Zed Books The Rise of Africa's Middle Class: Myths, Realities and Critical Engagements (Africa Now)

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Rise of Africa's Middle ClassMyths, Realities and Critical EngagementsBy Henning MelberZed Books LtdCopyright © 2016 Henning MelberAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-78360-714-3ContentsAcknowledgements, 'Somewhere above poor but below rich': explorations into the species of the African middle class(es) HENNING MELBER, 1 African middle classes: lessons from transnational studies and a research agenda CAROLA LENTZ, 2 Human development and the construction of middle classes in the Global South TIM STOFFEL, 3 Africa's middle class, Africa's entrepreneurs and the 'missing middle' OLUYELE AKINKUGBE AND KARL WOHLMUTH, 4 Deconstructing the myth of the African middle class SIRKKU K. HELLSTEN, 5 Kenya – an unconscious middle class? Between regional-ethnic political mobilization and middle class lifestyles DIETER NEUBERT, 6 Middle class activism in Nigeria: from nationalist struggle to social media campaign NKWACHUKWU ORJI, 7 Emerging middle class political subjectivities in post-war Angola JON SCHUBERT, 8 The middle class of Mozambique and the politics of the blank slate JASON SUMICH, 9 South Africa's black middle class professionals AMUZWENI L. NGOMA, 10 The middle class of Dar es Salaam and Kiswahili video-films VICENSIA SHULE, How much class have the African middle classes? HENNING MELBER, About the contributors, Index, CHAPTER 1African middle classes: lessons from transnational studies and a research agendaCarola Lentz'Africa rising: can the middle class drive growth?' Under this headline, the BBC World Service organized one of its recent 'Africa Debates' in a stylish new shopping mall in Ghana's capital Accra. In addition to the panellists who included, among others, the African Development Bank's country representative Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade and Ghana's Minister of Finance Seth Terkper, the BBC journalists had invited a broad cross-section of 'middle-class' Ghanaians, ranging from food-sellers, shopkeepers and teachers to university lecturers, doctors, lawyers, civil servants and entrepreneurs. According to the African Development Bank representative, everyone who spends the equivalent of between US$2 and US$20 per capita per day belongs to the middle class, a category into which 46 per cent of Ghana's population falls, as against an average 34 per cent in Africa as a whole. Many in the audience objected to this definition. 'We may earn and spend that much, but we don't feel middle class'; 'This money would not even be enough for paying my kid's school fees and the necessary fuel'; 'This sum does not allow any savings, and how can you be middle class without savings?', were some of the comments. A real estate manager suggested that everyone who could afford a decent two-bedroom flat in Accra was at least 'on his way' into the middle class. One comment in particular drew considerable laughter and approval: 'Middle class is defined by the ability to mask poverty, by the capability to get through the month without looking dirty or poor'.The BBC debate clearly showed that despite disagreement on whom exactly to include in or exclude from this category, middle class has become an important concept, not only in contemporary international policy discourses, but also in the way people in African countries, such as Ghana, think and speak about their own position in society. Furthermore, the debate revealed the problems of any simple objectivist, economic definition of this social category. Implicitly, the discussants pointed to the importance of 'boundary work', as Michèle Lamont (1992: 4) has called it, for the making of a middle class.World Bank economists and policy makers have heralded the rise of the 'new' middle classes around the globe as a stimulus to economic growth, modernization, and political stability. Journalists have begun to report regularly on the lives and predicaments of middle-class men and women. Social scientists, too, have turned their attention to thi