ABSTRACT

This article is a reflection on the notorious figure of the fake that became popular in Cameroon and other African cities at the height of the continent’s socio-political and economic decline following the structural adjustment measures introduced to salvage the economic crisis. The article discusses this economy of Internet puppy scams and the ways in which these are intertwined with young people’s activism to disrupt neo-colonial continuities and global practices and processes of social abandonment and greed that invest in what is construed locally as derelict humanism and misplaced humanitarianism. The article explores the meaning of dogs in Cameroon to show the absurdity of transacting with American and European clients who revere and are ready to spend significant sums of money to import puppies from a place in which people are struggling to survive. I conclude by arguing that puppy scammers are at once seductive criminals, creative destructors and radical decolonial disruptors.

摘要

这篇文章反映了在喀麦隆和其他非洲城市在采取结构调整措施以挽救经济危机之后非洲大陆社会政治和经济衰退的高峰时期流行起来的臭名昭著的假货形象。这篇文章讨论了这种互联网小狗骗局的经济，以及这些经济活动与年轻人的激进主义交织在一起的方式，以破坏新殖民主义的连续性和全球实践以及社会遗弃和贪婪的过程，这些做法和过程投资于在当地被解释为废弃的人道主义和错位的人道主义. 这篇文章探讨了喀麦隆狗在喀麦隆的含义，以展示与崇敬并准备花费大量资金从人们挣扎求生的地方进口小狗的美国和欧洲客户进行交易的荒谬性。最后，我认为小狗骗子既是诱人的罪犯，又是富有创造力的破坏者和激进的去殖民破坏者。