Transboundary Cooperations in

Sub-Saharan Africa

Formations of Aid and Business Organisations in Rwanda

Robin Pohl

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Forthcoming book publication about a field research on organisation structures that link East African, European and Asian actors.

Keywords: organisation anthropology, African studies, management studies, transnational tcooperation, glocalisation, private business, development aid, NGOs, ethnography.

1. Introduction

2. Transboundary Cooperations in Sub-Saharan Africa

2.1 Sectors of Interest: Development Aid and Private Business

2.2 Transboundary Cooperations – A Working Concept

2.3 Actors, Institutions and Organisations – Core Concepts

3. Processing Social and Cultural Heterogeneity

3.1 Heterogeneity and Epistemology, Africa from the Western View

3.2 The Substructures of Difference and Diversity

4. Field Studies in Companies, Agencies and Projects

4.1 Project Experts and a Bilateral Development Agency

4.2 Brewery - Multinational Beverage Corporation

4.3 German Media Technology Contractors

4.4 Rwandan Construction Enterprise

4.5 German Catering and Hotel Enterprises

4.6 A Mixed Arena: Energy Crisis and Millennium Development Goals

4.7 Indian Traders

5. Analytical Framework: Three Aspects of Transboundary Cooperations

5.1 Local Embeddedness

5.2 Institutionalisation vs. Technical Orientation

5.3 Management of Heterogeneity

6. Synthesis: Most Important Formations and Types in the Field

6.1 Institutionalisation and Local Embeddedness

6.2 Heterogeneity – Structural Inconsistencies in the Aid Sector

6.3 Four Transboundary Types

6.4 Development Aid and Private Business

7. Summary & Conclusion

8. Appendix

8.1 The Institutionalisation Test

8.2 Theories for Organisation Field Research

8.3 Fieldwork and the Setting in Rwanda

9. References

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