"In this riveting account, Agbiboa dispels the myth that corruption is a culturally accepted norm in Nigeria.Agbiboa shows that binary understandings of formality/informality, public/private, and legal/illegal derived from Western thought do not adequately capture the way that petty corruption is embedded in the state and is driven by elite corruption." -- Ali Mari Tripp, Shepherd"The book is very well written and easy to read. Agbiboa frequently lets transport workers speak for themselves by including interview quotations, even in local languages or in pidgin.the book kept my attention throughout." -- Els Keunen, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute "By emphasizing the importance of considering people''s voices in policy making, Professor Agbiboa is advocating for a more inclusive and effective approach to the regulation of the informal transport sector in Africa." -- Muhammad Jameel Yusha''u, Africa Policy Journal"A governor or minister might see informal transport sector as a nuisance to a modern city. He might bring consultants to hurriedly analyze the problem and come up with a solution.
Every person would like to see his city looking like San Francisco, Paris or Dubai. What we tend to forget is that there are thousands of lives that could suffer in our attempt to look modern. Where do we put those people who work as drivers and ''conductors'' if we don''t have an alternative industry that will absorb them? To understand this, Professor Daniel went to the field. He became a bus ''conductor'' for two months working with a driver, starting early in the morning and absorbing the difficulty that comes with such endeavor. He used his research to understand the difficulty of survival within the informal transportation sector." -- Nigerian Tracker"In focusing on the politics of road transport, on the everyday corruption and the hard living world of transport drivers, Agbiboa''s book constitutes the most detailed and accurate account existing on the road transport system in Nigeria so far." -- Laurent Fourchard, Global Policy"Agbiboa demonstrates that corruption is not rooted in Nigerian culture but, rather, a set of everyday practices aimed to obtain economic survival and counter precarious livelihoods." -- Federico Bellentani, Social Semiotics"Agbiboa''s research explores key underlying mechanisms of corruption in the transportation sector in Lagos, Nigeria.
Agbiboa is to be commended for his highly creative analysis and comprehensive methodological approach, drawing on participant observations, interviews, and written records for a rich, multi-dimensional exploration of Nigerian history, culture, and everyday social interactions.The intricate weaving of perspectives is compelling and thought provoking." -- Jacqueline Joslyn, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies"An ethnographically very rich account of corruption practices in everyday road transportation in Lagos." -- Sebastian Kohl, Economic Sociology: Perspectives and Conversations"They Eat Our Sweat, as it stands now, has already provided us with a fresh and insightful view of everyday encounters with corruption and its grounded institutions. Agbiboa''s in depth study of informal transport politics elevates the innovative ethnographic approach to Lagos in African urban studies. Looking ahead, this study is equally valuable to understanding the ever changing urban dynamics of life in Lagos, with ongoing development of other modes of mobility infrastructure and urbanism. In sum, They Eat Our Sweat paves an intellectual path to understandings of an urban future of African megacities." -- Allen Xiao , Society & Space"They Eat Our Sweat provides a rich case study in the everyday moral economy of corruption, showing how corruption structures the everyday production of space and urban mobilities and, in so doing, demonstrates the ubiquity and heterogeneity (close to the point of semantic incoherence) of corruption as a system of governance and mode of appropriation.
" -- Jacob Doherty , Journal of Urban Affairs"Daniel Agbiboa''s book They Eat Our Sweat (2022) is a pathbreaking look at corruption in Nigerian society. Told with a view that combines well-argued theory and an uncompromising sight into the stark realities of urban transport, the book restores corruption from a flippant, inaccurate caricature to a standpoint where all hold some accountability. This is a rare academic book that grabs readers and holds on for the duration -- a real page-turner -- its scathing, fiery prose burns with knowing intensity throughout." -- Public Organization Review"A key belief that is challenged in Agbiboa''s book is that bribery is culturally accepted or forms part of a ''moral economy.'' In contrast, the continuous extortion from state and affiliated actors is continuously decried by ordinary citizens as ''eating too much,'' yet citizens have no choice to participate in order to survive." -- Journal of Cultural Economy"They Eat Our Sweat convincingly challenges the argument that corruption is a culturally accepted norm in Nigerian society related to gift-giving, in contrast showing how Nigerians reject corruption but also face the reality of having to play the game." -- Journal of Cultural Economy"They Eat Our Sweat ably demonstrates the generative capacity of corruption to reproduce its own conditions of survival." -- Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism"They Eat Our Sweat convincingly challenges the argument that corruption is a culturally accepted norm in Nigerian society related to gift-giving, in contrast showing how Nigerians reject corruption but also face the reality of having to play the game.
" -- Journal of Cultural Economy "A key belief that is challenged in Agbiboa''s book is that bribery is culturally accepted or forms part of a ''moral economy.'' In contrast, the continuous extortion from state and affiliated actors is continuously decried by ordinary citizens as ''eating too much,'' yet citizens have no choice to participate in order to survive." -- Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism"Daniel Agbiboa''s book They Eat Our Sweat (2022) is a pathbreaking look at corruption in Nigerian society. Told with a view that combines well-argued theory and an uncompromising sight into the stark realities of urban transport, the book restores corruption from a flippant, inaccurate caricature to a standpoint where all hold some accountability. This is a rare academic book that grabs readers and holds on for the duration - a real page-turner - its scathing, fiery prose burns with knowing intensity throughout." -- Christopher L. Atkinson, Public Organization Review"The description of the flows and fixities present throughout the transport system show how the state, institutional actors, unions, and people interact, composing displacement practices, as well as executing discursive and non-discursive practices to accept and reject corruption" -- Hern´an Camilo Pulido-Martinez, Subjectivity"[Agbiboa''s] lived experience and his comparative research extend our understanding of societies around the world where negotiating corruption is part of everyday life." -- Michelle Nicholasen, Epicenter "The book offers an intimate look at this shadowy network.
" -- Michelle Nicholasen, Epicenter Blog: Harvard University"This is brave, bold, and brilliant research, which provides insights that more conventional strategies would simply not generate" -- Nic Cheeseman, African Studies Review"They Eat Our Sweat is a gripping analysis of how corruption is sculpted by and perpetuates multifaceted social networks upon which scores of Lagosians are dependent for their livelihoods and how these networks are embedded within the Nigerian state." -- Daniela Schofield, LSE Review of Books ". open[s] fresh perspectives on the corruption and insurgency debate in Africa." -- Gabriel O. Apata, Theory, Culture & Society"Agbiboa offers a brilliantly insightful look into the mixing and meshing of transport, labor union and government workers--sometimes collusive, sometimes violent--in a Nigerian megacity known for deep problems and inventive solutions. They Eat Our Sweat shakes up usual understandings of order and chaos, government and public, centrality and marginality, survival and profiteering. Challenging simplistic notions of corruption as a matter of one-way exploitation, moral depravity, or African cultural inevitability, Agbiboa roundly explores the topic from within the fluid and dynamic transport system. The book perceptively and vividly describes the complexity of strategy and mutual adaptation practiced day to day, showing how those who denounce and who depend on practices like bribery, extortion, and nepotism are often the same people.
The result is moving in every sense." -- Parker Shipton, , Professor of Anthropology and African Studies, Boston University"A superb book, full of fresh insights and grounded in enthralling ethnography, They Eat Our Sweat provides a nuanced analysis of Nigeria''s notorious corruption. Immersed in the everyday world of road transport workers in Lagos, Agbiboa''s stunningly evocative narrative advances a compelling theoretical framework that accounts for the agency--and plight--of ordinary citizens." -- Daniel Jordan Smith, Professor of Anthropology, Brown University, and author of Every Household Its Own Government: Improvised Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Citizens, and the State in Nigeria"They Eat Our Sweat is a skillful and compelling navigation of the contours of everyday urban life as it manifests in the informal transport sector where the actuality of urban mobility challenges the possibilities of good life in Africa''s foremost megalopolis. The book captures the underbelly of Lagos in its enthralling, perplexing and vexing intricacies." -- Wale Adebanwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania"Taking over from where Daniel Jordan Smith left off, They Eat o.