Transforming Innovations in Africa

Jan-Bart Gewald, (PhD), is a historian at the African Studies Centre in Leiden. His research interests include the history of the social relationship between people and technology in Africa. He co-edited The Speed of Change: Motor Vehicles and People in Africa, 1890-2000 (Brill, 2009), with Sabine Luning and Klaas van Walraven.André Leliveld, (PhD), is a development economist at the African Studies Centre in Leiden. His research interests include (informal) insurance, and economic transformation and innovation in African economies. He co-edited Inside Poverty and Development in Africa: Critical Reflections on Pro-Poor Policies with Marcel Rutten and Dick Foeken (Brill, 2008). Iva Peša is a historian and is currently doing her PhD at Leiden University on the social history of Mwinilunga District in northwestern Zambia. Her interests include the changing patterns of (agricultural) production, consumption, labour migration and social relationships.

• ContentsMaps, figures, tables, boxes and photos Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Transforming innovations in Africa; explorative studies on appropriation in African societies Jan-Bart Gewald, André Leliveld & Iva Peša2 Who killed innovation in the Cape wine industry? The story of a stuck fermentation c. 1930-1986 Paul Nugent3 Entrepreneurship, colonial monetary economy and the limits of creativity:Appropriating trading stores in Northern Namibia, 1925-1980Gregor Dobler4 Frugal innovation in Africa: Tracking Unilever’s washing-powder sachets Cees van Beers, Peter Knorringa & André Leliveld5 Mobile cash for nomadic livestock keepers: The impact of the mobile phone innovation (M-Pesa) on Maasai pastoralists in Kenya Moses Mwangi & Marcel Rutten6 From Gao: Sawaba and the politics of decolonization and insurrection inthe Songhay Zone of Mali and Niger (1957-1964)Klaas van Walraven7 From self-help group to water company: The Wandiege Community Water Supply Project (Kisumu, Kenya) Samuel O. Owuor & Dick Foeken8 ‘It is time to start my own farm’: The unforeseen effects of two waves of resettlement on household formation in ZimbabweMarleen Dekker & Bill Kinsey9 ‘Cassava is our chief’: Negotiating identity, markets and the state through cassava in Mwinilunga, ZambiaIva Peša10 The social cocktail: Weddings and the innovative mixing of competences in Botswana Rijk van Dijk11 Of labradors and libraries: The transformation of innovation on a farm in Kibale, western Uganda Jan-Bart Gewald12 Engine of change: A social history of the car-mechanics sector in the Horn of Africa Stefano Bellucci & Massimo Zaccaria13 Water innovations among the Maasai pastoralists in Kenya: The role of outside interventions in the performance of traditional shallow wells Moses Mwangi & Marcel Rutten14 Stealing from the railways: Blacksmiths, colonialism and innovation in Northern Nigeria Shehu Tijjani YusufList of authors