Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa: An Introduction

Cooper, Elizabeth; Pratten, David

doi:10.1057/9781137350831_1

Cited by 45 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In this sense, the experience of Tissana's fisherfolk mirrors poignant accounts from ethnographers in more urban contexts across contemporary Africa, where residents are repeatedly described as struggling to navigate social lives in conditions of 'routinized crisis' (Johnson-Hanks 2005: 367), precariousness and uncertainty (Vigh 2009;Cooper and Pratten 2015). Such accounts offer an important counterpoint to those post-modern social theorists who, in recent decades, have tended to romanticise mobility and social fluidity as expressions of 'freedom' and 'resistance' (Engebrigtsen 2017).…”

Section: O N C L U S I O N Smentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Viewed in this light, the work Tissana's residents invest in building potato rope families should not only be celebrated as a creative response to uncertainty (cf. Cooper and Pratten 2015). I have suggested that this work of building relationships through material exchange also needs to be recognised as an unavoidable, all-consuming daily struggle to construct some sense of ontological security.…”

Section: O N C L U S I O N Smentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Potato rope families: sharing food and precarious kinship in a West African fishing town

Diggins

2017

Soc Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the considerable material work men and women in coastal Sierra Leone invest in the attempt to nurture the webs of relations which, they hope, will catch them when their catches fail. From the raw fish handed to a stranger on the wharf to the intimate sharing of cooked rice at home, huge volumes of food circulate through Tissana's gift economy each day, in patterns that map each person's evolving network of friendships and romances. These networks of relationships are sometimes referred to locally as ‘potato rope families’, referring to their fast‐growing, ‘rhizomorphous’ forms. As the article progresses, I explore the ‘darker’ side of this flexible mode of reckoning social belonging. Huge anxiety is generated by the knowledge that, in the absence of gifts to hold them together, many of these intimate relations would atrophy and collapse as rapidly as they were formed. In other cases, a gift of rice is not only the substance of survival and kinship, but also a potent expression of power.

show abstract

Section: O N C L U S I O N Smentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: O N C L U S I O N Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Potato rope families: sharing food and precarious kinship in a West African fishing town

Diggins

2017

Soc Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In framing the SME sector as a 'field', the article adopts Arnaut's (2012) argument that young people's 'tactical agency' is embedded in, and textured by, opportunities and precarities contained in the field. In Zimbabwe, where chronic crisis and endemic uncertainties (Vigh 2008;Cooper and Pratten 2015) are common, the concept of social navigation is a compelling analytical category to understand young people's everyday life.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating Precarious Livelihoods: Youth in the SME Sector in Zimbabwe

Gukurume

2018

IDS Bulletin

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the late 1990s, Zimbabwe has experienced a protracted socioeconomic and political crisis. This crisis was marked by unprecedented unemployment rates, company closures, retrenchments, and rapid informalisation. In the face of employment uncertainties, many youth joined the burgeoning small and medium enterprises (SME) sector. This article explores private SME growth in Harare and shows how it enables young people to navigate the unemployment crisis. Based on the lived experiences of youth working in the retail and clothing SME sector in Harare, the article argues that young people deploy their agency and resourcefulness in grappling with unemployment by devising creative and inventive ways of 'getting by' through engagement with SMEs. Although SME sector growth can help create employment for youth, the nexus is complex. Both the number and quality of jobs created remain problematic. The SME sector is also politically sensitive, so young people have to navigate partisan politics as well.

show abstract

“…They reflected the kinds of dispositions – attitudes, embodied demeanours and states of mind – that these autonomous women had acquired through the challenging forms of social navigation that characterized their lives, as they were tactically moving within an uncertain and changing wider environment (cf. Cooper and Pratten 2015; Vigh 2006; 2009).…”

Section: Mobile Women Navigating Neoliberal Terrainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The need to travel: Malian women shuttle traders, autonomy and (mis)trust in neoliberal Dakar

Jónsson¹

2019

Africa

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent infrastructural developments in Senegal have severely impacted on the livelihoods of female bana-banas from Mali, a group of mobile traders operating in the Mali–Dakar corridor: transportation costs have significantly increased, travelling has become a more exhausting experience, and fatal accidents have become more frequent during journeys. Why did the bana-banas continue these arduous journeys? Why was their physical presence required in Dakar, and why did they not rely more extensively on social networks to facilitate their transnational trade? This article examines the conditions of autonomy, flexibility and limited trust that characterized the bana-banas’ livelihoods and necessitated their continued mobility from Mali. The recent infrastructural transformations have led to an increased commercialization and disarticulation of Malian trade networks in the Senegalese capital, and, due to personal circumstances, the women have often been cut off from networks. However, unlike general expectations of the ways in which networks evolve under conditions of neoliberalism, the bana-banas have not turned to personalized relationships of trust in Dakar, which might have facilitated their trade from a distance. The article contributes to the growing literature on social networks and trust by exploring how transnational trade does and does not work at this historical moment and in the context of gendered constraints.

show abstract

Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa: An Introduction

Cited by 45 publications

References 30 publications

Potato rope families: sharing food and precarious kinship in a West African fishing town

Potato rope families: sharing food and precarious kinship in a West African fishing town

Navigating Precarious Livelihoods: Youth in the SME Sector in Zimbabwe

The need to travel: Malian women shuttle traders, autonomy and (mis)trust in neoliberal Dakar

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About