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Wandering women: the work of Congolese transnational traders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2019

Lesley Nicole Braun
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Abstract

Congolese commerçantes, or transnational women traders, travel abroad to cities such as Guangzhou in search of affordable products to import to Kinshasa. Without any support from local banks, women must search for the means to finance their trips and navigate a complex bureaucracy governed by unpredictable customs tariffs. Just as men rely on their social networks to ensure the success of their business activities, women traders must also forge relationships with people in positions of power. However, a woman's social network, linked to her business activities, invites assumptions about her sexual morality. Men working within the country's unstable economic landscape are celebrated for their ingenuity and ability to ‘work the system’, while a woman's sexual morality is perceived as being affected by, and bound up in, Kinshasa's corrupt business matrices. Transnational commerçantes are thus not only an important part of the economic milieu, largely governed by patron–client relationships; but are also representative of changing gender dynamics in Kinshasa. Based on multi-site fieldwork in Kinshasa and Guangzhou, this article explores the moral anxieties associated with women's transnational trade, anxieties that relate to broader issues about the politics of social networks within local bureaucratic infrastructures.

Résumé

Les commerçantes transnationales congolaises se rendent dans des villes étrangères comme Guangzhou en quête de produits bon marché à importer à Kinshasa. Sans soutien des banques locales, ces femmes sont contraintes de rechercher des moyens pour financer leurs déplacements et de composer avec une bureaucratie complexe régie par des tarifs douaniers imprévisibles. De même que les hommes s'appuient sur leurs réseaux sociaux pour assurer le succès de leurs activités professionnelles, les commerçantes doivent elles aussi forger des relations avec des personnes en position de pouvoir. Or, le réseau social d'une femme lié à ses activités professionnelles alimente des hypothèses sur sa moralité sexuelle. Les hommes qui travaillent dans le paysage économique instable du pays sont salués pour leur ingéniosité et leur capacité à « se jouer du système », tandis que la moralité sexuelle d'une femme est perçue comme étant affectée par les matrices professionnelles corrompues de Kinshasa, et mêlée à elles. Les commerçantes transnationales sont donc un élément important du milieu économique, essentiellement régi par les relations patron-client, mais elles sont aussi représentatives de l’évolution des dynamiques de genre à Kinshasa. Basé sur une étude de terrain multisite à Kinshasa et Guangzhou, cet article explore les anxiétés morales associées au commerce transnational féminin, anxiétés qui se rapportent à des questions plus larges de politique des réseaux sociaux au sein d'infrastructures bureaucratiques locales.

Type
Congolese women traders
Information
Africa , Volume 89 , Issue 2 , May 2019 , pp. 378 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2019 

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