Reinventing Order in the Congo: How People Respond to State Failure in Kinshasa

Kinshasa is sub-Saharan Africa's second largest city. The seven million Congolese who live there have a rich reputation for the courageous and innovative ways in which they survive in a harsh urban environment. They have created new social institutions, practices, networks and ways of living to deal with the collapse of public provision and a malfunctioning political system.

This book describes how ordinary people, in the absence of formal sector jobs, hustle for a modest living; the famous ...