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Black entrepreneurs, local embeddedness and regional economic development in Northern Namibia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2003

Hege M. Knutsen
Hege M. Knutsen
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Norway.
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Abstract

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The article addresses possibilities and barriers to economic activity and development in the Oshana region of Northern Namibia. The focus is on the role of local embeddedness of economic activities in attaining economic development. A network perspective, based on theories of value chains that are embedded both in social relations and spatially, is selected as the analytical framework. The value chains of local black entrepreneurs in the study area are short. Moreover, the analysis reveals that social obligations may impede economic development, but that such practices are diminishing. The economic dominance and competition from South Africa is the main impediment to economic development in Northern Namibia. Local political embeddedness is shallow and political measures have not significantly reduced the implications of this dominance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 555 - 586
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Footnotes

This article forms part of a project carried out together with Sylvi Endresen, whom I thank for inspiring discussions and comments. I am also grateful for valuable input and support from Herbert Jauch at the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) in Windhoek, and for funding of fieldwork provided by the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala.