A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Crisis as resource: entrepreneurship and motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali
Crisis has been a common experience in sub-Saharan Africa, at least since the 1980s with disastrous results for countless Africans. Such crises, however, can represent opportunities for entrepreneurship for those prepared to take the often-mortal risks involved, or the imposition of entrepreneurship as a strategy for getting by. In this paper, I explore the case of motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. I argue first that Rwanda is not a state in crisis, exhibiting instead tight governmental control and effective social and economic regulation. To make a living in this political environment, motorcyclists are compelled to generate crisis within the systems that supposedly regulate their business. This converts governmental control into a simulacrum, at the same time as it compels motorcyclists to ‘invest’ life and limb in these ambiguous relationships. Thus, while current developments in Rwanda suggest that there is now no ‘crisis’, the way in which the country is governed demands the creation of a continuous state of crisis for many, since it is only in crisis that the opportunities to make a living can be created.
Crisis as resource: entrepreneurship and motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali
Crisis has been a common experience in sub-Saharan Africa, at least since the 1980s with disastrous results for countless Africans. Such crises, however, can represent opportunities for entrepreneurship for those prepared to take the often-mortal risks involved, or the imposition of entrepreneurship as a strategy for getting by. In this paper, I explore the case of motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. I argue first that Rwanda is not a state in crisis, exhibiting instead tight governmental control and effective social and economic regulation. To make a living in this political environment, motorcyclists are compelled to generate crisis within the systems that supposedly regulate their business. This converts governmental control into a simulacrum, at the same time as it compels motorcyclists to ‘invest’ life and limb in these ambiguous relationships. Thus, while current developments in Rwanda suggest that there is now no ‘crisis’, the way in which the country is governed demands the creation of a continuous state of crisis for many, since it is only in crisis that the opportunities to make a living can be created.
Crisis as resource: entrepreneurship and motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali
Rollason, Will (author)
African Identities ; 18 ; 263-278
2020-07-02
16 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
Africa , crisis , entrepreneurship , motorcycle taxis , Rwanda , urban
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