African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model by Njeri Kinyanjui, Mary

Chapter 1
Introduction
Traders and artisans are a popular feature of Africa’s city streets 
and marketplaces. To an outsider, they may appear haphazard 
and constantly changing. However, sustained observation quickly 
reveals that this impression is far from valid, and prompts many 
questions. What motivates traders and artisans to go into business? 
How do they relate to one another? Why do they congregate? How 
do they handle conflict? Do they make a profit? How do they spend 
their earnings? How is the market managed? Which transactions 
are carried out openly and which are private? Do traders have any 
collective power and, if so, how do they use it? What philosophies, 
ideologies and social formations prevail in the marketplaces? 
Scholarly works on African markets by Grabski (2012), Harris 
(2014) and Ikioda (2013) offer diverse responses to some of these 
questions. Grabski describes African markets as spaces of creativity. 
Her study of Colobane Market in Dakar, Senegal, demonstrates 
how the market has affected the artistic imaginary of local artists. 
Ikioda describes markets in Lagos as communities of practice that 
create employment, prompt income generation and act as spaces 
that connect the rural and urban areas. Harris, however, describes 
markets as messy ‘agglomeration economies’ characterised by 
intense competition that jeopardises innovation and growth.
In this book, I traverse these perspectives and try to describe: 

i) the nature of past and present social formations that have 
influenced marketplaces in Nairobi; ii) the logics and philosophies 
that underpinned and influenced their formation and which 
continue to do so; iii) the relationships between traders and artisans, 
including how they share knowledge and how rules and regulations 
are formed; and iv) how markets have shaped the city by attracting 
and sustaining a labour pool and via traders’ investment of their 
surplus income. 
I show that the transactions, practices and notions of business 
that predominate in African markets intimate the presence of 
humanistic values, such as solidarity, humanity, endurance, trust and 
sharing. The textbook model of business, as necessarily involving 
aggression, competition, secrecy and self-individuation, does not 
seem to apply here. To survive, traders and artisans have evolved a 
business model that operates on the basis of humanity and solidarity, 
and that helps them harness their own agency through the sharing 
of experience and through self-regulation. This model assumes that 
business transactions between individuals are embedded in both a 
sense of community and an awareness of the divine. The utu-ubuntu 
approach holds that the main reason for the accumulation and 
deployment of surplus is to help families and communities to thrive. 
As a result, the markets sustain autonomous communities that have 
the resources to advance their own interests in ways that have shaped 
the evolution and sprawl of the metropolis itself. 
For some, the idealistic and moralistic undertones inherent in 
the term ‘utu-ubuntu’ might be controversial. In the late 1960s, 
then-president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere attempted to promote 
the philosophy of utu through the policy of ujamaa but failed. The 
failure was occasioned by ujamaa’s association with socialism in the 
context of the Cold War. Nevertheless, utu remains at the heart 
of the organisation and distribution of resources in most African 
communities. Similarly, the Marikana massacre and the shockingly 
inadequate services often delivered by many of South Africa’s 
government departments have made the reality of ubuntu in that 
country highly questionable. Yet, the notion remains one that many 
South Africans hold dear and try to live up to.

African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model by Njeri Kinyanjui, Mary