Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T19:12:07.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘We do our bit in our own space’: DAL Group and the development of a curiously Sudanese enclave economy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2013

Laura Mann
Laura Mann*
Affiliation:
Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles’, Oxford OX1 3JS, United Kingdom
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The family firm, DAL Group, is Sudan's largest and most diversified company. Its growth has concentrated on consumer goods, rather than on state concessions or exports. It has developed its own training programmes, construction units, transportation networks and market research departments to manage the unstable environment outside its business walls. This paper focuses on the company's recruitment policies, demonstrating how the firm relies on its own internal family structure and a transnational network of Sudanese professionals in order to grow and prosper. Such self-reliance contributes to growing political frustration among young unemployed people. Graduates from ‘marginal’ areas rely more heavily on public advertisements and on information obtained from state bodies, not the private channels of wasta (personal intermediation) that cut through contemporary business. The paper concludes by comparing DAL with similar business networks in Ethiopia and Rwanda, arguing that DAL is a unique and interesting form of ‘enclave economy’, shaped by a displaced transnational elite operating in a hostile political environment. Within the wider political context of Sudan, there is a limit to what similar businesses can achieve.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 279 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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.)

Footnotes

*

This paper is based on a chapter from my PhD thesis: The Retreat of the State and the Market: Liberalisation and Education Expansion in Sudan under the NCP. I must extend the warmest thanks to my Edinburgh supervisors, Sara Rich Dorman and Donald MacKenzie, in addition to Francesca Locatelli and the late Charles Jedrej. I must also thank Thomas Molony and Cherry Leonardi for their helpful comments during my viva/defence. Lastly, I must thank all the people who gave me their time during my fieldwork, and most importantly, Motasim Daoud and the rest of DAL.

References

REFERENCES

Abbink, J. 2011. ‘Land to the foreigners: economic, legal, and sociocultural aspects of new land acquisition schemes in Ethiopia’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 29, 4: 513–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ramahi, A. 2008. ‘Wasta in Jordan: a distinct feature of (and benefit for) Middle Eastern society’, Arab Law Quarterly 22, 1: 35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al Sunut, 2010 <http://www.alsunut.sd/content/view/63/55> accessed 15.11.2010.+accessed+15.11.2010.>Google Scholar
Booth, D. & Golooba-Mutebi, F.. 2012. ‘Developmental patrimonialism? The case of Rwanda’, African Affairs 111, 44: 379–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brautigam, D. 1997. ‘Substituting for the state: institutions and industrial development in eastern Nigeria’, World Development 25, 7: 1063–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochran, S. 2000. Encountering Chinese Networks: Western, Japanese and Chinese Corporations in China, 1880–1937. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cunningham, R. B. & Sarayrah, Y. K.. 1993. Wasta: the hidden force in Middle Eastern society. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Daum, W. 2001. ‘Universalism and the west — an agenda for understanding’, Harvard International Review 23, 2: 19–23.Google Scholar
El-Tom, M. E. A. A. 2007. ‘Higher education in Sudan: towards a new vision for a new era’, Sudan Centre For Education Research Occasional Monograph Series.Google Scholar
Elyachar, J. 2002. ‘Empowerment money: the World Bank, non-governmental organizations, and the value of culture in Egypt’, Public Culture 14, 3: 493–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elyachar, J. 2005. Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, economic development and the state in Cairo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. 2005. ‘Seeing like an oil company: space, security, and global capital in neoliberal Africa’, American Anthropologist 107, 3: 377–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, R. 2007. 'Flapping their gum: Sudan threatens U.S. soft drinks’, ABC News, 1 June 2007.Google Scholar
Grabher, G. 1993. The Embedded Firm: on the socioeconomics of industrial networks. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grabher, G. & Stark, D.. 1997. ‘Organizing diversity: evolutionary theory, network analysis and postsocialism’, Regional Studies 31, 5: 533–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granovetter, M. 1973. ‘The strength of weak ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78, 5, 5: 61–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granovetter, M. 1995. Getting a Job: a study of contacts and careers. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, K. 1973. ‘Informal income opportunities and urban unemployment in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 11, 1: 61–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heavens, A. & Dahl, F.. 2008. ‘US brands defy sanctions in Sudan, Iran’, Brunei Times, 24 May 2008.Google Scholar
Little, P. 2003. Somalia: economy without state. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2009. Saviours and Survivors: Darfur, politics, and the war on terror. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Meagher, K. 1995. ‘Crisis, informalization and the urban informal sector in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Development and Change 26, 2: 259–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meagher, K. 2007. ‘Manufacturing disorder: liberalization, informal enterprise and economic ungovernance in African small firm clusters’, Development and Change 38, 3: 473–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meagher, K. 2010. Identity Economics: social networks and the informal economy in Nigeria. Woodbridge, UK: James Currey.Google Scholar
Mcdoom, O. 2007. ‘Sanctions to hinder Sudan's growth’, Reuters News, 8 June 2007.Google Scholar
Mohamed, A. A. & Hamdy, H.. 2008. ‘The stigma of wasta: the effect of wasta on perceived competence and morality’, Faculty of Management and Technology Working Paper Series 5. Cairo: German University of Cairo.Google Scholar
Richter, F-J. 1999. Business Networks in Asia: promises, doubts and perspectives. London: Quorum Books.Google Scholar
Sakijha, B. & Kilani, S.. 2000. Towards Transparency in Jordan. Amman: Arab Archives Institute.Google Scholar
Sakijha, B. & Kilani, S.. 2002. Wasta in Jordan: the declared secret. Amman: Arab Archives Institute.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. 1998. Seeing like a State: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shashati, E. Y. & Asvat, F.. 2011. ‘How to Operate in emerging markets without proper consumer data’, in Reflections from Practice Case Study. Medford, MA: Centre for Emerging Market Enterprises Papers, The Fletcher School, Tufts University.Google Scholar
Sudan Tribune. 2011. ‘Wikileaks: top Sudanese businessman ‘fed up’ with Bashir's government’, Sudan Tribune, 4 September 2011.Google Scholar
Verjee, A. 2012. ‘New north, old north: the Republic of Sudan after the split’, in Weis, T., ed., Sudan after Separation: new approaches to a new region. Heinrich Böll Foundation Democracy Series, Vol. 28. Berlin: Heinrich Böll Stiftung, 35–45.Google Scholar

Interviews

With the rare exception of some individuals whose names I have used in the text (and whose identities are clearly discerned from context), I have used pseudonyms of all my research participants to protect their anonymity. In total, I conducted 159 interviews during fieldwork. Here, I have only listed relevant and quoted sources:

1. Motasim Daoud, Managing Director of DAL Motor Company Limited, Khartoum, 2010.

2. DAL (Head Office), HR Manager 1, Khartoum, 2009.

3. DAL (Head Office), HR Manager 2, Khartoum, 2010.

4. DAL (Head Office), HR Manager 3, Khartoum, 2010.

5. Hani Hassan, Al Sunut (DAL), General Manager, Khartoum, 2010.

6. ‘Ashraf’, Sayga (DAL), HR Manager, Khartoum, 2009.

7. ‘Heba’, Coca Cola (DAL), Former HR Manager, Khartoum, 2010.

8. Liquid Gas (DAL), Manager, Khartoum, 2009.

9. HR Manager, Sudan Airways, Khartoum, 2010.

10. Graduate entrepreneur, Khartoum, 2010.

11. UNDP Employee, Khartoum, 2010.