Bandits Fall from Grace: Liberation heroes and alter-politics in Bissau
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Standard
Bandits Fall from Grace : Liberation heroes and alter-politics in Bissau. / Vigh, Henrik Erdman.
I: Terrain, 2021.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Bandits Fall from Grace
T2 - Liberation heroes and alter-politics in Bissau
AU - Vigh, Henrik Erdman
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
U2 - 10.4000/terrain.21541
DO - 10.4000/terrain.21541
M3 - Journal article
JO - Terrain
JF - Terrain
SN - 0760-5668
M1 - 74
ER -
ID: 258845103