Bush Bound (eBook)

Paolo Gaibazzi is a Social Anthropologist and a Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin. In addition to (im)mobility in the Gambia, he has published on West African post-slavery, Euro-African borders and West African Muslim traders in Angola. 

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on Transliteration
Abbreviations

Introduction


From Ploughing the Sea to Navigating the Bush

Soninke Migration and the Young Men Who Stay Put

‘Sitting’: Creating and Inhabiting Immobility

The Onus of Rural Permanence

On Bush-bound Ethnography    

Overview of the Book

A Brief Note on The Gambia


Chapter 1. Peasants by Other Means:(Im)mobility and the Making of a Village Mooring


‘Sitting’ Sabi, Creating Movement, 1902 – ca.1945

The Farmer-trader

New Routes and Roots in the Post-war Period

Parting Sedentary and Migrant Livelihoods: 1970s – Present

Bush Troubles: the Decline of the Rural Economy

The Rise of International Labour Migration

Barriers to International Migration

Diasporization, Transnationality and Urban Homes

The Traveller, the ‘Sitter’ and the Urban ‘Sitter’


Chapter 2. Being-on-the-land: The Agri-culture of Migration


Of Bushmen and Moneymen

Earning Calloused Hands: The Embodiment of Rural Suffering

Cultivating an Agrarian Ethos

From Bush to Travel-bush

The Alienation of the Farmer?


Chapter 3. Looking for Money: Livelihood Trajectories in and out of Mobility


The Social Currency of Money

Locating the Bounty: Routes and Destinations

Two Hustlers

Navigating the Political Economy

Stranded in Circulation: From Spurious Travel to ‘Sitting’

Wind in the Sails: the Economy of Support


Chapter 4. Just Sitting: The Spectre of Bare Immobility


Ghetto Youth: (Em)placing Male Sociability

Stilled Bodies and Burdened Heads

The Nerves Syndrome

Waiting: The Stilled Time of Sitting

The Virtue of Patience: Temporal Fixes to Spatial Problems


Chapter 5. Hesitant Patriarchs: Becoming a Household Head


The Ka

Becoming a Kagume: Ascent to Power or Buck Passing?

In a Meal Bowl: Ensuring Subsistence in an Extraverted Domestic Economy

Around a Meal Bowl: Creating Conviviality and Male Authority

Governing Change: Cooperation, Conflict and Translocality in Household Formation


Chapter 6. Civic Leaders? Reviving the Age Groups, Recapturing Permanence


The Sappanu

Youth, in the Active Voice

The Sabi Youth Committee

Quiet Ceremonies: Legal Innovation and Socio-moral Reforms


Conclusion: Possibilities


If…

Placing Immobility in Migration

Trailing on


Glossary
Bibliography