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Big Business in African Studies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2009
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This article surveys research into the business history of Africa completed during the past decade, taking as a point of departure the author's previous essays, ‘Imperial business in Africa’, in this Journal (XVII, (1976), 29–48 and 291–305), and using as a point of reference the published proceedings of two conferences held in Paris and London in 1981 and 1983. It is apparent that knowledge of indigenous and expatriate business in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has expanded considerably during the past ten years, and also that the studies produced by specialists on Africa have particular strengths: they remain integrated with other branches of history; they have illuminated the relationship between business enterprise and official policy; and they have been concerned to explore the wider social consequences of business activities and to relate historical research to current development issues. The literature reveals some characteristic weaknesses too, quite apart from limitations of source materials: the market for knowledge remains imperfect, and specialists often fail to incorporate work which is available; and their analysis is frequently limited by a reluctance to make use of theories of the firm and of accounting techniques. An explanation of these characteristics is offered, and it is concluded that once the present deficiencies have been recognized they can be overcome, and that the quality of research will improve still further as the subject continues to grow during the next decade.
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References
1 This essay takes as its starting point the two articles I published in this journal a decade ago: ‘Imperial business in Africa. Part I: sources’, and ‘Imperial business in Africa. Part II: interpretations’, in J. Afr. Hist., XVIII (1976), 29–48 and 267–90.Google Scholar
2 Laboratoire ‘Connaissance du Tiers-Monde’, ed., Entreprises et entrepreneurs en Afrique(XIXet XX siécles) (ParisM, 1983), 2 vols. This publication arose out of a conference in Paris in December 1981.Google Scholar
3 For example the special issue of African Economic History, XII (1983), edited by W. G. Clarence-Smith and entitled ‘Business empires in Equatorial Africa’.. The articles this issue were originally prepared for a workshop held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in May 1982.Google Scholar
4 The studies presented to the Paris and London conferences and published in the sources given in notes 2 and 3 above are listed in an appendix to this article. Six of the papers published in Entreprises et entrepreneurs (see note 2) were also published in the Canadian Journal of African Studies, XVI (1982), 279–359, and specialists will need to compare the two versions as there are some differences between them.Google Scholar
5 These chapters, which are not listed in the appendix, are: Hélène Verin, ‘“Entrepreneur”, “entreprise”, quelques remarques historiques pour leur définition”; Jacques Marseille, ‘L'investissement privé dans ‘empire colonial: mythes et réalités’; and Philippe Hugon, ‘Essai de typologie des entreprises africaines’, all in vol. I, 25–42, 43–60 and 61–76; and René Gallissot, ‘De la colonisation à l'indépendance, les métamorphoses du couple “entreprise privée-Etat’’, vol. 11, 607–34.Google Scholar
6 My article on ‘Imperial business’ attracted criticism on this score when it was given as a seminar paper in 1975. It is interesting to find that what was then considered to be out of date has now become modern– at least for a time.Google Scholar
7 A glimpse of the impressive range of research currently under way in France (in one discipline alone) is provided by the lists published regularly in the Revue francaise de science politique. Sir Peter Parker has reviewed the position in Britain for the University Grants Committee: ‘“Speaking for the future”: a review of the requirements of diplomacy and commerce for Asian and African languages and Area Studies’ (February 1986).Google Scholar See also Hopkins, A. G., ‘From Hayter to Parker: African Economic History at Birmingham University, 1964–1986’, African Affairs, LXXXVI (1987).Google Scholar
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16 This sentence is intended to convey a general impression; there are also authors who know more about the theory of the subject than I do.Google Scholar
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26 Some examples are given in Hopkins, ‘Imperial business’, 267–74.Google Scholar
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28 Today, it is scarcely necessary to document this statement. Evidence remains fullest for West Africa but supporting case studies are now plentiful throughout the continent.Google Scholar
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31 The illustrations which follow are examples of important work published during the last ten years (other than the items listed in the appendix), and are not comprehensive. If injustices of omission (a particularly cruel academic fate) have occurred, I shall be happy to receive corrections and to make amends on a future occasion.Google Scholar
32 Examples of work completed in the last decade are: Robin, Regis, ‘La Grande Dépression vue et vécue par une société d'import-export en A.O.F.: Peyrissac (1924–1939)’, Revue francaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXIII (1976), 544–54;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPasquier, Roger, ‘La compagnie commerciale et agricole de Ia Casamance: prélude au régime concessionnaire du Congo ?’, in Vansina, J. et al. (eds.), Études africaines: offertes á Henri Brunschwig (Paris, 1982), 189–207;Google ScholarJones, Paula, ‘The United Africa Company in the Gold Coast/Ghana, 1920–1965’(Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1983); Newbury, ‘Trade and technology’; and van der Laan, ‘Modern inland transport’.Google Scholar
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34 See Alford, B. W. E.. and Harvey, C., ‘Copperbelt merger: the formation of the Rhokana Corporation, 1930–1932’, Business History Review, LIV (1980), 330–58;CrossRefGoogle ScholarFreund, Bill, Capital and Labour in the Nigerian Tin Mines (London, 1981);Google ScholarRichardson, Peter and van Helten, Jean-Jacques, ‘The development of the South African gold-mining industry, 1895–1918’, Econ. Hist. Rev., XXXVII (1984), 319–40;CrossRefGoogle ScholarInnes, Duncan, Anglo American and the Rise of Modern South Africa (London, 1984);Google ScholarGreenhalgh, Peter, West African Diamonds, 1919–83: An Economic History (Manchester, 1985);Google ScholarRoberts, Andrew, ‘The Gold Boom of the 19305 in eastern Africa’, African Affairs, LXXXV (1986), 545–62;CrossRefGoogle ScholarVellut, Jean-Luc, ‘Les bassins miniers de l'ancien Congo Beige. Essai d'histoire économique et sociale (1900–1960)’, Les Cahiers du CEDAF, VII (1981), 1–70.Google Scholar The most recent research on the City of London is cited in Cain, P. J. and Hopkins, A. G., ‘Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion overseas. II. New imperialism, 1850–1945’, Econ. Hist. Rev., XL (1987), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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36 Barrows, Leyland C., ‘The merchants and General Faidherbe’, Revue franaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXI (1974), 236–83;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAndrew, C. M., ‘The French colonialist movement during the Third Republic’, Royal Historical Society Transactions, XXVI (1976), 143–66;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAndrew, C. M. and Kanya-Forstner, A. S., ‘The French “colonial party”; its composition, aims, and influence’, Historical Journal, XIV (1971), 99–128;CrossRefGoogle Scholarííidem, ‘The Group Colonial in the French Chamber of Deputies’, Hist. J., XVII (1974), 837–66; íídem, ‘French business and the French colonialists’, Hist.J., XIX (1976), 981–1000; íídem, France Overseas: Tile Great War and the Climax of French Imperial Expansion (London, 1981); Andrew, C. M., Grupp, P. and Kanya-Forstner, A. S., ‘Le mouvement colonial français et ses principales personnalités, 1890–1914’, Revue francaise d'histoire d'outremer, LXII (1975), 640–73;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAbrams, L. and Miller, D. J., ‘Who were the French colonialists? A reassessment of the Parti Colonial’, Hist. J., XIX (1976), 685–725;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPersell, S. M., The French Colonial Lobby, 1889–1939 (Stanford, 1983);Google Scholar see also now Marseille, Jacques, Empire coloniale et capitalismefrancaise (Paris, 1984). Oddly, a literature of comparable prosopographical detail has yet to be produced for Britain, the ‘nation of shopkeepers’.Google Scholar
37 Some of these difficulties are apparent in Milburn, Josephine F., British Business and Ghanaian Independence (Hanover, New Hampshire, 1977).Google Scholar
38 This theme is developed in Clarence-Smith, Gervase, ‘Business empires in Angola under Salazar, 1930–1961’, Afr. Econ. Hist., XIV (1985), 1–13.Google Scholar Despite the excellent work carried out in recent years on Belgian colonialism in the Congo, notably by Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Jean-Luc Vellut and Jean-Philippe Peemans (following the lead set by Jean Stengers) there still remains considerable scope for evaluating the relationship between the colonial presence and the structure of metropolitan society: did Leopold represent atavistic forces, was he a tool of emerging industrial and financial interests, or was he a modernizing autocrat who saw empire as a means of enabling the monarchy to adapt to the demands of the twentieth century?
39 Hopkins, ‘Imperial business’, Clarence-Smith, W. G., ‘Business empires in Equatorial Africa’, Afr. Econ. Hist., XII (1983), 3–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 This suggestion is developed at slightly greater length in Hopkins, ‘Imperial business’, pp. 279–82. In ‘Business empires’, pp. 5–6, Clarence-Smith sets out an interesting threefold division between ‘robber colonialism’, mature colonialism and reformist colonialism. These categories may be particularly apt when applied to Equatorial Africa, but they prompt two questions of a conceptual kind: first, whether the term ‘mature colonialism’ has suflicient precision to describe the structure and strategy of the expatriate firms; and secondly, whether the organic analogy is wholly appropriate, since maturity is more likely to be followed by senility than by reform! However, there is now sufficient interest in the business history of Africa to suggest that these issues will be taken up rather than put aside — as happened ten years ago.Google Scholar
41 Recognition of this proposition has led to a reappraisal of the intricate relationship between economic interests and colonial policy. For two rather different examples see: Elisabeth Rabut, ‘Le mythe parisien de Ia mise en valeur des colonies africaines à l'aube du XXe siècle: La Commission des Concessions Coloniales, 1898–1912’, J. AIr. Hist., xx (1979), 271–87,Google Scholar and John Lonsdale and Bruce Berman, ‘Coping with the contradictions: the development of the colonial state in Kenya’, ibid., 487–505.
42 The authoritative study is Wardle, W. A., ‘A history of the British Cotton Growing Association, 1902–39, with special reference to its operations in Northern Nigeria’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1980).Google Scholar
43 Polanyi, Karl, Dahomey and the Slave Trade: An Analysis of an Archaic Economy (Seattle, 1966).Google Scholar The debate over Polanyi's interpretation was at its height during the 1960s. For an interesting recent discussion (and additional references) see Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘Polanyi's “ports of trade”: Salaga and Kano in the nineteenth century’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, XVI (1982), 245–77.Google Scholar
44 Ehrlich, Cyril, ‘Building and caretaking: economic policy in British tropical Africa, 1890–1960’, Econ. Hist. Rev., XXVI (1973), 649–67.Google Scholar Some of the caretakers became warders. See Jewsiewicki, B., ‘The Great Depression and the making of the colonial economic system in the Belgian Congo’, Afr. Econ. Hist., IV (1977), 162–72.Google Scholar For a recent case study see McCarthy, D. M. P., Colonial Bureaucracy and Creating Underdevelopment: Tanganyika, 1919–1940 (Ames, Iowa, 1982),Google Scholar and also the perceptive review by Wrigley, C. C. in J. Afr. Hist., xxv (1984), 486–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45 Cain and Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly capitalism’, part II, pp. 1–26.Google Scholar
46 Steensgaard, Neils, Carracks, Caravans, and Companies: The Structural Crisis in the European-Asian Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century (Copenhagen, 1972).Google Scholar
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48 Hopkins, ‘Imperial business’, 284–9.Google Scholar
49 See Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine, ‘L'impact des intérêts coloniaux: S.C.O.A. et C.F.A.O. dans l'Ouest Africain, 1910–1965’, J. Afr. Hist., XVI (1975), 595–621;CrossRefGoogle Scholareadem, ‘Investissements privés, investissements publics en A.E.F., 1900–1940’,Google ScholarAfr. Econ. Hist., xii (1983),13–31;Google ScholarFieldhouse, Unilever, 560–76; Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, ch.Google Scholar and van der Laan, H. Laurens, ‘Trading in the Congo: The N.A.H.V, from 1918 to 1955’, Afr. Econ. Hist., XII (1983), 240–59.Google Scholar
50 The volume of research on the transnational companies is too large to be listed here. An example of work undertaken in the 1970s is Carl Widstrand, (ed.), Multinational Firms in Africa (Uppsala, 1975).Google Scholar An important case study is Sklar, Richard, Corporate Power in an African State: The Political Impact of Multinational Mining Companies in Zambia (Berkeley, 1975);Google Scholar a recent work is Mutombo, Kanyana, ‘Les sociétés transnationales en Afrique: forces centripètes, forces centrifuges. Le cas de L'Union Miniére et d'autres sociétés au Katanga’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Geneva, 1985);Google Scholar and an introduction to the subject is provided by Hertner, P. and Jones, G. (eds.), Multinationals: Theory and History (Aldershot, 1986).Google Scholar
51 A helpful survey of the current literature can be found in Kirkpatrick, Colin and Nixson, Frederick, ‘Transnational corporations and economic development’, J. Modern African Studies, XIX (1981), 367–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
52 Much of the impetus behind this discussion was provided by Warren, Bill, Imperialisin: Pioneer of Capitalism (London, 1980).Google Scholar
53 See Huntington, Samuel P., ‘Traditional organisations in world politics’, World Politics, xxv (1973), 333–68.Google Scholar
54 For a lucid and still highly relevant assessment see Rimmer, Douglas, ‘Schumpeter and the underdeveloped countries’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXXV (1961), 422–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
55 The literature on this subject is too vast to be listed here. But, in addition to the illustrative case studies cited in n.29 above, particular mention must be made of the valuable studies contributed to the Paris conference by Alpers and Berry, which between them capture the diverse shades of continuity and change affecting two very different societies. (For full references see the Appendix to this article.)Google Scholar
56 The following examples, chosen from one country - Nigeria - were all researched during the 1960s, even though (with one exception) they were not published until the 1970s: Kilby, Peter, African Enterprise: The Nigerian Bread Industry (Stanford, 1965);Google ScholarNafziger, African Capitalism;Google ScholarBerry, Sara S., Cocoa, Custom and Socio-Economic Change in Rural Western Nigeria (Oxford, 1975);Google Scholar and Hogendorn, Jan S., Nigerian Groundnut Exports: Origins and Early Development (Zaria, 1978).Google Scholar
57 An introduction to the history of women in Africa is no longer needed, but the service sector has yet to attract the attention which, arguably, it deserves. For an interesting discussion of the conceptual issues see Bhagwati, Jagdish, ‘Splintering and disembodiment of services and developing nations’Google Scholar, in idem, Essays in Development Economics, I (Oxford, 1985), 92–103.
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