Bandits' fall from grace
Liberation heroes and alter-politics in Bissau [online article]
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4124221 |
|---|---|
| Authors | H Vigh (0000-0003-4760-5595, Department of Social Sciences, corresponding author), Henrik Erdman Vigh |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Terrain (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0760-5668 • E-ISSN: 1777-5450 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/terrain.21541 |
| OpenAlex | W3145941427 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 23 |
This article looks at the rise and fall of political legitimacy in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. Building on long-term fieldwork with impoverished city dwellers, it looks at the legitimacy and sociality surrounding political figures and movements in the country, commencing with the liberation movement (the PAIGC) and ending in the current situation of large-scale drug-trafficking. While the liberation movement was initially portrayed as consisting of noble (Marxist) bandits, the post-independence period has seen the former liberation heroes lose their positive symbolic presence. Established as an alternative to colonial power, the PAIGC fought for the emancipation of the country's people and the realization of an Afro-Marxist political order emanating from its native population. After independence, however, the validity of the PAIGC's claim to power started to decay and become distorted. People became disenchanted with politics, which lost its communal esteem. The imagery and discourse surrounding the PAIGC thus changed and the liberation hero's status moved from that of a social to an anti-social and eventually asocial bandit. The figure became, as such, stripped of its "social" mollifier, leaving behind merely the bandido, to use the Creole term: a predatory figure focussed on individual gain rather than collective well-being
Art · Emancipation · HERO · Legitimacy · Liberation movement · Literature · Marxist philosophy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Social movement · Sociology · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Demography · Gender Studies · History · Law
Critical states and cocaine connections
Black, French, and African
Warfare in Independent Africa
Lives opposed
Bandits, rebels or criminals
Africans in the Diaspora
Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau, 1998-2014
Political Mobilisation for Development in Guinea-Bissau
Betwixt and Between
Aspiring to alterpolitics
Conflictual Motion and Political Inertia
Critical anthropological thought and the radical political imaginary today
No fist is big enough to hide the sky
Clean fake
The Peasant and the Brigand
Caring through crime
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |