing Production Strategies in Rural Mali. Dolores Koenig. Tiéman Diarra. and Moussa Sow. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. 279 pp.