ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes facets of entrepreneurship in Goma, DR Congo.1 It is guided by entrepreneurs’ emic understanding of vibrant economic activities that embrace innovative figures spanning a continuum from everyday entrepreneurs (débrouillards) to Big Men. Despite and even because of the structural voids left by the protracted armed conflict and the informalization of socioeconomic spheres, Congolese entrepreneurs act dynamically in an urban landscape characterized by complex routes to social mobility, alternative economic niches, and overlapping political, military, and economic networks of distribution. The urban elite of Big Men, often portrayed as cunning criminals, is juxtaposed to everyday entrepreneurs, who are mostly reduced to hustling for mere survival. Yet, their positions, perspectives, and social relations offer similar features while differing in the extent of their networks and resulting opportunities. Therefore, this chapter argues for an analytical openness that also includes the assumed victims of chronic political instability who nevertheless find ways to be entrepreneurial in their everyday lives. However, the ones who fail to seize opportunities are pushed out of the entrepreneurial continuum where style, self-images, and local conceptions of modernity produce a particularly local version of a protestant work ethic.
