Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:48:38.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Regulation, Cross-border Trade and Practical Norms in West Nile, North-Western Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Kristof Titeca  and
Tom de Herdt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article describes how cross-border trade in West Nile, north-western Uganda to a large extent takes place outside of the legal framework. This does not mean that this trade is unregulated. We make use of the concept of ‘practical norms’ to show the existence of regulation within this trade, which diverges both from official norms and social norms (‘moral economy’). The article describes how these practical norms emerged and how they are enforced. First, it is shown how the moral economy of cross-border trade plays an important role in their articulation. Second, we ask which practical concerns play a role in sustaining these norms and how deviations from them activate open power struggles. And third, we show how concrete events have played a role in their emergence.

Résumé

Cet article décrit la manière dont le commerce transfrontalier se déroule dans une large mesure en dehors du cadre juridique dans la région du Nil occidental située au Nord-Ouest de l'Ouganda. Ceci ne veut pas dire que ce commerce n'est pas réglementé. L'article utilise le concept de « normes pratiques » pour montrer l'existence d'une réglementation, au sein de ce commerce, qui diverge à la fois des normes officielles et des normes sociales (« économie morale »). Il décrit l'émergence de ces normes pratiques et leur mise en oeuvre. Tout d'abord, il montre le rôle important que joue l'économie morale du commerce transfrontalier dans leur articulation. Ensuite, il étudie les préoccupations pratiques qui jouent un rôle dans le maintien de ces normes et les luttes de pouvoir ouvertes que déclenche le non-respect de ces normes. Enfin, il montre le rôle qu'ont joué des événements concrets dans leur émergence.

Type
Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 80 , Issue 4 , November 2010 , pp. 573 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2010

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.)

References

Abraham, I. and Schendel, W. van (2005) ‘Introduction: the making of illicitness’ in Abraham, I. and Schendel, W. van (eds), Illicit Flows and Criminal Things. Bloomington and Indianapolis IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Andreas, P. (2000) Border Games: policing the US–Mexico divide. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bayart, J.-F. (1999) ‘The “social capital” of the felonious state’ in J.-F., Bayart, S., Ellis and B., Hibou (eds), The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford, Bloomington and Indianapolis IN: James Currey and Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bayart, J.-F. (2004) ‘Le crime national et la formation de l'état’, Politique africaine 93: 93–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blundo, G. (2006) ‘Dealing with the local state: the informal privatization of street-level bureaucracies in Senegal’, Development and Change 37 (4): 799–819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bromley, R. (1978) ‘Organization, regulation and exploitation in the socalled “urban informal sector”: the street traders of Cali, Colombia’, World Development 6: 1161–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabal, P. and Daloz, J.-P. (1999) Africa Works: the political instrumentalization of disorder. Oxford and Bloomington IN: International African Institute in association with James Currey and Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Chalfin, B. (2001) ‘Border zone trade and the economic boundaries of the state in north-east Ghana’, Africa 71 (2): 202–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleaver, F. (2002) ‘Reinventing institutions: bricolage and the social embeddedness of natural resource management’, European Journal of Development Research 14 (2): 11–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cross, J. (1998) Informal Politics: street vendors and the state in Mexico City. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das, V. and D., Poole (eds) (2004) Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Sante Fe and Oxford: School of American Research Press and James Currey.Google Scholar
de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practices of Everyday Life. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
de Soto, H. (2000) The Mystery of Capital: why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
DfID (2007) ‘The timber trade and poverty alleviation, Upper Great Lakes region’. Report prepared by Forests Monitor for the Department for International Development, ⟨http: //webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/ http: / / www.dfid.gov.uk/ Documents/ publications / forests_monitor.pdf⟩, accessed 1 July 2010.Google Scholar
Gambetta, D. (1993) The Sicilian Mafia: the business of private protection. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hagedorn, J. M. (1994) ‘Neighborhoods, markets and gang drug organization’, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31 (3): 264–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, K. (1995) ‘L’entreprise africaine et l'économie informelle: réflexions autobiographiques’ in Ellis, S. and Fauré, Y. A. (eds), Entreprises et entrepreneurs africains. Paris: Karthala/Orstrom.Google Scholar
Hart, K. (2001) Money in an Unequal World. New York NY: Texere.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hecht, D. and Simone, M. (1994) Invisible Governance: the art of African micropolitics. New York NY: Autonomedia.Google Scholar
Hibou, B. (1999) ‘The “social capital” of the state as an agent of deception’ in J.-F., Bayart, S., Ellis and B., Hibou (eds), The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford, Bloomington and Indianapolis IN: James Currey and Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kelsall, T. (2009) ‘Game-theoretic models, social mechanisms and public goods in Africa: a methodological discussion’, Discussion Paper No. 7, Africa Power and Politics Research Programme, December 2009.Google Scholar
Klein, A. (1999) ‘The barracuda's tale: trawlers, the informal sector and a state of classificatory disorder off the Nigerian coast’, Africa 69 (4): 555–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leopold, M. (2005) Inside West Nile. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Little, P. (2005) ‘Unofficial trade when states are weak’, Research Paper No. 2005/13, Expert Group on Development Issues (EGDI) and United Nations University–World Institute for Economic Development Research (UNUWIDER).Google Scholar
Lund, C. (1998) ‘Struggles for land and political power: on the politicization of land tenure and disputes in Niger’, Journal of Legal Pluralism 40: 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, C. (2006) ‘Twilight institutions: public authority and local politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37 (4): 685–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacGaffey, J. (1987) Entrepreneurs and Parasites: the struggle for indigenous capitalism in Zaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacGaffey, J. (ed.) (1991) The Real Economy of Zaire. London and Philadelphia PA: James Currey and University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
MacGaffey, J. and Bazenguissa-Ganga, R. (2000) Congo–Paris: transnational traders on the margins of the law. Oxford, Bloomington and Indianapolis IN: International African Institute in association with James Currey and Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mahmoud, H. S. (2008) ‘Risky trade, resilient traders: trust and livestock marketing in northern Kenya’, Africa 78 (4): 561–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meagher, K. (1990) ‘The hidden economy: informal and parallel trade in northwestern Uganda’, Review of African Political Economy 47: 64–83.Google Scholar
Meagher, K. (2008) ‘Informality matters: popular economic governance and institutional exclusion in Nigeria’, unpublished paper presented at St Antony's College, Oxford, 11–12 January 2008.Google Scholar
Migdal, J. S. (1994) ‘The state in society: an approach to struggles for domination’ in Migdal, J. S., Kohli, A. and Shue, V. (eds), State Power and Social Forces: domination and transformation in the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migdal, J. S. and Schlichte, K. (2005) ‘Re-thinking the state’ in K., Schlichte (ed.), The Dynamics of States: the formation and crises of state domination. Burlington VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. (1978) Law as Process. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mwenda, A. (2008) ‘National cake: who eats the chunk, who picks crumbs?’ The Independent (Uganda), 8–21 February.Google Scholar
Nalugo, M. (2008) ‘Banyankole, Baganda lead URA employees list – report’, Daily Monitor, 30 January.Google Scholar
Nordstrom, C. (2004) Shadows of War: violence, power, and international profiteering in the twenty-first century. Berkeley, Los Angeles CA and London: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nugent, P. and Asiwaju, A. I. (1996) African Boundaries: barriers, conduits and opportunities. London and New York NY: Pinter.Google Scholar
Odegaard, C. V. (2008) ‘Informal trade, Contrabando and prosperous socialities in Arequipa, Peru’ Ethnos 73 (2): 241–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2005) Anthropology and Development: understanding contemporary social change. London and New York NY: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2009) ‘Researching the practical norms of real governance in Africa’, Discussion Paper No. 5, Africa Power and Politics Research Programme, December 2009.Google Scholar
Pugh, M. and Cooper, N. (2004) War Economies in a Regional Context: challenges of transformation. Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reno, W. (1998) Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reno, W. (2000) ‘Clandestine economies, violence and states in Africa’, Journal of International Affairs 53 (2): 433–59.Google Scholar
Reuter, P. (1985) The Organization of Illegal Markets. Port Townsend WA: Loompanics Limited.Google Scholar
Ribot, J. C. (1998) ‘Theorizing access: forest profits along Senegal's charcoal commodity chain’, Development and Change 29 (2): 307–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodgers, D. (2006) ‘Living in the shadow of death: gangs, violence and social order in Nicaragua, 1996–2002’, Journal of Latin American Studies 38 (2): 267–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roitman, J. (2004) Fiscal Disobedience: an anthropology of economic regulation in Central Africa. Princeton NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schomerus, M. (2008) ‘Perilous border: Sudanese communities affected by conflict on the Sudan–Uganda border’, study for Conciliation Resources, London, November.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. (1976) The Moral Economy of the Peasant: rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Staudt, K. (1998) Free Trade? Informal economies at the US–Mexico border. Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Steinmetz, G. (1999) ‘Introduction: culture and the state’ in G., Steinmetz (ed.), State/Culture: state formation after the cultural turn. Durham NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tegera, A. and Johnson, D. (2007) ‘Rules for sale: formal and informal crossborder trade in DRC’ (a Pole Institute Report), Regards Croises (Revue Trimestrielle) 19 (May).Google Scholar
Titeca, K. (2006) ‘Les Opec Boys en Ouganda, trafiquants de pétrole et acteurs politiques’, Politique africaine 103: 143–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titeca, K. (2009a) ‘The “Masai” and “miraa”: public authority, vigilance and criminality in a Ugandan border town’, Journal of Modern African Studies 47 (2): 291–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titeca, K. (2009b) ‘The changing cross-border trade dynamics between northwestern Uganda, north-eastern Congo and southern Sudan’, Working Paper No. 63, Crisis States Research Centre, November.Google Scholar
Titeca, K. and Vervisch, T. (2008) ‘The dynamics of social capital and community associations in Uganda: linking capital and its consequences’, World Development 36 (11): 2205–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) (2007) The Informal Cross Border Trade Survey Report 2006. Kampala: UBOS and Bank of Uganda.Google Scholar
Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) (2008) The Informal Cross Border Trade Survey Report 2007. Kampala: UBOS and Bank of Uganda.Google Scholar
Varese, F. (2001) The Russian Mafia: private protection in a new market economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Venkatesh, S. and Levitt, S. (2000) ‘“Are we a family or a business?” History and disjuncture in the urban American street gang’, Theory and Society 29: 427–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vwakyanakazi, M. (1991) ‘Import and export in the second economy in North Kivu’ in J., MacGaffey (ed.), The Real Economy of Zaire. London and Philadelphia PA: James Currey and University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar