The riskiness of life

1
The riskiness of life

• Surviving in the modern world

2
What Makes Modern Life Risky?

• Can work for a long time for a salary and your
  pension is small
• Inflation (2008 Zambia 10 US 4) the value
  of your salary goes down in comparison to the
  value of goods and services
• Bureaucratic channels dont work, p. 155
• Price for the product you are producing is
  dependent on the volatile world market (coffee,
  copper, etc)
• What makes urban life risky in La Vie est Belle?

3
What are some survival strategies we see in La
Vie est Belle?
4
People as a Safety Net

• 1) Kin The Musonda kin network, p. 161
• Allows for economic diversification, social
  organization (through trust)
• 2) Church Mr. Kalumba and Mennonite Church, p.
  162
• Are people a safety net in La Vie Est Belle?

• Kin

5
Marriage an ambivalent social relation

• Marriage can strengthen the social safety net
  when one marries a relative (Mr. Musonga) or
  someone from ones hometown
• Interethnic or international marriage mean a man
  has to choose between his female kin (mothers and
  sisters) and his wife

6
The Modern Family A Myth

• A Congolese Family in Kinshasa, Congo, c.1958

• What is the Nuclear family?
• only marital couple and children live together
• monogamy
• stable marriage
• conjugal love
• husband as head of household and wage earner
• wife as housewife
• no fostered children, relatives, or strangers
  living in household
• People internalize this ideal and try to live up
  to it note photo.

7
Marriage in Urban Africa

• Marriages are tense and mistrustful
• Unstable sexual relationships (high divorce
  rates)
• Lack of monogamy
• All sexual relations involve a trade between
  money and sex (such that prostitution,
  concubinage and marriage look similar, p.186)
• Women try to find sugar daddies (rich men who
  can support them)
• Do we see these features in La Vie Est Belle?

8
These characteristics are not pathological, but
are a solution to a particular problem, argues
Ferguson

• Women have trouble getting access to resources,
  which men control (wage-earning jobs, p. 194)
• To survive, women need connections to
  wage-earning men (the richer, the better)
• Do we see this in La Vie Est Belle?

9
The Informal Economy Men and Women
10
Informal Economy

• Economic activity that is not taxed or monitored
  by the government and that is outside its
  regulations.
• In the US, we would call it under the table
  work.
• In developing countries, up to 60 of the economy
  is dependent on the informal economy.
• Production of the informal economy does not get
  calculated as part of a nations gross domestic
  product (GDP).

• A young Zambian seamstress

11
Who Works in the Informal Economy?

• Women are overly represented in the informal
  economy, particularly as traders
• What were some kinds of work in the informal
  economy that we saw occurring in Kinshasa in La
  Vie Est Belle?

12
Some important points about the informal economy

• Importance of networks
• Importance of hustling
• No dichotomy between formal and informal
  economies
• Allows for women to combine child-rearing with
  income-generating work
• Not much profit to be made because there is so
  much competition Ferguson, p. 193