1174 | | Trade circulations and globalization of the poor: social and spatial transformations in African cities | Adrien Doron (1); Anne Bouhali (2); Sylvain Racaud (3)
African markets have become economically attractive, given population growth, urbanisation, the availability of a young labour force, a booming consumer market and high annual growth rates of national GDPs. Positive discourses on their strong economic potential accompany global flows that ultimately materialise in markets and other trading places. The presence of so-called informal markets is an essential landscape feature in the cities of the South, from megacities to the most modest rural villages. As part of networks of human, material and financial circulation, these places are a well-studied research object, from the socio-political issues at stake at the local level to the mechanisms of integration into transnational and globalised exchanges at the global level. The urban range of sales outlets also includes tried and tested devices: the supermarket, the shop and street sales. In recent years, it has been complemented by shopping malls. The panel questions how commercial traffic transforms and (re)signifies the urban spaces, including the most modest ones, that follow the trade routes? How do trade flows open up economic opportunities and consumption spaces for African populations ? Adressing the interactions between people, economic activities and urban environments, the panel aims to inform the effects of trade circulations on the production of space and on the daily lives of actors, whether as economic or consumption opportunities. The panel is based on a special issue of the journal «les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer», currently being published. It will be open in priority to the authors of the issue, but also to new contributors.The session will allow each participant to present their work before a final discussion.It will be conducted preferably in French, but English is also possible.
Adrien Doron (1); Anne Bouhali (2); Sylvain Racaud (3)
(1) Université Paris Cité, (2) Université de Picardie – Jules Verne, (3) Université Bordeaux Montaigne
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