Pirate Towns: Reworking Social and Symbolic Infrastructures in Johannesburg and Douala
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Urban Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2, 357– 370, February 2006
Pirate Towns: Reworking Social and Symbolic
Infrastructures in Johannesburg and Douala
AbdouMaliq Simone
[Paper first received, February 2005; in final form, July 2005]
Summary. Through examinations of inner-city street economies in Johannesburg and
mechanisms of emigration and political resistance in the Bapenda Omnisport and Mouchouchou
quarters of Douala, the paper attempts to explore how notions of piracy might usefully elucidate
the everyday practices of African urban residents attempting to operate more resourcefully in
underresourced cities. Rather than being rooted in clearly defined familial, territorial and
institutional relationships, residents increasingly seek out and manage a wide diversity of
engagements within the city without long-term or clearly defined commitments. The key to
realising movement within and among cities is to multiply the uses that can be made of
resources of all kinds and this means the ability to put together different combinations of people
with different skills, perspectives, linkages, identities and aspirations. Such complex and not
easily identifiable forms of social organisation constitute a kind of perceptual system, a way of
seeing that leads individuals and groups to put objects and experiences to many, otherwise
unanticipated uses.
Urban Transgression
radical remaking of urban life in much of
If piracy is considered the act of taking things Africa. This is a remaking that produces sub-
out of their normal or legitimate frameworks stantial experiences of disorientation and
of circulation and use, then intensifying where efforts are increasingly made to use
global urbanisation, which has partly frac- actively such disorientation as a resource for
tured previously recognised territorial, admin- increasing mobility and opportunity in elabor-
istrative and social coherence, has deepened ating circuits of movements between cities
both the concerns and possibilities of piracy and within them.
(Sassen, 2002; Nordstrom, 2003). At the Throughout urban Africa, power increas-
same time, when various administrative ingly derives from a capacity to transgress
machines lack the resources, legitimacy or spatial and conceptual boundaries, erasing
interest in defining normative frameworks clear distinctions between private and public,
governing appropriate channels of circulation territorial borders, exclusion and inclusion,
and uses for particular objects and possibili- remunerated and compelled labour (Roitman,
ties, piracy also comes to the fore (Luke and 1998; Bernault, 2000). Regimes increasingly
Tuathail, 1997; Herbst, 2000; Jung, 2003). recognise that they need no longer substan-
The objective of this article is to explore the tially invest in the definitional aspects of
potential usefulness of deploying a notion of rule—i.e. to deliberate clearly defined juris-
piracy, the better to come to grips with the dictions, zones, policies and sectors. This
AbdouMaliq Simone is in the International Affairs Program, The New School New York, 66 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011,
USA. Fax: 1 212 924 1292. E-mail: SimoneA@newschool.edu.
0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=06=020357 –14 # 2006 The Editors of Urban Studies
DOI: 10.1080=00420980500146974358 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE allows unregulated practices of accumulation 2003). The pillaging of raw materials and to unravel once-relied-upon centres of social the incorporation of so-called weak states gravity and then intervening only to depict into the complex configurations of illicit certain actors and spaces as threats demanding transnational trade, while significant, are the that the state take extraordinary and emer- easily graspable, as well as easily distortable, gency actions (Bayart et al., 1999; Baker, aspects of an expansion of piracy throughout 2000). Vacuums of authority or excessive the region. What is perhaps more important is expressions of it are unable to consolidate to understand the ways in which piracy oper- strong overarching perspectives capable of ates as a means of negotiating everyday urban putting bodies and objects in ‘their’ place life. (Appadurai, 1998; Kelsall, 2000). Of course, concerted efforts continue to be At the same time, cities everywhere exert made to govern cities through zoning, pulls on each other in a force field in which cadastre, property and administration, the maintenance of localised coherence without completely erasing the unruly yet becomes increasingly problematic. Africans dynamic intersections among differences of do make cities that, in many respects, work. all kinds to which the city offers both setting But the sheer demands placed on cities, and cause. Despite all of the development which have lost many of their productive regimes that attempt to bring order and effi- capacities in the face of expanding circuits cacy to African cities, they continue to be, in of imports, trade liberalisation and other mul- many respects, virtual cities. For throughout tifaceted articulations among urban areas urban Africa, order is essentially underfunded, across the globe, result in an exponential and municipal governments have been dis- increase in the presence of Africans in non- respectful of appropriating an array of local African cities (Hamilton, 1997; Adekanye, practices and aspirations that could be the 1998; van Hear, 1998; Faist, 2000). African building-blocks for some viable form of effi- and non-African cities are entangled in unpre- cacy (Ribot, 2002). African cities have cedented ways. The material legacies pro- learned, thus, to live close to those dimensions duced by architectures of colonial power of urban life otherwise ‘cut off’ and separated provide a specific infrastructure of capitalist from the attempt to make the city pro- penetration. This infrastructure permits a ductive—i.e. the city’s delirium and its highly targeted and truncated articulation capacity for thickening complicities and col- that maximises economic profit for select laborations that go everywhere and nowhere actors without the need for a more generalised simultaneously (Ferguson, 1999; Mbembe, development of African human resources 2001; De Boeck and Plissart, 2004; Trefon, (Mkandawire and Soludo, 1999; Sidaway, 2002). 2003). This dearth of domestic opportunity If production possibilities are limited in stimulates the tactical abilities of urban resi- African cities, then existent materials of all dents who delink themselves from home at kinds are to be appropriated—sometimes an early age and use the city as a place full through theft and looting; sometimes of resources for deception, and thus travel through ‘heretical’ uses made of infrastruc- (Nyamnjoh and Page, 2002). It is also due tures, languages, objects and spaces; some- to the penetration of capitalist infrastructure times through social practices that ensure into the most seemingly impenetrable of that available materials pass through many physical and social environments (Hardin, hands. The key is to multiply the uses that 2002). can be made of documents, technologies, This entanglement also encourages a gen- houses, infrastructure, whatever, and this eralised practice of piracy played out over means the ability to put together different multiple locations and organisational forms kinds of combinations of people with differ- (MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga, 1999; ent skills, perspectives, linkages, identities Raeymaekers, 2002; Gore and Pretten, and aspirations. For this multiplexity of
PIRATE TOWNS 359
social organisation constitutes a kind of per- Finding a Different Point of View
ceptual system, a way of seeing that then
As new uses of the urban environment compel
engages the urban environment in such a
new social assemblages that, in turn, reinforce
way that single items, objects and experi-
new uses, the question becomes, what
ences are converted into many, otherwise
happens to the important sense of predictabil-
unanticipated uses. If new uses are to be
ity and support that comes from stable social
made of existent materials and resources,
ties. What becomes of regulatory structures
then individuals must in some sense delink
that seek to secure the consistency necessary
themselves from the familiar social contexts
for people to commit themselves to long-term
in which they have been embedded. This is
efforts to improve their urban environment?
necessary in order for them to see differ-
What happens to the sense of people being
ently—i.e. in order to participate in ways of
able to come up with working predictions of
being social that permit a different kind of
what is likely to ensue if they act in particular
cognition to take place (Cooper, 1990;
ways and which then allow them a greater
Grosz, 1995; Knorr-Cetina, 1997; Thrift,
range of independent action?
2000; Lash, 2002; Larkin, 2004). They thus
These questions have to be framed within a
convert themselves into a wide range of
broader sense of what it is possible to do
positionalities, becoming almost a kind of
within African cities today, particularly
infrastructure in the assembling of new
where, as the anthropologist Juan Obarrio
household formations, work crews and infor-
(forthcoming) has provocatively indicated,
mation conduits, and in ways where particu-
there has been a structural adjustment of the
lar instances of use are no longer exemplary
economy of language itself. In other words,
of general conditions.
there is a restructuring of the very instrument
One can observe a version of this in the
through which it becomes possible to con-
ways in which the so-called inherited city—
struct subject positions and discernible
the largely run-down, seemingly useless com-
relationships between things and value, the
mercial areas of many African cities—retains
real and the symbolic. At times, it appears
its surface identity. Here, restaurants, hotels,
as if the entirety of most African nations’
showrooms, small factories and department
material resources is owed to foreign interests
stores are availed to a wide range of disparate
and, in the process, becomes owned by them
uses, often not clearly defined. For example,
as well; spaces of transaction are effectively
an old ballroom in Douala now surreptitiously
eroded. Whatever a nation possesses—its
houses racks of Italian men’s clothes for a
material, human and cultural resources—is
small boutique. The boutique, itself, is used
consumed in a spectral conception of
only to give appointments to potential custo-
value—i.e. the values of virtual financial
mers for meetings in the ballroom where, in
capital. A sense of local action and possi-
turn, clothes are simply an introduction to
bility, Obarrio argues, effectively disappears.
the sale of fake purchase orders used to
The restoration of local possibility has not
secure business visas for Europe. A large res-
usually been in the form of an activist state
taurant, with perhaps a few paying customers
attempting to use public instruments as a
every week, is converted into an assembly hall
means of increasing capacities. Rather, it
for a group that still has not decided whether
comes in the form of a state that curtails its
to be a church, a secret cult, a future political
sense of public responsibility while maintain-
party or a gambling club, but it draws a fairly
ing all of the prerogatives of rule in order to
decent crowd twice a week with one of the
maximise the possibilities of accumulation
area’s most renowned bush meat chefs for a
as an increasingly privatised entity, making
type of dining that is supposed to be illegal.
all kinds of deals with different national and
This appropriation of the dilapidated is not
international groups (Bayart and Warnier,
gentrification, for these new uses rely on the
2004).
very appearance of things falling apart.360 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE But what does this condition then mean for specific actions must mean or what are to be everyday urban life? What ensues is that not normative, good uses of all that which only do individual residents circulate amongst makes up an urban environment. each other, but the very meanings of their At the same time, the majority of African various points of anchorage—household, cities remain spaces where the social networks and livelihoods—perform a kind of characteristics usually associated with rural circulation as well. In a context where it is existence persist with increasing distortions often unclear just who has the right and and compensations for these distortions. ability to do what, and where once-relied- They are also spaces where a substantial upon forms of authority are increasingly amount of ‘normative’ urbanisation has also unable to put their stamp on how daily life is taken place. Functions and identities are indi- to be enacted and understood, there is a perva- viduated, even though the majority of the sive anxiety on the part of urban residents as urban population has not been brought to with whom they can live and work, with along. The reproduction of ‘customary’ ways whom they can talk and what kind of collec- of living largely becomes compensation for tive future they can anticipate. the difficulties the ‘customary’ faces in the In such conditions, there is tendency to city in the first place. The customary also retreat into specific particularisms—i.e. of compensates for the lack of an economic plat- ethnopolitical groupings, reinvented traditions form to extend and sustain more conventional or heavily defended local territories (Geschiere forms of urban identity. ‘Modern’ ways of and Nyamjoh, 2000). But as African cities being in the city are certainly pursued. There continue to grow and continue to be shared is the pursuit of responsible civil behaviour by residents from different walks of life, the and investment in individual capacities. The challenge is how they keep each other in pursuit of such ‘modernity’, however, too some kind of consideration; how to keep often leads back to heightened dependence open the possibilities of some kind of on extended family references and obligations common future. In part, this occurs through that are often viewed (correctly or incorrectly) a circulation of meanings, styles, vantage- as impeding modernisation (Andersson, 2001; points, experiences, ways of talking—tried Englund, 2002). So, there appear to be no on and discarded, and perhaps tried again. ready-made alternatives to reinvented or These elements thus come to belong to no readapted ‘customary’ forms or ‘normative’ one, even though particular groups may individualised identities as ways of pursuing make strong claims on them at any given time. urban livelihood and opportunity. This is a critical orientation to trying to keep As the structures of mediation diminish— things open, to keep open the possibilities of those institutions that hold individuals, constituting a multiplicity of trajectories of families and households in some continuous accumulation, collaboration, livelihood, consideration of each other—residents that I communication continuously threatened with have worked with across different African disattention, co-optation and state-engineered cities report becoming increasingly anxious disappearance. This is a politics not aimed at about the efficacy of their actions. In other seizing power, at expelling the current cast words, they worry about who can be reached, of characters inhabiting the regime, or even who can be affected. Additionally, they tend at consolidating incremental gains in terms to complain about blocks everywhere; about of access to land or other resources. everything being too tightly controlled. In Again, in pursuit of this attempt to keep order to operate outside these constrictions, things open, there is a generalised displace- many urban residents try to leave home, or ment of mediating interventions. In other secure some basis for operating in different words, residents avoid crystallising stable quarters of the cities in which they live. frameworks and identity positions able to For the rest of the paper, I will focus on two render definitive interpretations about what very different African cities, Johannesburg
PIRATE TOWNS 361
and Douala, as a way of illustrating various buildings containing hundreds of units;
facets of contemporary pirate economies. hotels with swimming pools and sophisticated
The observations from Johannesburg stem communications facilities; entertainment
from eight years of ethnographic work in the complexes; large underground parking
inner city, primarily with immigrants from garages. This infrastructure has largely either
other African countries. Those from Douala been overextended beyond its intended
stem from a three-year engagement with a cul- capacity or converted into uses never
tural centre, Doual’art, working in several intended. These systems of unconventional
neighbourhoods of the city with various usage are both informed by and are structuring
youth and development committees on pro- of modalities of habitation, entrepreneurship
jects of upgrading and social development. and social collaboration that do not coincide
The objective is not to subsume the illus- with the prevailing normative conceptions of
trations to strengthening a particular notion households, social networks and so forth.
of piracy, but rather to use this notion flexibly, For example, it is well known that
even heuristically, as a way of talking about Nigerians, mostly from Igbo South-east, are
and then intersecting diverse urban practices major economic players in the inner city—
concerning the pursuit of livelihood and with interests in narcotics, money-laundering,
opportunity. This is done recognising that computer fraud, mobile phones, real estate
‘piracy’ is a loaded term, resuscitated in and beauty products and hair care. Every
recent years to describe new possibilities of mid-afternoon, on a block in the centre of
unregulated use generated by information Hillbrow, several thousand Nigerians mill
technologies, as well as the ‘return’ of real publicly in the street. While a common
live pirates on the high seas most famously assumption is that they are plying their drug
known for their theft of oil tankers. But the trade, this is only incidentally the case. Most
use of such strong language here is itself a Nigerians involved in the array of provisional
tactic to draw attention to both long-term and frequently illicit trades have taken over
and emerging dilemmas faced by African the majority of the area’s hotels as residential
urban residents trying to make do—making centres and thus usually purchase their meals
do in cities where the chronic sense of crisis from women who sell cooked food in the
necessitates more extraordinary actions in streets. Yet this purchase of the main mid-
order for households and individuals to stay afternoon meal serves many different
afloat. It is thus impossible for residents to purposes.
stay put. And this impossibility is reflected First, it is a way for the Nigerians to demon-
not only in reiterating the historical capacities strate their capacity to mobilise a public
of many African populations to move and to presence. This space, Quartz Street between
move long distances, but in wide-ranging Kotze and Pretoria Streets, becomes one of
and diffuse tactics attempting to affect a mobi- the few places in all of Johannesburg where
lity of perception and action within the con- public life attains such density—thus iterating
fines of the city itself. the Nigerians as a distinct sociality within the
city, with distinct capacities for mobilisation
and coherence. This display becomes a
Johannesburg
display of impunity, pointing to the insuffi-
In the inner city of Johannesburg, 90 per cent ciency of South Africans not only to deal
of its current 400 000 residents were not in effectively with them, but also pointing out
residence 10 years ago.1 All African national- South Africa’s own deficit of public action.
ities are represented in this highly volatile mix Secondly, this publicity becomes a means of
of origin, class background, aspiration and mutual witnessing. In other words, it is a
approaches to urban life. The inner city was means of Nigerians from many different
a place of substantial infrastructural develop- walks of life, with different skills, patrons,
ment—large apartment blocks, with some trades, allegiances and aspirations, to362 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE circulate, to exchange information. They also among unrelated individuals, with often com- watch the various meetings of patrons—who plicated informal financial arrangements arrive in luxury cars—with their respective among them. In addition, residential buildings ‘lieutenants’ that take place on the balconies increasingly house informal businesses, one of several bars that overhang the street. of which is the provision of short-term accom- For the most part, the businesses in which modation itself. The sheer diversity of the Nigerians are involved—while sometimes quality of housing stock, its ownership and driven by wealthy Igbo politicians and busi- regulatory structures, and its availability to nessmen back in Nigeria—are not structured distinct populations, gives rise to complex as tightly knit Mafia or syndicates. Although residential arrangements and economic several former trade union leaders play collaborations. Despite the volatility of the significant ‘supervisory’ roles in the various inner city, the multiple possibilities inherent commercial activities, these activities are, in this urban environment—where different for the most part, loosely structured. They kinds of actors with different capacities and provide a rubric for very diverse actors to backgrounds find some niche livelihood see what they can make of a circumscribed activities in a space of accelerated and inces- series of opportunities, with mostly limited sant transition—manages to induce some resources. Although structures of command, stability in the interactions of an intensely resource distribution and tributary payments heterogeneous population. For example, a are worked out, Nigerian-driven commerce substantial informal economy through which depends more on the recombination of differ- to hedge consumption expenses is availed to ent actors and activities, with a particular the middle class. At the same time, the poor emphasis on the shifting of different personnel are availed the maintenance of some, albeit and finance through different regions and limited, functioning zones of security and sectors. In this way, there is a great deal of formal provisioning systems from which ambiguity as to what is legal and what is they can secure some parasitical arrangement. not, as well as keeping money and goods While the authority vacuum has given rise mobile, and thus underregulated. Working to various combinations of social actors and alliances that are always in the process of the concomitant generation of creative entre- being remade also enable new uses to ensue preneurship, it fosters an overall lack of from existent materials, holdings and inter- commitment to a series of progressive and dis- ests. Nigerian entrepreneurs demonstrate an cernible steps through which the inner city can astute capacity to shift gear and to change be developed. One result is that many individ- direction when placed under threat or uals and households are actively trying to scrutiny. secure footholds in residential neighbour- While the Nigerian case may be the most hoods beyond the inner city. As these individ- obvious example of an economy of piracy, uals and households more often than not tend other examples of this economy are found to have greater access to economic resources, across the inner city—from the use of under- these movements out act to impoverish further ground parking garages as sites for new the inner city. At the same time, these econ- mega-churches; the use of hotel kitchens as omic differences are not substantially greater daycare centres; and even indoor swimming and thus the inner city, in some sense, pools as butcheries. Because the regulatory extends itself across larger territories. authorities responsible for property and One is repeatedly struck by the diversity of housing sectors have experienced multiple non-formal economies attempting to remain policy and operational shifts over the past operational within the narrow confines of decade, a wide array of tenancy and sub- sub-neighborhoods, all ‘rubbing up’ against tenancy arrangements have managed to take each other in ways that can sometimes be hold. Many inner-city households are com- complementary, but more often are conflict- posed of highly provisional arrangements ing. Such conflict tends to reinforce the
PIRATE TOWNS 363
highly segregated zones in which residents and tenants engaged in illegal activities sited
conduct their lives according to common within the property itself.
ethnicity and nationality. Even here, the social The extensiveness of the appropriation of
attributions of common nationality, ethnicity infrastructure, services and regulatory func-
or place of origin are often not sufficient to tions within a transnational criminalised
ensure workable collaborations. economy is such that it is difficult to
This is particularly the case amongst immi- imagine just exactly what steps the city’s
grants from other African countries since the municipal institutions could take to impose
composition of political refugees from the some viable form of regulation. This is an
same country varies according to shifting pol- urban space that has placed highly diverse
itical regimes. The operations of various peoples in close proximity to each other
national security and intelligence agencies under conditions where familiar modalities
from across the region introduce a fairly of solidarity and social support either find
recent and significant dimension to the themselves dysfunctional or have limited
overall economy and security of the inner basis to really work. The fluid and provisional
city. Thus, while agencies are ostensibly con- recombination of household structures, liveli-
cerned with the activities of their respective hood practices, security arrangements and
nationals within Africa’s most significant social support rearrange everyday social cog-
urban centre, they have, themselves, invested nition enabling people to see and engage
heavily in a wide range of nefarious activities, with their environment—and the people,
using the capacities incumbent in their objects and resources within it—in different
agencies to consolidate new forms of illegal ways, thus becoming subject to different uses.
and uncoventional transnational trade. In response, the attraction increases for
The inner city is thus the intersection of dismantling problematic aspects of the built
intensely narrow spaces of operation with environment in which such an economy
highly porous and extensive vectors of exter- grows. There is serious sentiment—for
nal connectivity. Such an intersection poses example, within Johannesburg’s city council
many challenges to conventional paradigms simply to demolish large areas of the inner
of urban governance based on subsidiarity, city to deter further ‘slummification’, as the
particularly if municipal institutions lack the process is popularly called. In the interim,
policy instruments to engage with it, the use of the inner city as a way to extend
let alone the analytical instruments to such ‘economies of piracy’ or informalise
develop some functional understanding of larger swathes of the city also grows. This
the economic and social dynamics involved. process occludes the efforts on the part of
Municipal responses tend to consist simply the majority of inner-city residents to make
of periodic and militarised clean-up cam- modest, yet viable, livelihoods within the
paigns, where the army is sent in to display framework of conventional propriety and
a show of force, detain illegal immigrants efficacy. While many livelihoods are rooted
and generally appropriate the possessions of in unconventional trade and collaborations
residents with many different kinds of status. among diverse national actors, they are most
In other instances, buildings with substantial often criminalised by default and not by
municipal arrears have been possessed by intent.
municipal authorities and sometimes resold
to new owners on debt reduction for develop-
Douala
ment schemes or more often razed. For a few
potentially profitable properties, major realtor Douala has become largely a city for evacua-
companies have assumed management tion. Residents tend to represent the city as a
responsibilities in return for the institutions place from which one is obligated to flee.
of fast-track arrangements in the courts that This is the case even though unserviced land
allow rapid evictions of non-paying tenants divided into hundreds of plots some 30 km364 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE from the city centre can sell out in a matter of so-called customary ties—through which of days and despite the fact that the city’s households are able to extend kin-like growth rate hovers at around 4 per cent. relations and thus support and obligation. At More daily activities on the part of households the same time, they must increasingly find centre on maximising the possibilities of ways to operate outside these frequently emigration for as many members as possible. claustrophobic sets of relations. The efforts This orientation sometimes poses delicate to forge networks across ethnic and territorial political problems within families as to who domains are fraught with uncertainties given gets to leave, in what sequence and with what the relative dearth of institutional contexts obligations, as well as coping with various through which they could be socialised— implications of absence. This massive mobil- given that Douala lacks any semblance of a isation on the part of urban households to strong organisational culture. Outside school, secure possibilities for leaving is not simply church and work, there are few contexts a sign of economic stagnation. through which people can collaborate in Even if Douala’s lack of history as an situations not focused on entrepreneurial administrative centre minimises the possibili- activities. ties of formal employment usually available While relations based on reciprocity and only in such administrative contexts, it is trust remain crucial anchors in a volatile one of Africa’s most dynamic commercial social field, they are consistently being reposi- cities and displays an economic dynamism tioned in terms of the need to maximise oppor- that exceeds that of most African cities of its tunities through what often appears to be a size. While economic hardship prevails constant revision in the intersections of indi- despite this dynamism, the most salient vidual, household, neighbourhood and social factor centres on how individuals can access network activities. Livelihood across many opportunities, information and capital. The urban quarters of the global South depend on primary motivation for emigration is the highly mobile interrelationships among absence of a sense of predictability that actors, activities and spaces that must be getting trained and doing specific things will incessantly renegotiated in terms of who can result in some kind of livelihood. There is do what with whom and under what the absence of conviction that it is possible circumstances (Bayat, 2000; Benjamin and to take certain steps that are likely to Bhuvanewari, 2001). Relations based on produce results foreseen in advance. This trust are then often called upon to do more lack of confidence has been almost systemati- work than they can functionally absorb, thus cally cultivated by an urban culture shaped by overwhelming the economy of ‘small acts’ a sclerotic political regime that not only runs which Nigel Thrift (2005) sees as the more in a patrimonial fashion but rewards and useful locus in which to understand urban punishes almost arbitrarily. As a result, no relations based on generosity and kindness. one is quite sure exactly what it takes to get At the same time, more provisional net- ahead or to stay out of trouble. Clearly old- working efforts are actually less vulnerable fashioned networking, school connections to manipulation by the state, which has and political loyalty are important. But there largely appropriated the process of govern- are such marked ebbs and flows characterising mental decentralisation as a way to localise incomes and opportunities—one day one’s its reach into urban neighbourhoods. Even if neighbour suddenly has a lot of money; two many quarters in Douala are ethnically months later, they have nothing—that few mixed, the immediate living situations for individuals can put together a viable perspec- most households enjoin them to neighbours tive as to how they can secure a consistent of generally common ethnic origin. livelihood over the long run. Additionally, associations that do exist in In an urbanised environment, households quarters tend to be organised along ethnic and must rely upon many different renditions highly hierarchical lines. Individuals seek to
PIRATE TOWNS 365 disrupt these hierarchies as well as to maintain demonstrations of sufficient funds and pro- their ostensible purpose of being able to offer spects for return. The costs of going backdoor clearly defined positions and responsibilities have tripled on average during the past several for their members. Still, they are prone to be years. As a result, more and more formal targets of the local party machinery—both in businesses and institutions are serving as con- order to attenuate their potential political texts for the provision of passports, fake force as formal associations and as an arena employment histories, pay stubs, mission that enables them to disrupt co-ordinated local orders, bank statements, diplomas, invoices actions. With the latter, this is done, again, and purchase orders, all facets of the docu- through arbitrary rewards and punishments. mentation necessary in order to move. For the majority of residents either unable Additionally, a wide range of shipping and or unwilling to negotiate their way through transport companies are facilitating illegal these political games in a context with entry into other African countries and clearly limited real job or financial opportu- Europe, primarily, but also into Asia, the nities and where state power consistently Middle East and North America. More transgresses any discernible rules of the Doualais initiate arduous journeys across the game, alternative means of accumulation Sahara to northern Africa in order to make must be secured. In my wide-ranging discus- precarious illicit crossings into Europe, as sions with youth across the city’s most dense well as attempt entry via central Asia. In quarters of Nkongmondo, Bapenda and recent years, more are looking to China and Makepe, the prolific desire to ‘make oneself Taiwan, not necessarily as sites of residence, into a new person’ through emigration rarely but as sources of cheap goods that can be manifests itself in an expectation to go away moved across varying circuits of exchange. for good. The sense that there is no future in This is complemented by frequent journeys Douala as it stands does not necessarily to cities such as Dubai, Mumbai, Karachi mean that individuals do not want to use and Istanbul, where a wide range of goods emigration as a way of making such a future. are bought, sometimes sold back home, but The overwhelming sentiment is to find ways often brought to regions such as southern in which to come and go, to secure a niche Africa which do not have substantial histories both at home and abroad; to find ways of com- of external travel. Here, a substantial economy mitment to both and neither at the same time. of piracy is at work making heretical use of The concern here is always the extent to which the signs relied upon to indicate a stable life sufficient resources can be mobilised, not only in place. to leave but, once away, whether enough can But these rather obvious appropriations of be garnered really to increase one’s autonomy the workplaces, airline companies, computers, of action back home. documents, waybills and so forth are not the Leaving, itself, though is the major chal- only forms of piracy prevalent within the lenge. Many households save for years and city. After all, despite the overwhelming many prospective emigrants start early in desire of residents to leave, the majority is childhood performing a variety of paid and simply not able and is thus forced to make unpaid jobs in order to cultivate help later some kind of a life in place. While intercep- on. As larger numbers of individuals seek to tions, interruptions, diversions and misappro- emigrate and as access to visas and work priations certainly take place in all kinds of opportunities elsewhere tightens, competition settings within the city and are usually is intense and bureaucratic hurdles increase. applied to an assortment of criminal activities, Except in extraordinary circumstances, appli- they also have a more general sense. They also cations for visas must be initiated months in refer to practices whereby residents attempt to advance and criteria for granting visas have position themselves in places where they do become more complicated, both in terms of not belong or have no clear status as a means the kind of documentation necessary and of partaking of some goods or opportunities,
366 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE and without being removed or excluded. enshrined democratic principles in Cameroon Again, the focus is how to stretch the meanings accord a wide range of freedoms for people to and uses of what exists, as well as to speak and act, organise and form associations of all act in ways that do not immediately provoke a kinds. Yet, the ruling power has been the clearly defined and limiting set of responses. only organised force capable of operating Consider the tactical knowledge elaborated proficiently within a framework of deconcen- by citizenry in Bapenda, Douala’s densest trated governmental power. However, without quarter and, reportedly, the epicentre of the sufficient resources to make its mark, it is political opposition. Residents have been forced to make its presence known as a disrup- compelled to engage in a game of constant tive force, a source of blockage, confusion and pretence in the face of the arbitrary interruption. For example, in very obvious application of state power. As popularly ways, uninvited party officials are seen carry- understood, the repressive character of the ing bags of money in the middle of the night to state does not operate by telling residents of households seemingly picked out at random. the city what to do and forcing them directly Residents must continuously face distrust to do it. Rather, the local machinery of the amongst themselves in everyday lives ruling party singles out specific persons for already burdened with the demands of trying reprimand or marginalisation for not having to make ends meet. acted in a specific manner. This may include On the other hand, the profusion of these not attending a local meeting, not having performances of compliance is exaggerated, made a specific monetary contribution to a taking on an almost baroque quality, so that certain fund, refusing an appointment to a the demonstrated compliance of local com- local position, such as block party captain or munication systems allows certain reciproci- local market chief, or not informing officials ties and complicities among local residents of the potentially criminal or subversive to take place. For example, on certain days actions on the part of neighbours. of party celebrations, residents are ‘encour- Despite the complete disillusionment with aged’ to wear black. Regardless of the fact politics and a profound disdain for the state that ‘black is black’, there is a common and ruling party, what ensues is a daily- game in Bapenda Omnisport, one of the orchestrated performance, not only of quies- fiercest anti-government quarters in all of cence, but of active support for the party Cameroon, where residents compete with machinery, which largely displays itself each other over whose outfit is the blackest. through a host of ceremonial functions. This This game sets in motion extensive discus- party machinery does little that has any sub- sions among residents about which company stantive economic or social impact on makes the blackest dyes, about the relative people’s lives through what it actually pro- eyesight of local party officials and the vides or does. Even so, this setting-up of a sexual proclivities that may affect their eye- stage for witnessing and scrutinising and the sight, and about the latest shipment of dark public performances it elicits, is the critical glasses coming from China that might be pre- factor in determining who has access to sented to party officials. Unofficial delegations specific opportunities of formal employment, are sent to other quarters to assess the nature servicing, advancement and approvals for of ‘local darkness’ existing there. self-made enterprises, buildings and so forth. Under the cover of this ‘darkness’, and in On the surface, then, there is little room for pursuit of the perfect conformity to party local initiatives and organising outside this dictates, extensive discussions take place game. As the rules and consequences are not about the tastes and weaknesses of a wide clear, it is difficult for residents to anticipate range of local characters, how they can be what is likely to happen to them if they take manipulated, seduced and diverted, and how particular steps in terms of pursuing specific residents can, however, momentarily, work objectives. On the one hand, constitutionally together towards these ends. All of these
PIRATE TOWNS 367 exchanges, in which wide-ranging infor- sophisticated networks or ringleaders. Deten- mation about many topics is shared and tion and death are also not persuasive deter- debated, are conducted in the idiom of a ded- rents to the endless supply of youth from the ication to the perfect performance of compli- area purportedly identified as full of assailants ance. This is a game of leakages, slips, and perpetrators. indirectness, where no one has to commit Not even two minutes from the Western themselves to anything irregular but where a entrance to the quarter stand the remains of horizon of other possibilities is momentarily what was once Douala’s largest cinema, now visible and where the belief in the fundamen- closed for the past several years. Next door tal absurdity of state power is renewed, par- stands a four-storey building that once ticularly as a dynamic of mutual captivity. housed one of the city’s better Catholic high Consider the case of a group of youths who schools, now moved to another more suburban in many ways have neither left nor remained location. The demise of both has a lot to do in the city, but who have put together a space with the relationship between them. The of operation where it is unclear where they pupils would miss classes to attend matinee ‘really’ are. Machouchou is set back from showings next door of an endless fare of the intersection of two major roads, one cheap kung fu movies. The young people leading into the city, the other to Yaounde. would barely pay attention to the films; it During the rains, the area floods easily and was more a place to smoke marijuana and is traversed with great difficulty. It is a have sex. Some efforts were made to get the quarter with a reputation for thieves, killers authority at least to close the place during and malaria. What success these neighbour- school hours. But this was to no avail, hood ‘emissaries’ have had in the past has especially as the very popular soft porn show- not been necessarily attributed to deft skill ings at the weekends drew crowds of local or astute planning. Instead, 20 young men functionaries. will show up somewhere completely While over the years the cinema had been improbable—a formal luncheon for ambassa- stripped clean—of seats, carpet, even major dors’ wives, payday at the bank—during times sections of the roof— the locked projection when places are either crowded or full of room strangely remained intact. Given its security and simply bully their way to some proximity to Machouchou, the cinema was a relatively modest cash, usually taking signifi- convenient hangout for neighbourhood cant casualties on the way. Sometimes the youth, a beguiling place of refuge since, ruthlessness will result in a big score. But despite its present locked down fortress the brutal intrusiveness and the ‘take no pris- appearance, its status as a gathering-spot of oners’ attitude are what have earned the criminals was well known to the police. But quarter its characterisation as a sullen dump as far as I could make out, there were no of thuggery and its young male criminals the raids, no arrests. Unlike the high school kids, name, ‘head-bangers’. Few attempts at these youth actually came to watch cinema, quarter ‘improvement’ are initiated, although perhaps as a respite from just how much both the police and the military have repeat- their lives had become clumsy imitations of edly tried to clean out the growing criminal third-rate movies. The thing was that there element. were no movies per se to watch. Rather, they Given the number of schemes, syndicates had managed to attach the projector to a and confidence games that often have small generator simply to get it running and occasion to make use of such ‘blind determi- would then sit, often for hours, watching the nation’, one might think there would be rays of light as they reached the surface of safer and more lucrative opportunities for the screen. Afterwards, they would get beers the young men here. But there is a seeming and have long discussions about what they insistence to stand apart, as very few are had seen, arguing over plot lines and charac- willing to work as brute force for more ters. It was clear that there was an important
368 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE
way of life being depicted, the landscape and go with is another matter, for we have seen
composition of which they would discuss in the pulling apart of conventional social ties.
great detail following these ‘showings.’ There are no maps; no grand visions for a
Like most Doualais, they were fascinated viable future as, in turn, there is nothing
with this spectre of distant lands and also, intact from an ‘archive’ to be returned to life
like most, they were determined to save or to be reinvented. Rather, the boundary
money any way in which they could, in between the actual and the possible is
order to buy tickets and secure visas. But effaced, as that which never happened but
unlike these others, they never could identify could is remembered as it is about to happen
the name of the destination or work out how now. The milling about on streets waiting to
far away it really was or, conversely, the eat, the flickering projection in the cinema,
name and distance would change all the the search for the perfect blackness—all
time, as would the relevant authorities and point to a repositioning to call upon possibili-
the ways of getting there. So it would never ties that perhaps have been there all along. It
be clear just how much money they needed is a repositioning releasing a multiplicity of
to get, how much the costs would be. As it active forces to be in play, rather than assigned
was always difficult to try and hide money to reiterate existing values and differentials.
or to keep on spending it, either to be left Thus, the outcome of this emergence
alone or to buy one’s way out of trouble, the cannot be assured in advance. As Rancière
problems seemed endless. (2001) indicates, the political becomes a pro-
In the summer of 2001, Forum for Inhabi- liferation of useless and unnecessary words
tants, attempted to make a preliminary effort and the invention of a scene in which they
to organise some form of community might be audible, in which objects might be
association in Machouchou. It consulted the visible and individuals recognised. For those
village chief and with his assistance put without the specific properties that allow
together an initial assembly of over 50 resi- them to exercise power—money, knowledge,
dents to talk about what they could do about credentials or connections—they exist, as
the insalubrious conditions that prevailed. Rancière says, entirely within the act of
Unlike most such meetings across the city, making contentious the givens of a situation.
and across most cities in the region today, Thus, they are positioned to pay attention to
the complaints about present conditions were a potential “not always already seen under
muted. Although there was flooding and a the sign of actuality, but in its own right”
lack of basic services, the community had (Rancière, 2001, p. 121).
long been able to get by with being what New trajectories of urban mobility and
they were; their aspirations were not great, mobilisation are taking place in the interstices
nor did they think that, whatever they might of complex urban politics. Distinct groups and
do, anything significant would be likely to capacities are provisionally assembled into
ensue. When asked if the large numbers of surprising, yet often dynamic, intersections
criminals who reputedly operated from the outside any formal opportunity the city pre-
community and subjected the community to sents for the interaction of diverse identities
harassment and a bad name put a damper on and situations. But, across urban Africa,
their motivation, a grey-bearded man of there is a persistent tension as to what it is
about 70 forcefully responded, “No, not at possible to do within the city and the appropri-
all, they are invisible to us”. ate forms of social connections through which
such possibilities can be pursued.
The intensifying misery of African urban
Concluding Note
populations is real and alarming. Yet the
It is fair to assume that most residents in theoretical reflections that underpin these
Douala and Johannesburg know that they observations of inner-city Johannesburg and
cannot go it alone, but exactly with whom to Douala point to ways in which the unravellingPIRATE TOWNS 369
of connections on the part of African urban ENGLUND , H. (2002) The village in the city, the city
majorities to normative trajectories of urban- in the village: migrants in Lilongwe, Journal of
isation and public life can constitute new Southern Africa Studies, 28(1), pp. 135–152.
FAIST , T. (2000) The Volume and Dynamics of
fields of economic action. International Migration and Transnational
Social Spaces. Oxford: Clarendon.
FERGUSON , J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity:
Notes Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the
1. Estimate made by the former Inner City Office Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley, CA: University
of the Johannesburg Municipal Council as part of California Press.
of the overhauling of the cadastral system. GESCHIERE , P. and NYAMNJOH , F. (2000) Capital-
ism and autochthony: the seesaw of mobility and
belonging, Public Culture, 12, pp. 423–452.
GORE , C. and D. PRETTEN (2003) The politics
References of plunder: the rhetorics of order and disorder
ADEKANYE , J. (1998) Conflicts, loss of state in Southern Nigeria, African Affairs, 101,
capacities and migration in Africa, in: R. APPLE- pp. 211–240.
YARD (Ed.) Emigration Dynamics in Developing GROSZ , E. (1995) Bodies –cities, in: E. GROSZ
Countries, Volume 1: Sub-Saharan Africa. (Ed.) Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on
Aldershot: Ashgate. the Politics of Bodies, pp. 103–110.
ANDERSSON , J. (2001) Reintegration and the New York: Routledge.
rural –urban connection: migration practices HAMILTON , K. (1997) Europe, Africa, and inter-
and the sociocultural disposition of Buhera national migration: an uncomfortable triangle
workers in Harare, Africa 71, pp. 81 –111. of interests. Working Paper No. 97-02, Popu-
APPADURAI , A. (1998) Dead certainty: ethnic vio- lation Studies and Training Center, Brown
lence in the era of globalization, Public Culture, University.
10, pp. 225–247. HARDIN , R. (2002) Concessionary Politics in the
BAKER , B. (2000) Escape from Domination in Western Congo Basin: History and Culture in
Africa: Political Disengagement and its Conse- Forest Use. Washington, DC: World Resources
quences. Oxford: James Currey. Institute.
BAYART , J-F. and WARNIER , J.-P. (2004) Matière HEAR , N. VAN (1998) New Diasporas: The Mass
à politique: la pouvoir, les corps, et les choses. Exodus, Dispersal and Regrouping of Migrant
Paris: Karthala. Communities. London: University College
BAYART , J.-F., HIBOU , B. and ELLIS , S. (1999) The London Press.
Criminalization of the State in Africa. London: HERBST , J. (2000) States and Power in Africa:
James Currey; Bloomington, IN: Indiana Uni- Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control.
versity Press. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
BAYAT , A. (2000) From ‘dangerous classes’ to JUNG , D. (Ed.) (2003) Shadow Globalization,
‘quiet rebels’: politics of the urban subaltern in Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars: A Political
the global South, International Sociology, 15, Economy of Intra-state War. New York:
pp. 533–557. Routledge.
BENJAMIN , S. and BHUVANEWARI , R. (2001) KELSALL , T. (2000) Governance, local politics and
Democracy, inclusive governance and poverty districtization in Tanzania: the 1998 Arumeru
in Bangalore. Working Paper No. 26, Urban tax revolt, African Affairs, 99, pp. 533–551.
Governance, Partnership and Poverty: ESCOR- KNORR -CETINA , K. (1997) Sociality with objects:
funded Research in Ten Cities. University of social relations in postsocial knowledge societies,
Birmingham. Theory, Culture and Society, 14, pp. 1–30.
BERNAULT , F. (2000) The political shaping of LARKIN , B. (2004) Nigerian video and the infra-
sacred locality in Brazzaville, 1959– 97, in: structure of piracy, Public Culture, 16,
D. M. ANDERSON and R. RATHBONE (Eds) pp. 289–314.
Africa’s Urban Past, pp. 282–302. Portsmouth, LASH , S. (2002) Critique of Information. London:
NH: Heinemann; Oxford: James Currey. Sage.
COOPER , R. (1990) Organization/disorganization, LUKE , T. and Ó TUATHAIL , G. (1997) On video-
in: J. HASARD and D. PYM (Eds) The Theory cameralists: the geopolitics of failed states, the
and Philosophy of Organization, pp. 167–197. CNN International and (UN)governmentality,
London: Routledge. Review of International Political Economy, 4,
DE BOECK , F. and PLISSART , M.-F. (2002) pp. 709–733.
Kinshasa: Tales of the Invisible City. Vlaams: MACGAFFEY , J. and BAZENGUISSA -GANGA , R.
Ludion. (1999) Congo –Paris: Transnational Traders370 ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE on the Margins of the Law. Bloomington, IN: RIBOT , J. (2002) African decentralization: local Indiana University Press, in association with actors, powers and accountability. Paper the International Africa Institute, London. No. 8, Programme on Democracy, Governance MBEMBE , A. (2001) On the Postcolony. Los and Human Rights, United Nations Research Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Institute for Social Development, Geneva. MKANDAWIRE , T. and SOLUDO , C. (1999) Our ROITMAN , J. (1998) The garrison-entrepôt, Cahiers Continent, Our Future. Dakar: Codesria; d’Etudes africaines, 38(2 –4), pp. 138–156. Trenton, NJ: African World Press. SASSEN , S. (Ed.) (2002) Global Networks, Linked NORDSTROM , C. (2003) Shadow Powers: The Cities. New York: Routledge. Illegal, the Illicit, and the Invisible. Los SIDAWAY , J. (2003) Sovereign excesses? Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Portraying postcolonial sovereigntyscapes, NYAMNJOH , F. and PAGE , B. (2002) Whiteman Political Geography, 22, pp. 157–178. Kontri and the enduring allure of modernity THRIFT , N. (2000) Afterwords, Environment and among Cameroonian Youth, African Affairs, Planning D, 18, pp. 213–255. 101, pp. 607–634. THRIFT , N. (2005) But malice aforethought: cities and OBARRIO , J. (forthcoming) The spirit of the laws in the natural history of hatred, Transactions of the Mozambique, Public Culture. Institute of British Geographers, 30, pp. 133–150. RAEYMAEKERS , T. (2002) Network War: An TREFON , T. (2002) The political economy of sacri- Introduction to Congo’s Privatised Conflict fice: the Kinois and the state, Review of African Economy. Amsterdam: NOVIB. Political Economy, 29, pp. 481–498. RANCIÉRE , J. (2001) Dissenting worlds: a conver- URRY , J. (2000) Sociology beyond Societies: Mobi- sation with Jacques Rancière, Diacritics, 30, lities for the Twenty-first Century. London: pp. 113–126. Routledge.
You can also read
