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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title I Will be VIP!: The Cultural and Political Strategies of Peripheral Abidjanais Men Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/29w936bg Author Matlon, Jordanna Chris Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California I Will Be VIP!: The Political and Cultural Strategies of Peripheral Abidjanais Men By Jordanna Chris Matlon A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Raka Ray, Chair Professor Peter Evans Professor Ananya Roy Spring 2012 Abstract I Will Be VIP!: The Cultural and Political Strategies of Peripheral Abidjanais Men by Jordanna Chris Matlon Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Berkeley Professor Raka Ray, Chair This dissertation examines the livelihoods and lifestyles of men in Africa’s urban informal economy. I look at the relationship between masculinity, work and globalization from the perspective of two groups of peripheral men who symbolize the political and economic dimensions of the crisis in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire: street-level political propagandists (orators) for former President Laurent Gbagbo and mobile street vendors, respectively. My analysis is premised on the fact that adult masculine identity in Côte d’Ivoire is predicated on formal work and marriage, two criteria the men I studied were unable to meet. I include analyses of public spaces where these men frequent to explore the relationship between urban informality and masculine identity. In what I term “complicit nationalist masculinity,” the orators used narratives of Ivoirian exceptionalism and invested in the ruling regime to ensure their livelihoods, gain status, and secure their post-crisis futures. Moreover, denouncing Franco-Ivoirian neocolonial relations they blamed the unemployment crisis on a “Francophone” reliance on the state bureaucracy. They advocated an “Anglophone” pro-business state and imagined themselves as patriotic entrepreneurs at the country’s helm. In what I term “complicit global masculinity,” the vendors had no ties to the state and were targets of informal state extraction and harassment. In seeking self-affirmation they bypassed the state and identified with media images of black masculinity from the African diaspora. They were complicit because, rendered redundant as non-productive men, they inserted themselves into the neoliberal economy through consumption-oriented identities popularized in mainstream media and corporate advertising. In both strategies, peripheral men’s relationship to the global economy has transitioned from exploitation to exclusion; men thereby respond not by resisting but by seeking to belong. In short, I argue that unable to be producers and providers via the formal economy, peripheral Abidjanais men search for political or cultural alternatives wherein they may incorporate into local and global society. 1 Table of contents Acknowledgments iv Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1. Then and now 1 1.1. République du Golfe (fictive French West African state), circa 1980-1995 1 1.2. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 2008-2009 2 2. Masculinity and the feminization of work 3 3. Affirming Abidjanais masculinities 6 4. Sorbonne orateurs, vendeurs ambulants and complicit masculinities 7 5. Methods 12 6. Chapter outline 15 Chapter 2: Miracle and crisis 19 1. The semi-periphery: Discourses on the Ivoirian miracle 19 2. Decadent Abidjan 24 3. Women in contemporary Côte d’Ivoire 28 Chapter 3: Work and nationalism in postcolonial Abidjan 30 1. Nationality, work, and idealized masculinities 30 1.1. Working and national identities 30 1.2. Changing idealized masculinities: From Francophone to Anglophone 32 2. Urban informality: Discourses of the feminized city 34 2.1. The African crisis city: Deficiency and deviation 34 2.2. Gendered promises, gendered betrayals: The feminized informal city 38 3. Masculinizing publics, contesting exclusion 40 Chapter 4: Il est garçon: Peripheral Abidjanais masculinity and the politics of representation 43 1. Belonging: Africa and “elsewhere” 43 2. The barbershop sign as Abidjanais vernacular 45 3. Consenting consumers and global belonging 49 3.1. Belonging to a global politics of style 49 3.2. “I will be VIP!”: The global as a social practice 51 4. Vindicating blackness: Race and the politics of representation 55 4.1. Finding the self reflected in the “other” 56 4.2. Barbershop images as local visibility and global participation 59 5. Eternal boyhoods 59 5.1. Men’s spaces: Excluded, and excluding 60 5.2. Youth as a social category 62 6. Conclusion: Tu connais pas Abidjan? 64 Chapter 5: The Sisyphean tasks of vendeurs ambulants 67 1. Greatness en chaque homme 67 2. Being somebody 68 3. C’est pas pour vivre mais pour survivre 69 i 4. Profiles at the bottom 72 4.1. Potentiality as value 72 4.2. Mobile street vending: Hierarchies and strategies 73 5. A street corner in Abidjan 76 6. Friends in low places 80 7. Vendors, respected and respectable 82 8. Public enemies: Contending with accusations of illegality and stigma 84 9. No man is illegal? The double exclusion of informals and migrants 88 10. Style: Alternatives to work-based identities 89 Chapter 6: Boys’ worlds 94 1. Weekend money 94 2. Embodying modernity: Complicit global masculinity 95 2.1. Discourse on blackness 95 2.2. Discourse on youth 96 2.3. Embodying Mtv masculinity 97 3. Producing identities at play 99 3.1. Recording a song 99 3.2. Football on the periphery 100 3.3. Maquis sociability and performing on the periphery 101 4. Abidjan’s mobile phone culture 103 5. Informal men, illegitimate children 106 5.1. Men without women 106 5.2. Unmarriageable 107 6. When the possible is impossible 109 6.1. Hustles to trades: bizness 110 6.2. …Or instant media stardom 111 7. Conclusion 112 Chapter 7: Politics, poverty and penises: Constructing masculine subjectivities at the Sorbonne 113 1. Introduction: Periphery in the core 113 2. The Sorbonne 113 2.1. The Sorbonne as a space 114 2.2. The Sorbonne as a strategy: Politics, poverty and penises 115 3. Politics: Manufacturing a global-local nexus 117 3.1. Global nation, global leader, and global everyday man 117 3.2. Entitled insiders 119 4. Poverty: Sorbonne sociality and social critique 120 5. Penises: Men and misogyny 123 6. Conclusion 125 Chapter 8: Complicit nationalist masculinity: Little big men, neoliberalism, and the Ivoirian crisis 127 1. Introduction: Bureaucrat to businessman 127 2. The interviewees 128 ii 3. Recounting the Ivoirian miracle 130 3.1. Affiliating with the miracle 130 3.2. Resource wealth and the neocolonial yoke 131 4. Defining work: Salaried “business” 134 5. Dwindling fortunes, redirected opportunities 136 6. A second independence 139 7. Suspended nation, suspended masculinity: The sacrificed generation 140 7.1. Fatherhood in crisis 142 7.2. Sacrifice and agency 144 8. The Sorbonne as ego sanctuary and opportunity structure 147 9. Little big men 148 10. For each patriot, his project financed 151 11. Imagining a renewed Ivoirian hegemon 153 12. Conclusion 156 13. A moment passed: A note on the orators and a post-electoral Côte d’Ivoire 157 Chapter 9: Conclusion 159 1. Neoliberal citizenship and the postcolonial African state 159 2. Masculinity and belonging on the periphery 161 3. Complicity and belonging in Africa and the world 164 References 165 Appendix 1: Zapin and the Academy Rap Revolution 177 Appendix 2: La correspondante 180 iii Acknowledgments For their very unique expressions of support to my intellect and spirit over the course of conceiving, researching and writing this dissertation, I wish to thank my dissertation committee: Raka Ray, Peter Evans, and Ananya Roy; my family: Colleen Thomas-Matlon, Amina Para Matlon, Penelope Thomas, Joyce Cacho, Vascilla “Yaya” Matlon, Carrie “Nana” Thomas, Auntie Pinky, the Chris and Rebecca clan, Linda, Ro, and Michelle; my family in Abidjan: Mowa Botembe, Itzhak Ashkenazi, the Atsain family, Mama Ouattara, Bony Guiblehon, Marcel, Clement Zêkê, Tino and MC, Macaul, Emily Dent, Mariam Fofana, Rinat Shezaf, Arouna and the EDEC community, and the many orators and vendors who shared their time and their thoughts; my friends near and far: Madeline Gallo, Eliza Day Collier, Leila Mirzai and Ariana Hernandez, Lara Stoby, Charlotte MacInnis, Blake Gray, Robin Turner, D’lonra Ellis, Erika and Jasper McCroskey, Ericka Davis, Janie Chan, Sukky Jassi, Ana Maria Garcia, Latham Thomas, Raquel Aragón, Aaron Wilkinson, Hrimati Fauman, Jessica Ezra Patri, Anahita Forati, and on the homestretch, Carlos Carmona Medina; the UCA community, especially Ubirajara Almeida, Suellen Einarsen, Thibaut Scholasch, Jessica Medros, Michelle Guest, Renata Marques, Rachel Gardner, Julie Hopper, Jamie Lloyd, Blitz, Micah Bijlefeld, Mariano and Guillermo Wechsler, Natalia Valencia, Paul Silao, Tory Ewing, Annie McPheeters, Laura Margulius, Ingrid Dafner Krasnow, Maya Hernandez, Ellen Bracken, Obiamaka Ude, Aimee Wells, Dana Jackson, Jen Wright, Jordan Simmons, Davia Moore, Tony Hutchinson, Mark Rendon, Siobhan Hayes, Nuria Bowart, Sola Harrison, Chris Montiel, Lindell Dixon, Katya Shkolnik, and all the fantastic kids; my family in Xalapa: the Cruz family, Adriana Arizpe, Sara Robledo, Gabriela Esqueda, Carmen and Candido Rojo, Iván Ovando Lacroux, Maria Deza, Ulrike Heus, and Zulma Amador; my current and former departmental mentors, colleagues, and friends, including: Michael Burawoy, Elsa Tranter, Carolyn Clark, Maria Hollowell-Fuentes, Sarah Garrett, Ryan Calder, Paul Hathazy, Anna Villareal, Trevor Gardner, Corey Abramson, Tianna Paschel, Steven Nakana, Peter Dixon, Ryan Centner, Jennifer Jones, and the exceptional women of the Gender Dissertation Group: Jennifer Carlson, Nazanin Shahrokni, Kimberly Hoang, Dawn Dow, Kate Mason, Katie Hasson, Oluwakemi Balogun, Abigail Andrews, Kate Maich, and Sarah Anne Minkin; and last but not least, Jack Burris, Mike Dawoud, and Toto. Special thanks to my father, Peter Matlon, for being my stalwart advocate intellectually, emotionally, and otherwise, each step of the way.