Jason Sumich. The Middle Class in Mozambique: The State and the Politics of Transformation in Southern Africa. The International African Library Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 190 pp. $24.00, e-book, ISBN 978-1-108-57702-1. Reviewed by Colin Darch (University of Cape Town) Published on H-Luso-Africa (November, 2020) Commissioned by Philip J. Havik (Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT)) As far as I am aware, Jason Sumich's new book chapters follow a broad and highly conventional is the first full-length contribution—in English at periodization of, successively, the late colonial least—to the study of the middle class focusing on period; the early independent state; the "civil war Mozambique, a topic on which he has previously and the economic chaos"; a chapter titled "Demo‐ published widely and has perhaps made his own. cratisation," covering the period from 1992 to 2004; [1] It is therefore pioneering and should be warmly and a final chapter titled "Decay," the heart of the welcomed, and indeed the narrative, although book, focusing on the period from 2005 to 2015. short, is engaging, readable, and well structured. These are bracketed by an introduction that ad‐ Sumich might have done more in this book to dresses theoretical (but not methodological) issues, tackle long-standing ambiguities about the social especially around the question of what the term category of the "middle class" as an object of study, "middle class" actually means, and a conclusion and in addition the text raises questions about the that brings the narrative up to 2016. Perhaps sur‐ rigor of his method as an anthropologist writing prisingly, given Sumich's evident enthusiasm for historically. I will expand on these two points in João Paulo Borges Coelho's concept of the "libera‐ the course of this review. tion script," which he references several times, he It is already clear that the book can be and does not argue for this periodization in any detail. will be (mis)read as a historical text—for example, But the power of Borges Coelho's concept hangs as "an insightful contribution to the history of precisely on its identification of a semiofficial his‐ Mozambique and class formation under colonial torical metanarrative that is not arbitrary in its di‐ and postcolonial conditions" or as an "introduc‐ vision into periods and that makes sense only in tion to the contemporary history of Mozambique," terms of a view of history in which the armed to quote two recent reviewers.[2] This is mainly be‐ struggle against the Portuguese from 1964 to 1974 cause the book is organized historically rather becomes the history of modern Mozambique in than, as one might expect, thematically, and is and of itself, occupying the whole available histor‐ presented as a narrative around a periodization ical space from the early 1960s onward. As Borges that takes the moments of independence in 1975 Coelho says, the liberation script consists of "a co‐ and of the Acordo Geral de Paz (AGP) in 1992 as herent and fixed narrative corpus made of a se‐ two of its key inflection points. The five narrative quence of events in a timeline and ordered in a H-Net Reviews number of broad phases separated by Frelimo text of a "party-state") and Renamo has unwill‐ Congresses which operate as periodization marks. ingly played the apparently permanent role of Each congress occurs to solve a crisis that was "loyal opposition." Other parties, by and large and aggravating within each period, and to neutralize designedly, do not get a look-in. the threat that that crisis represented to the na‐ In the last few decades, the middle class has tionalist endeavor. The opening of a new phase [is] become a fashionable object of study for sociolo‐ only made possible by the resolution of the crisis gists, anthropologists, and economists around the of the previous one."[3] world, including the global south. Indeed, the emer‐ Thus, the second congress in 1968 marked the gence of a growing middle class has been held out sharpening to the point of crisis of the struggle by some as the latest (and still teleological) solu‐ between the two lines (if not its resolution) and the tion to the problem of socioeconomic develop‐ consequent militarization of FRELIMO; the formal ment, especially in Africa, as Sumich points out.[5] adoption of Marxism-Leninism in 1977 at the third On the broader African middle class, Henning Mel‐ congress supposedly equipped what is now the ber's edited volume The Rise of Africa's Middle vanguard Frelimo Party with the tools to bend the Classes: Myths, Realities and Critical Engagements inherited colonial state structures to its will; and (2017), to which Sumich contributed a chapter, and the fourth congress in April 1983 offered a demo‐ the collection The Emerging Middle Class in Africa cratic moment in which a space opened up for or‐ (2015) edited by the economists Mthuli Ncube and dinary cadres to criticize the party leadership.[4] Charles Leyeka Lufumpa have brought the concept The fifth congress in July 1989 involved a shake-up to the fore.[6] However, it remains a slippery idea. at the top levels of the party while the possibility of Apart from the obvious economic categorization a negotiated peace slowly emerged, and the "ex‐ that locates the middle class between the poor and traordinary" sixth congress in August 1991 went a the wealthy in terms of income and/or consump‐ step further and dropped Marxism as Frelimo's of‐ tion, multiple competing definitions based on soci‐ ficial ideology, after the single-party parliament ological variables—such as educational level, pro‐ had already preemptively approved a pluralist fessional status, educational achievement, "life‐ constitution, without Renamo participation, late style," and even aspiration—have all been de‐ in 1990. ployed. Simple classifications based on income These steps, viewed with hindsight, show some can be relative (that is, within a national distribu‐ agility as well as opportunism on Frelimo's part in tion) or absolute (for example, per capita income laying the groundwork for holding on to power (or in US dollars). An absence of theoretical agree‐ rather "solving the crisis" as Borges Coelho has it) ment around these issues makes cross-national and open up questions about the real character of comparative analysis generally difficult, a prob‐ Mozambique's process of so-called democratiza‐ lem that Sumich chooses not to address despite ac‐ tion. Luciano Canfora has argued in another con‐ knowledging it: "For my purposes, the middle class text that democratization can all too often have shares some general sociological characteristics the effect of stabilizing existing relations of prop‐ that make this social category more or less recog‐ erty and power rather than marking a rupture, nizable across the globe. These characteristics in‐ and in hindsight it is clear that the painfully nego‐ clude broad economic factors, such as a degree of tiated AGP did exactly that, creating space not so material power, and social marks of distinction much for multipartidarismo as for what is effect‐ such as certain levels of formal education and cul‐ ively a two-party system in which Frelimo has re‐ tural capital, employment in a professional capa‐ mained dominant (although not always in the con‐ city, and a largely urban-based lifestyle" (p. 8). 2 H-Net Reviews All this has presented me with a problem of presidential candidate) in 2002, when he took on lecture, of leitura: how is the book meant to be the role of party secretary-general. The "hidden read? Sumich paints a picture of a broadly dissatis‐ debt" scandal, involving secret loans of around fied urban "middle class" in Maputo based on re‐ two billion dollars to the government—on Gue‐ search carried out over a decade, between 2002 buza's watch—broke in 2016, shortly after he had and 2016. During those years, he immersed himself left office (pp. 150-51). The period of Sumich's im‐ in this particular urban social milieu, and his nar‐ mersion in Maputo society was, therefore, marked rative relies mainly on the testimonies—in effect, by the fairly rapid breakdown of the then domin‐ the petits récits—of a narrow group of a couple of ant narrative of the country as a post-conflict suc‐ dozen lightly disguised informants, with multiple cess story, after the negotiated end (in 1992-94) of direct quotations. The book is organized around the sixteen-year post-independence war with Ren‐ this cadre's largely unfiltered perceptions of amo and a long period of uninterrupted economic present-day social reality and contemporary polit‐ growth. The quotations from Sumich's informants, ical history—a discourse of signification, to appro‐ however, also reveal a final and parallel break‐ priate Sumich's preferred terminology—with ex‐ down of popular belief, not only in post-conflict tensive references to the experience of a range of success but also in the heroic narrative of the other countries, both in Africa and elsewhere. In armed struggle for national liberation and the fact, Sumich's theoretical reading is impressively failed post-independence social revolution. The wide-ranging: in a bibliography of around two consequent sense of collective disillusionment in hundred referenced publications he cites material both founding mythos and present reality per‐ on Hungary, Indonesia, Bengal, and Melanesia, meates the book. This is a direct consequence of among many other places. However, only a third Sumich's methodology: by privileging the percep‐ of his sources deal directly with Mozambique, and tions of a small selection of Mozambican inter‐ of those only a handful are in Portuguese or by locutors, their collective disillusionment emerges Mozambican scholars, such as Yussuf Adam, clearly.