Frugal innovations aim to bring products, services and systems within the reach of billions of poor and emerging middle-class consumers. Through significantly cutting costs while safeguarding user value, frugal innovations open opportunities for new business models and may well disrupt innovation processes in entire economies. The debate on the developmental implications of frugal innovation is ideologically polarized. Whereas advocates suggest a business view of 'win-win' in which companies can earn profits while simultaneously alleviating poverty, critics argue that frugal innovation will merely exacerbate capitalist exploitation and inequality. In this contribution we argue that an empirical approach is needed to assess where and when frugal innovation is more likely to enhance inclusive development.Les innovations frugales portent des produits, des services, et des systèmes à la portée de billions de consommateurs pauvres et de l'aspirante classe moyenne. Les innovations frugales baissent les couts et préservent la valeur pour les consommateurs, et créent des nouveaux modèles économiques qui ont le potentiel de perturber les processus d'innovation dans plusieurs économies. Le débat sur les implications développementales de l'innovation frugale est idéologiquement polarisé. Les défenseurs des innovations frugales suggèrent un scenario d'affaires bénéfique pour toutes les parties, ou les entreprises peuvent réaliser des profits simultanément soulageant la pauvreté. Les critiques des innovations frugales soutiennent qu'elles vont simplement augmenter l'exploitation capitale et l'inégalité. Dans cet article, on soutien qu'un approche empirique est nécessaire pour établir où et quand une innovation frugale est plus susceptible de soutenir le développement inclusif.
Agricultural production has historically been integral to the central African Copperbelt's urban growth. None the less, urban agriculture has rarely received attention in the otherwise rich Copperbelt historiography. Government and mine officials, as well as social scientists, have persistently framed urban agriculture as an informal, subsistence and feminised activity. Growing maize or vegetables has, in such views, been interpreted as a sign of rurality that is 'out of place' in urban areas, at best a response to poverty and crisis or a practice engaged in only by 'thrifty housewives'. Such narratives have distorted a proper understanding of urban agriculture. Drawing on new archival sources and oral history, this article presents a different view. It compares the Zambian and the Congolese Copperbelt from 1950 until 2000 to re-evaluate urban agriculture as a normal part of everyday life, an activity central to urban livelihood, identity and belonging. Growing crops has evolved over time in response to socio-economic change, but it has always been vital to the urban life of the diverse Copperbelt population. Considering agricultural production thus contributes to debates on urbanism in central Africa and beyond.
This book is the culmination of my road through Mwinilunga. It is the result of numerous conversations with people in and on Mwinilunga and I hope it does them justice. This remote corner of the world became vital to my understanding of capitalism, colonialism, and globalisation. By studying its history, I have learnt to challenge historiographical dichotomies between tradition and modernity, subsistence and market production, global and local. This book wishes to show how and why Mwinilunga and its people matter to broader historical processes. My road through Mwinilunga started in 2007 and since then I have incurred countless debts. Let me express long overdue gratitude to the people who helped me along the way.My first and most important thanks go to the people I met during my stays in Mwinilunga District. In 2008 and 2010, I received warm welcomes in all the places I visited and all the homes I entered. I wish to thank the people I interviewed in Ikelenge, Nyakaseya, Chibwika, Kanongesha, Kanyama, and Ntambu chiefdoms. Your words have profoundly shaped my historical understanding and I hope -despite the language barrier -that you find recognition in the pages that follow. Special thanks go to those families who opened their homes to me and with whom I stayed for weeks at a time: the Chiyezhi family, the Musanda family, the Chinshe family, the Kamuhuza family, the Jinguluka family, the Kalota family, and the Kambidimba family. Sharing nshima ya makamba together and talking about proverbs has taught me more than you will ever realise. Indispensable was the research assistance provided by Julian Chiyezhi,
Since the early twentieth century, the copper-mining industry on the Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt has moved millions of tonnes of earth and dramatically reshaped the landscape. Nonetheless, mining companies, governments and even residents largely overlooked the adverse environmental aspects of mining until the early 1990s. By scrutinising environmental knowledge production on the Central African Copperbelt from the 1950s until the late 1990s, particularly regarding notions of ‘waste’, this article problematises the silencing of the environmental impacts of mining. To make the environmental history of the Copperbelt visible, this article examines forestry policies, medical services and environmental protests. Moreover, by historically tracing the emergence of environmental consciousness, it contextualises the sudden ‘discovery’ of pollution in the 1990s as a local and (inter)national phenomenon. Drawing on rare archival and oral history sources, it provides one of the first cross-border environmental histories of the Central African Copperbelt.
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