Résultat de la recherche
Kings of Shreds and Patches. Nigerian traders in the global economy of second-hand computers
This work is a journey along the global flows of used computers. Via first-hand business experiences, and long-term observation, I explore the economic activities of Nigerian traders and engineers in Computer Village—the biggest IT market in Lagos—and those of their suppliers among the African community in Guangzhou, China. I discuss the complexity of the economic practices at work here as an economic system with its own of norms and values, and the complexity of objects categorisation, as a manifestation of the mix of global production networks (GPNs) and global destruction networks (GDNs). I conceptualize these activities as global reuse, repair and refurbish networks or GRRRs. The GRRRs challenge the existing narrative on e-waste and UEEE, as well as the dichotomy of ‘globalisation from below’ and ‘globalisation from above’. By drawing a Nigerian-centred map of the circulation of used computers, I argue that the global economy should be understood in its diversity and entanglement.