Displaced utopia: on marginalisation, migration and emplacement in Bissau

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the subjectivities of disenfranchised urban men in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau. Taking its point of departure in an illumination of the ‘thrown’ character of subjectivity, it clarifies the social positions and futures that life in the city is seen to afford. As the city has been caught in a prolonged period of conflict and decline, the retrenchment of the state, economy and social networks has created a setting where people struggle to achieve positive social presence and brighter prospects. The article shows how subjectivities in such situations can become tied to a sense of depreciation and downward mobility. In doing so, it illuminates some of the more common features of social exclusion that affect the urban poor and shows how the processes of decay and deterioration that peoples’ lives are caught in may create a longing for better futures and worthy social emplacement. They spur a striving for socially appreciated being that is imagined as elusively attainable through migration.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• subjectivity
• utopia
• migration
• thrownness
• Guinea-Bissau

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms and all interlocutors have been anonymised.

2. The fieldwork was carried out in an inner city neighbourhood of Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, between the years 1999 and 2013.

3. Baroulho literally translate to ’noise’ and kansera to tiredness.

4. The name means ‘supporters’ or ‘those who endure’.

5. The etymological point of departure of the word in past participle.

6. Projection, entwurf, is not dislodged from thrownness but is in itself ’thrown’ in terms of its historicity.

7. The same argument can be plausibly made in relation to the Islamist youth, which currently defines our primary figure of fear.

8. Patrimonialism defines a sociopolitical configuration in which less resourceful people commit themselves to a patron in order to secure access to the flow of resources and power, as well as protection and provision in times of need, offering social and political loyalty and support in return (Eisenstadt 1964; cf. Gellner & Waterbury et al. 1977, Bradbury 1969, Balandier 1970).