The future of value.
Critical approaches to the political economy of Africa

Project period: 2025-2028 

African private law is frequently criticized for either catering to international economic interests or failing to regulate domestic markets. This project addresses a more fundamental problem: existing legal frameworks do not adequately reflect how value is produced, exchanged, and protected within Africa’s real economies (over 90% ‘informal’). The central research question is how legal instruments can be redesigned to align with the economic practices that actually structure livelihoods, including informal and cross-border trade.

Grounded in endogenous theory and socio-legal analysis, the project is conceived as a collaborative platform bringing together Africa-based and diaspora legal and non-legal scholars, and informal/formal merchants, to develop context-sensitive approaches to economic governance. This mixed approach will generate a conceptual toolkit for identifying legal misalignments and a set of context-sensitive reform models.

The project’s innovation lies in integrating private law analysis with empirical data on African value production—an approach largely absent from current scholarship. Expected outcomes include an analytical framework for “endogenous-economy legality,” co-authored publications with African-based and diaspora researchers, and actionable insights for policymakers seeking equitable and economically relevant legal reforms.

Literature

Kwamou E. Feukeu, Critique du droit OHADA sous le prisme de l’économie informelle (forthcoming)

Exhibitions

The Reproduction of unreal times (2025)
exhibited at E-Werk Freiburg and Rockefeller Festival Dresden