Chihuahua Promises and the Notorious Economy of Fake Pets in Cameroon

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is a reflection on the notorious figure of the fake that became popular in Cameroon and other African cities at the height of the continent’s socio-political and economic decline following the structural adjustment measures introduced to salvage the economic crisis. The article discusses this economy of Internet puppy scams and the ways in which these are intertwined with young people’s activism to disrupt neo-colonial continuities and global practices and processes of social abandonment and greed that invest in what is construed locally as derelict humanism and misplaced humanitarianism. The article explores the meaning of dogs in Cameroon to show the absurdity of transacting with American and European clients who revere and are ready to spend significant sums of money to import puppies from a place in which people are struggling to survive. I conclude by arguing that puppy scammers are at once seductive criminals, creative destructors and radical decolonial disruptors.