Association pour l’anthropologie du changement social et du développement
Association for the anthropology of social change and development

Macroeconomic Subjec�vity: Solidarity emerging out of macroeconomic categories

Auteur(s) : Rundong Ning ;

Is solidarity among entrepreneurs in precarious economic environments possible? Drawing on my fieldwork from 2019 to 2021 among entrepreneurs in Congo-Brazzaville, I reveal that their experiences and solidarity are based on macroeconomic categories, such as GDP growth. I propose the concept of ‘macroeconomic subjectivity’ to link individual experiences and solidarity among entrepreneurs in post-productivist societies where stable jobs are few, such as Congo. The concept comprises three components: macroeconomic imaginations, macroeconomic moralities, and macroeconomic solidarities. Macroeconomic imaginations refer to the fact that entrepreneurs formulate and present their projects in macroeconomic terms, such as GDP growth and population sizes. Macroeconomic moralities designate the ways one judges whether a project is a “real or good entrepreneurial one.” Macroeconomic solidarities refer to the fact that many entrepreneurs collectively complain about Congo’s economy and the lack of governmental support for entrepreneurship using unsatisfactory macroeconomic data. Such solidarity is also reflected from their mutual help in promoting their businesses, especially among women. Macroeconomic solidarities are based on the other two components because the later form an important framework in which entrepreneurs make sense of their projects and labor. In post-productivist societies, similar employment relationship might no longer be a major basis for solidarities among people. This study reveals one mechanism by which solidarities emerge among entrepreneurs in post-productivist societies, thus contributing to the understanding of solidarity in different social formations


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