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275 Pages·2007·2.21 MB·English
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Preview living at the margins. youth and modernity in the bijagó islands

University Institute for Social Sciences, Business Studies and Technologies Department of Anthropology LIVING AT THE MARGINS. YOUTH AND MODERNITY IN THE BIJAGÓ ISLANDS (GUINEA-BISSAU) by Lorenzo Ibrahim Bordonaro Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Anthropology (Anthropology of Culture and Symbolism) Supervisor: Robert Lewis Rowland September, 2006 Resumo Este é um trabalho sobre um grupo de jovens e sobre o seu ‘desejo de modernidade’. Por um lado, exploram-se as estratégias criativas utilizadas para superar a sua condição de subalternidade, apropriando e utilizando as narrativas do ‘desenvolvimento’ e as instituições da ‘modernidade’ para encontrar o seu caminho entre as dificuldades da Guiné Bissau contemporânea. Por outro lado no entanto, serão sublinhadas as suas incertezas e frustrações frente ao facto do que o próprio projecto de modernidade por eles adoptado os confina numa posição de marginalidade e subalternidade na geografia global do ‘desenvolvimento’, com poucas oportunidades para escapar. Palavras Chave: Juventude, Modernidade, Marginalidade, Guiné Bissau Abstract This is a study about a group of young men and about their ‘will to be modern’. On the one hand, I am concerned with their creative strategies for overcoming a subaltern condition, appropriating and using the narratives of ‘development’ and the institutions of ‘modernity’ to find their way among the predicaments of post-independence Guinea- Bissau. On the other hand, however, I will highlight their uncertainties and frustration as they realise that the very project of modernity they strive to embrace confines them to a position of marginality and subalternity in the global geography of ‘development’, with few opportunities to escape. Keywords: Youth, Modernity, Marginality, Guinea-Bissau 2 Contents Aknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 The island of Bubaque and the Praça 9 Fieldwork in the Praça 14 Focusing on youth 23 The predicaments of youth in Africa 24 The wider context: the state, ‘development’, and ‘globalisation’ 27 The crisis of the state 27 Development 29 Globalisation: old wine in new botles? 32 The undersides of modernity 35 Multiple modernities? 36 An ideology of aspiration 37 Modernity/Coloniality 40 1. In the vilage: an overview 4 Age grades and age clases 46 The n’ubir kusina 46 Nea, ongbá and kadene: the informal age-grades 48 Kanhokam 49 Karo 50 Manras: the male initiation ceremony 51 Kamabi 53 Kasuká 54 3 Okotó 54 Transformation 54 2. ‘Who cares for Bijagó culture anymore?’ 57 Four dialogues 57 Agostinho 57 Who cares for Bijagó culture anymore? 58 Domingo Carlos da Silva 59 Xarifo 62 Modern binary opositions 63 The town and the vilages: bluring the lines 69 Conclusion 74 3. How the Bijagó became primitives 76 From trading centres to the periphery of the empire 77 Raiders and slave traders 7 Micro-independence 79 The ‘pacification’ of the Archipelago 81 The civilizing mision 8 After WWI: anthropology and exoticization 93 Producing diference 9 Sex and work 9 Civilize yourself or perish 104 Conclusion 107 4. ‘Development’ and the rural/urban divide 109 Cabral, the PAIGC and the local communities 110 Cabral, development, mobilization 110 After the war: a brief political history 116 Political and economic changes 119 4 State modernism and rural communities 123 The ‘underdevelopment’ of the Archipelago 127 Conclusion 132 5. Appropriation and resistance 135 Appropriating modernity 135 Resistance 141 Emotion, discourse and complexity 144 Amor, discourse and cultural style 150 6. Education and modernity 156 Education in Guinea-Bissau 156 Late colonial policies 156 Independence and after: the breakdown 159 Importance of education, difficulties, and contrast with the elders 162 A sign of modernity 170 7. Dress, style and fascination 177 Saturday night: a sketch 177 Dressing, consumption, identity 180 The creolization paradigm 184 Distinctions 186 Cultural style 188 Modern is who modern does 190 Imagination and fascination on the global scene 193 A criticism of Sperber 195 Fascination and adventure 199 8. Criticism of the state, marginality, and the desire to migrate 205 5 Guinea-Bissau in dire straits 206 The young men and the state 211 Feeling marginal 216 Out of here: the desire to migrate 220 Conclusion: South 227 Epilogue 236 References 238 6 Aknowledgments During the researches and the writing of this dissertation, a number of people helped me in my work. My debts are numerous and it is a pleasure to acknowledge at least some of them. My first thanks go to all the people in Guinea Bissau and in Bubaque who either supported me or were patient enough to talk to an initially stubborn anthropologist. I am particularly grateful to the young men in Bubaque who wanted to share their dreams and their pains with me: among many others, I would like to thank Agostinho, Beto, Domingo Carlos da Silva, and Xarifo. A special thank goes to Delito Mario Gomes. I am also grateful to all the people that helped me in Bissau and in Bubaque: Pedro and Tcharte Banca and the whole Banca family, Martina, Mam and Raoul, Mamadú Jao (director of INEP, Bissau), father Renzo (CIFAP, Bissau), Cuban (Medicus Mundi), Eduarda Coutinho, the whole personnel of UICN (Bubaque), father Luigi Scantamburlo (PIME and FASPEBI), sister Norma, father Marco (Bubaque). Many colleagues and scholars also contributed with their insights to this work. I would like to thank my supervisor, professor Robert Rowland; Paolo Favero, Luigi Urru, Ivo Quaranta, Chiara Pussetti (who, as my wife, I will thank again later), Ramon Sarró, Elsa Lechner, Bruno Riccio, Alice Bellagamba, professor Wilson Trajano Filho. Professor Francesco Remotti and professor Paolo Viazzo invited me to present a paper at the anthropology seminar at the University of Torino (Italy), allowing me to discuss my work at an early phase. This research would not have been possible without the generous help of the Gulbenkian foundation of Lisbon (who supported archive researches in Lisbon in 2000) and of the Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia of the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Technology, that awarded me a full Ph.D. grant (2000-2004). Finally, I would like to thank my parents (Walter Bordonaro and Eralda Piretto) and my parents in law (Giuseppe Pussetti and Ila Ricci) for their support and patience. My wife and colleague Chiara Pussetti, shared with me the intense fieldwork in Guinea- Bissau, and we helped each other to overcome the shock for the attempted coup (in November, 2000) and the numerous malaria attacks. A special thank goes to my daughter, Sole Maria, who was conceived and born during the writing of this thesis, for continually and obstinately distracting me from my work, and for reminding me what I should really care about. 8 Introduction This is a study about a group of young men and about their ‘will to be modern’. On the one hand, I am concerned with their creative strategies for overcoming a subaltern condition, appropriating and using the narratives of ‘development’ and the institutions of ‘modernity’ to find their way among the predicaments of post-independence Guinea- Bissau. On the other hand, however, I will highlight their uncertainties and frustration as they realise that the very project of modernity they strive to embrace confines them to a position of marginality and subalternity in the global geography of ‘development’, with few opportunities to escape. Marginality will be here acknowledged in this sense, not only as the arena for the elaboration and display of agency and for local cultural production, but as a ‘conceptual site, an analytic placement that makes evident both the constraining, oppressive quality of cultural exclusion and the creative potential of rearticulating, enlivening, and rearranging the very social categories that peripheralize a group’s existence’ (Tsing 1994: 279). 1 The island of Bubaque and the Praça Situated at the estuary of the river Geba, about twenty kilometres from Bissau, the capital city of Guinea-Bissau, the Bijagó Archipelago includes about fifty islands, 2 although only eighteen are permanently inhabited . 1 For the recent history of the Archipelago, see infra chapters 3 and 4. 2 Administratively, the Archipelago constitutes the Bolama-Bijagós region, which is subdivided into four sectors (Bolama, Bubaque, Caravela and Uno). 9 Guinea-Bissau and the Archipelago of the Bijagó The island of Bubaque, where I carried out my research, was the seat of the colonial administration, and preserved its regional centrality after independence. On the northern coast of the island is the only ‘urban centre’ of the Archipelago, simply called the 3 Praça , built at the beginning of the XX century by the Portuguese. Except for Bolama, which has, however, an eccentric position in the region, Bubaque is the only island regularly connected to Bissau by small and often unsafe boats and canoes. 3 In Guinea-Bissau, the term praça means nowadays ‘urban centre’. In Portuguese, this word has several meanings: square, marketplace, but also garrison, fortress and stronghold. It is probably with this latter meaning that the Portuguese called their first garrisons along the coasts of Africa praças, and since it is mainly around these outposts that the urban centres grew along the centuries, the term has in Guinea Bissau the meaning of ‘town’. In the Archipelago, the term is locally used to identify the urban centre of Bubaque as opposed to the villages (tabanka). The complete denomination should be therefore Praça de Bubaque, but this name is only used when one is outside the Archipelago. 10

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