Trading, power and politics in a northern Ugandan marketplace
This research draws on interviews with vendors and officials, as well as a small-scale survey of just over 200 vendors
Abstract
What happens when attempts to modernise and formalise economic activity come into contact with the local realities of how trading, power and politics actually work? It is often assumed that reforms and interventions along these lines will create jobs, improve conditions and boost vendor incomes. But experience suggests they are often met with disappointing results. So what is going on?
Through a case study of one recently redeveloped marketplace in northern Uganda, this study sets out to shed some light on this question. It does so through mixed methods, drawing on semi-structured interviews with vendors and officials, as well as a small-scale survey of just over 200 vendors operating in the regenerated space, between September 2015 and January 2016.
The research suggests that economic interventions are subject to forces of the local context. We see this in 2 senses:
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First, where intervention logics fail to cohere with the realities of how economic activity works – of how traders operate and of what drives them – they are unlikely to ‘fit’ perfectly, and are therefore likely to be met with disappointing results. In Lira town, these include rejection by some traders of the new marketplace.
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Second, economic spaces are just one of the many arenas in which established routines of power and politics play out. Interventions attempting to reorder them thus become inevitably branded with the features of the local political settlement. This then has the potential to ‘derail’ such efforts from achieving their desired vision.
This research was funded under the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) programme
Citation
Mallett, R., Opio, J., Atim, T., 2016. Trading, power and politics in a northern Ugandan marketplace, Research Reports, London: Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, 20p
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