Introduction: Mutual Help in an Era of Uncertainty

Abstract

African communities are witnessing a perplexing proliferation of diverse arrangements of mutual security that draw upon old and new solidarities and inventively merge market logic with reciprocal forms of distribution and sharing. The dynamics of such voluntary arrangements and their broader social impacts emerge as increasingly important topics of study. The changing nature of global economies poses challenging questions about the novel relationships between state and market, and the potential of human agency to find alternatives to address growing inequalities. This collection focuses on local institutions of mutual security as alternative – yet also interdependent – forms of distribution that have become particularly relevant in the current era of global financialization and the changing dynamics between private and public social spheres. Various voluntary associations and informal economic networks, financial mutuals and savings/credit groups are becoming central in regulating access to resources and defining patterns of association in African communities. The articles in this themed part-issue explore these social security networks and organizations, concentrating on their ambiguous potential to empower the marginal as well as to contribute to social strife and political conflict. Ethnographic cases from diverse parts of Africa illustrate the impacts of the environments of uncertainty on the emergence of novel forms of association. The contributions suggest that contemporary mutual help arrangements should be seen as being central to the emergence of new social spaces and power configurations in such settings, revealing a broader social dynamic of globalization.

Trusting the Poor: Cash Grants and the Caring Bureaucrat in Kenya

“…Instead, these forms of activity outlined above, as well as the activities presented in this article can be understood, I venture, as a form of mutuality. While there is now a rich literature on this mutuality in sub-Saharan Africa, rarely are bureaucrats included within them (Bähre 2007;Shipton 2007;Rodima-Taylor 2014;Rodima-Taylor and Bähre 2014). I contend that the charitable economy's long history in Kenya, since the colonial era, has created a certain mutuality that may be studied on its own terms, and which are revealed in the grant programs discussed in this article.…”

Digital Health in East Africa: Innovation, Experimentation and the Market

“…According to its designers, M‐TIBA builds on existing solidarity mechanisms that are popular in Kenyan communities, like the chama savings‐groups (neighbourhood savings groups, where mostly women meet and pool funds) or the harambee local fundraising events (Mbithi and Rasmusson, 1977; Rodima‐Taylor, 2014; Shipton, 2010). In doing so, it seeks to replicate Safaricom’s success with its M‐PESA product, which reportedly was designed upon knowledge of local‐level needs and habits (Donovan and Park, 2019).…”

“…Once donor‐funded incentives to save money are removed, it is difficult to encourage saving. People in low‐income brackets may prefer older and more trusted neighbourhood, church or work‐based social savings groups that many (particularly women) are part of (Rodima‐Taylor and Bähre, 2014).…”

Greying mutuality: race and joking relations in a South African nursing home

“…While seemingly a basic term connoting relationships of reciprocity, mutuality is being interrogated in anthropological theory to better conceptualize forms of sociality. Recent research questions surrounding the concept of mutuality pertain to who and what are kin-type relations (Sahlins 2013; Carsten 2013; Strathern 2014); how people in these relations get along, get by and recognize each other differently in precarious circumstances (Pina-Cabral 2013; Chari and Gillespie 2014; Rodima-Taylor and Bähre 2014; Hage 2015); and how anthropologists work among these relations (Sanjek 2015). Much of this research focuses on kinship, which should not be taken to be synonymous with mutuality.…”