Kohnert (2006) Cultures of Innovation of the African Poor - Common Roots, Shared Traits, Joint Prospects? On the Articulation of Multiple Modernities in African Societies and Black Diasporas in Latin America

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Cultures of Innovation of the African Poor - Common Roots, Shared Traits, Joint Prospects? On the Articulation of Multiple Modernities in African Societies and Black Diasporas in Latin America

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CONTRIBUTORS:

Author:

Kohnert, Dirk (GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies)

INSTITUTION ID:

None (Hamburg)

SERIES TITLE:

GIGA Working Paper Series

YEAR:

2006

PUB TYPE:

Working Paper/Manuscript

WORKING PAPER NUMBER:

PAGES:

49 p.

SUBJECT(S):

Culture, Innovation, development, Africa, Latin America, Bénin, Brazil, Haiti

DISCIPLINE:

Sociology

HTTP:

http://www.giga-hamburg.de/content/publikationen/pdf/wp25_kohnert.pdf

LANGUAGE:

English

PUB ID:

103-428-502 (Last edited on 2008/07/18 03:18:29 GMT-6)

SPONSOR(S):

ABSTRACT:
Cultures of Innovation, instigating economic and political development, are growing in African societies and African Diasporas of Latin America to a great extend in the informal, not in the formal sector. Moreover, they rely on common roots in transnational social spaces than on national cultures. The expansion of the informal sector, caused by globalisation, demands new venues for the poor to guarantee their survival by innovative actions. However, cultures of innovation of the formal and informal sector differ fundamentally both concerning their structure and political valuation. Informal cultures are based on indigenous knowledge, oral evidence and unwritten ethical codes or value-systems; the latter are often flexibly adapted to the requirements of the natural, social and political framework at micro- and meso levels. They involve unsettled questions of multiple modernities, local life worlds and the related innovative agencies of strategic groups at the grass-root level. Crucial for the proper understanding of these agencies is a threefold structural differentiation and articulation of these cultures of innovation, according to social class, ethnicity, and gender. They may be complementary, mutually reinforcing, or conflicting, thus leading to a 'clash of cultures' at the local level. The repercussions of competing, even antagonistic agencies of innovative strategic groups are demonstrated in the light of the fate of the African poor in Benin and the African Diasporas of Brazil or Haiti. The findings of this analysis will be crucial for the evaluation of the sustainability and potential spread effects of development orientated innovation cultures of the poor.

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