This paper looks at precarity and its social impacts in neoliberal urban West Africa. Over the last decade, the Senegalese economy has become increasingly open to investors, and foreign companies have flocked to the country for business. In a context of economic uncertainty and the necessity to fend-for-oneself through informal work, the arrival and bustling activity of these global actors have raised much hope among urban dwellers that waged and informal employment would become available and therefore that life would be less precarious.
This paper discusses urban dwellers’ livelihood temporality and shifting moral economy in Senegal in this context. Drawing on a detailed ethnography, it highlights that, nowadays, making ends meet for many involves not waged employment but rather a daily frenzy, a straddling of previously separated fields and, importantly, new ideas on the morality of income-generation.
The paper ultimately aims to contribute to recent debates on precarity and its social effects under global neoliberalism, including shedding light on the (dis)connections between Global South and Global North contexts.
