Examining the System D economy . From Africa at LSE:
Margaret C Lee is Associate Professor of African, African American and Diaspora studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The focus of her latest book, Africa’s World Trade, is informal actors’ interactions with global trade networks. Through interviews with African participants, Lee brings the reader into contact with individuals at the forefront of this phenomenon. In so doing, the study goes beyond much of what has been written on Sino-African relations, extending debates about informal economies into a global context, says Jamie Hitchen.
As Africa’s exposure to the global economy continues to increase, the possibility of accelerating globalisation from below should not be ignored. In this context, Lee provides new and welcome insights into less formal, south-south trade relations.
Focusing on China’s engagement with Africa in the informal realm, Lee seeks to discover and understand the world inhabited by global informal traders who operate on the edge of legality. “Trading Posts”, Guangzhou or “Chocolate City” in China, and Oshikango on the Namibian-Angolan border, provide the setting for snapshots...[continue reading]
