The second, or informal, economy developed later in Lubumbashi (DRC) than it had in Kinshasa. The Katanga metropolis, long protected from the process of informalization thanks to its large industrial complexes, suffered seriously from the crisis of the 1990s which led to the collapse of the mining industry and, more generally, of the whole salaried sector. After a brief history of the city and of the state of play of the informal economy, this article attempts a detailed analysis of this economy's lexicon. Expressions newly created from Swahili, French and other languages provide an excellent point of entry into the concrete practices of this sector, as well as the representations and morality on which such practices are based. Strongly associated with expressions of energy, cunning and conspiracy, the vocabulary emerging from the second economy bears witness to the appreciation of the ‘anti-hero’ and demonstrates the inception of a new moral economy in which the state and the powerful have become targets of legitimate predation based on the principle of redistribution.

Tanzania has in the last decade seen a vibrant form of hip-hop emerge that is gaining wide public exposure thanks to its political tenor. First, this article illustrates how rap lyrics reflect Tanzanian political history and in part determine it. Bongo Flava, as the local hip-hop genre is called, has gained credibility by reinterpreting Nyerere's normative legacy and by expanding freedom of expression in the country, while unhampered by factors that normally mitigate the social impact of popular culture. Second, the article explores the global relevance of their social critique. Bongo Flava attempts to outwit the sophisticated indifference and neoliberalism of postcolonial rulers and ruled. Partly inspired by African American popular culture, many songs expose the postcolonial strategy of survival, which is to immunize oneself against the threat of commodification by fully embracing it, the contamination yielding extra power. The lyrics, in their irony and pessimism, exhibit the same immunizing tendency. However, this tendency is curbed by two principles that safeguard streetwise status: the rapper's willingness to ‘duel’ and the Kiswahili credo of activating bongo, ‘the brains’.

Introduced into Lake Victoria in the 1950s, the Nile perch has gained fame for prompting rapid regional economic growth and for driving scores of endemic fish species into extinction. This study uses oral and archival data to trace the historical development of the Nile perch fishery on Lake Victoria. Particular emphasis is placed on local responses and adaptations to (1) the Nile perch itself; (2) the abrupt integration of the Lake Victoria fishery with the global economy; and (3) the ecological changes that the Nile perch has precipitated. I also attempt to situate Lake Victoria's history in the larger debate about environment and African livelihoods. Because so much of Lake Victoria's species diversity has been lost within one generation – biologist E. O. Wilson (1992) has called this process ‘the most catastrophic extinction episode of recent history’ – the lake is an ideal case study with which to examine ‘local’ perceptions of biodiversity. The data suggest that species diversity is important and highly resolved in the worldviews of Lake Victoria's fishermen; yet, although the will for conservation is present, poverty obstructs its realization. These findings are discussed in relation to other work on indigenous environmental knowledge and ecological ethics. I argue that ‘intrinsic’ valuation of species diversity and ecological processes may be more widespread in rural societies than has traditionally been assumed by natural and social scientists, and that the preponderance of social studies highlighting oppositions between Western science and ethno-science, and between conservation concerns and local livelihoods, may have blinded us to synergies between them. More effort is needed to understand fully the nuances in these complex local ecological worldviews, perhaps via ‘social histories of extinction’ that explore the local consequences of species loss.

This article contrasts two very different timeframes in the ‘social life’ of the plant stimulant miraa – known elsewhere as khat – in Kenya and beyond. One timeframe is connected with the old miraa trees growing in the Nyambene Hills District of central Kenya: these are known as mbaine, and are greatly respected for their age and link to the past. The miraa from these trees is put to much ceremonial use by the Meru inhabitants of the Nyambenes. The other timeframe is the very different one of the harvested stems. These stems are highly perishable and so must reach the consumer quickly, leading to urgency in their trade and transportation: the ‘need for speed’. The globalization of the miraa trade has intensified this urgency further: the stems are now desired as far away as North America. Miraa trees have not escaped this ‘commercial’ timeframe, and some farmers experiment with chemical sprays to speed up the production rate. The article concludes by arguing that such attempts to speed up the timeframes of the trees are met with resistance, and have not diluted the cultural significance of ancient mbaine trees and their ancestral links.

This paper explores the anthropological implications of the notion of adultery by showing how it can improve our understanding of a local debate about descent, migration and local responses to it, among communities belonging to the Dagara of northwestern Ghana. Using a case study of group-wife adultery, that is, a sexual affair between a man and the wife of a fellow member of the same patrilineal descent group in the context of male migration, the paper highlights the tension between a husband's sexual rights over his wife and those of his descent group over the wife's procreation. It further examines the rituals surrounding the resolution of the case and the arguments generated by it as a prism through which to view social change and Dagara social organization. An evaluation of the community views about spousal separation, the punishment associated with group-wife adultery and the multiple responses of its members to the offence is presented with ethnographic examples.

In Zanzibar, many cases in rural Islamic courts involve disputes about whether or not a divorce has taken place outside of court. Zanzibari men have the right to divorce their wives unilaterally through repudiation; and, because many such divorces take place out of the wife's presence, women interpret certain structural events associated with divorce as divorce even when there is no evidence of lawful repudiation. By going to court, women want to legitimize the events of divorce with a receipt of registered divorce. Although the Islamic judge will not validate alleged divorces without proof of repudiation, he does not dismiss the cases as simple misunderstandings. Rather, he stresses the preservation of the marriage through reframing the cases as disputes about marital rights and obligations. Women acknowledge this shift and move to assert their rights to request better maintenance or a court-ordered divorce.