From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, images of crisis and reform dominated talk of Cameroon's economy. Doing Business in Cameroon examines the aftermath of that period of turbulence and unpredictability in the northern city of Ngaoundéré. Taking the everyday encounters between business actors and state bureaucrats as its point of departure, the book vividly illustrates the backstage and interconnected dynamics of four different sectors (cattle trade, trucking, public contracting, and NGO work). Drawing on his training in law and social anthropology, the author is able to clarify intricate policy dynamics and abstruse legal developments for readers. A widespread picture emerges of actors grappling with the long-term implications of selective or suspended enforcement of legal rules. The book deftly illuminates a set of shifting configurations in which economic outcomes like monetary gains or the circulation of goods are achieved by foregoing the possibility of relying on or complying with the law.

'Essential reading for all those interested in the state in Africa, the inherent complexity and uncertainty of legal norms and practices, as well as emergent forms of African capitalism.'

Thomas Bierschenk - Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany

‘The book is remarkable for capturing in nuanced detail patterns, rules, meaning, and practice that are interwoven between domestic business, and regional and international actors in Cameroon over time … offers a corrective to many scholarly perspectives which propagate more of the same, evidenced in the language of chaos and failure to consolidate free market reforms. Africanists, anthropologists, sociologists, political economists are likely to find the book’s thrust powerful.’

Naaborle Sackeyfio Source: Journal of Cultural Economy

‘… because of the richness of its ethnography, the book is also important beyond Cameroon. It opens possibilities for the discerning reader to connect this ethnography to many threads of anthropological discussion on the political economy of liberalization in sub-Saharan African states as well as other regions outside the continent, including postsocialist economies in Europe and Asia.’

Rogers Orock Source: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute