Abstract
This article looks at African entrepreneurship in the Nile perch export business at Lake Victoria, Uganda. Often heralded as an economic success story, this business has perhaps another tale to tell. The fishermen, traders and other small-scale entrepreneurs at the lower end of the export chain face frequent financial setbacks coupled with an occasional lucky strike. Their chequered fortunes may be related to economic uncertainties, but this study rather points to a major contribution from highly individualistic entrepreneurship. This is the outcome of a self-fulfilling prophecy of anticipated deceit, which conditions the entrepreneurs to regard other persons as opportunistic adversaries. Although this behaviour seems to resemble that of the neoclassical entrepreneur, the study shows that it originates and is reproduced in complicated social links. The article argues, therefore, that an appraisal of the sociogenesis of entrepreneurship has a place in understanding emerging global export markets in Africa.
