Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Daniel E. Agbiboa, "They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Description: Accounts of corruption in Africa and the Global South are generally overly simplistic and macro-oriented, and commonly disconnect everyday (petty) corruption from political (grand) corruption. In contrast to this tendency, They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a fresh and engaging look at the corruption complex in Africa through a micro analysis of its informal transport sector, where collusion between state and nonstate actors is most rife. Focusing on Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital and Africa's largest city, Daniel Agbiboa investigates the workaday world of road transport operators as refr...