The Clothes of Extraversion Circulation, Consumption and Power in Equatorial Guinea Alba Valenciano-Mañé Aquesta tesi doctoral està subjecta a la llicència Reconeixement 3.0. Espanya de Creative Commons. Esta tesis doctoral está sujeta a la licencia Reconocimiento 3.0. España de Creative Commons. This doctoral thesis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Spain License. THE CLOTHES OF EXTRAVERSION Circulation, Consumption and Power in Equatorial Guinea Alba Valenciano-Mañé PHD THesis Programa ‘Societat i cultura: història, antropologia, art i patrimoni’ Departament d’Antropologia social I historia d’Àfrica i Amèrica Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona Director: Dr. Josep Martí i Pérez (CSIC-IMF) Tutor: Dra. Cristina Larrea Killinger (UB) Barcelona, September 2017 THE CLOTHES OF EXTRAVERSION Circulation, Consumption and Power in Equatorial Guinea Alba Valenciano-Mañé PhD THesis Programa ‘Societat i cultura: història, antropologia, art i patrimoni’ Departament d’Antropologia social i historia d’Àfrica i Amèrica Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona Director: Dr. Josep Martí i Pérez (CSIC-IMF) Tutor: Dra. Cristina Larrea Killinger (UB) Barcelona, September 2017 Image of tHe cover: Plaza Ewaiso (Malabo) during tHe celebration of tHe International Women’s Day in 2010. AutHor: Francesca Bayre. 2 A l’Àngels i a la Berta. Y a Tía Lola, que estará siempre en mi Bata. 3 4 Contents Contents 5 List of figures 9 Abstract 11 Resumen 14 Acknowledgments 18 Note on language, anonymity and money 22 Preface 24 Introduction 32 Baggage belts and clotHing bales: on tHe everyday of extraversion 32 On Extraversion strategies in the existing literature and the thesis 35 Extraversion strategies and the literature about Equatorial Guinea’s political economy 42 Towards tHe approacH and tHe metHod: from clotHing consumption to clotHing provisioning and from tHe elite to tHe ordinary 45 Market women: extraversion strategies from below 52 Histories of SEMU and SEMU’s market women 55 THe field: words, silences, and learning How to cumplimentar 58 Sources and tecHniques 59 Thesis layout 61 Part A Extraversion genealogies and geographies 65 Chapter 1 The genealogies of extraversion 67 1.1 Introduction: tHe History of people 'wHo don't want to work' 67 1.2 GatHering genealogies of global connections 70 5 1.3 WealtH and power genealogies: tHe searcH of tHe akúm and tHe making of connections 82 1.4 Managing tHe power and tHe risks of akúm 91 1.5 Extraversion, clotHing consumption and colonialism 98 1.6 'El popó del Presidente': tHe decolonisation of consumption? 105 1.7 Conclusion 110 Chapter 2 El exterior y el interior. Circulation, space, and belonging 114 2.1 Introduction 114 2.2 El popó de la mujer. Dresses and gendered places 115 2.3 Belonging to a village 121 2.4 Interior-exterior control and fluidity 127 2.5 THe political economy of tHe interior 131 2.6 The marketplaces at ‘the outside’ 134 2.7 From tHe 'outside' to tHe people: tHe factoria and bayamselam systems 139 2.8 Circulation, roads, and regional connections 141 2.9 Conclusion: interior and exterior circulations and connectedness as value 146 Part B Asamsé and elegancia. Provisioning paths and strategies 151 Chapter 3 Asamsé: Getting a grip on ones’ economy 155 3.1 Introduction: categories of goods 155 3.2 Asamsé 156 3.3 Asamsé in tHe market-place 156 3.4 LigHtening tHe sHadows of tHe global used-clotHing market 160 3.5 Producing asamsé: tHe work of turning rags into ricHes 165 3.6 Domesticating a global commodity and participating in regional dynamics 169 3.7 Regional entanglements: tHe Igbo network 177 3.8 GeograpHies, values and prices 181 Chapter 4 Elegancia: the value of connections 187 4.1 Elegancia and tHe dynamics of tHe market: style as distinction 188 4.2 Places and Goods for Elegancia in tHe marketplace 192 6 4.3 Boutiques, windows for bigmansHip 195 4.4 Moda africana 197 4.5 Connectedness as value 200 4.6 Elegancia = New clotHes? 203 4.7 On quality and AutHenticity 205 Part C The marketplace. Pricing systems, debts and political co- optation 215 Chapter 5 Embedded prices: moral economies of the market 217 5.1 Introduction 217 5.2 Money and price in Equatorial Africa 221 5.3 Oil economy: extraversion, inflation and regulation 225 5.4 Provisioning and pricing: supermarkets and marketplace socias 228 5.5 Prices in SEMU 230 5.6 Adut Elang: wHen tHe negotiation takes action 231 5.7 Embedded prices: moral economy and extraversion 234 Chapter 6 Crisis in the abundance: The ambivalences of negocio and of economic wrongdoing 237 6.1 Introduction 237 6.2 Creating ties and creating market: Guadalupe and Her socias 239 6.3 Negocio vsus. Trabajo and tHe generative power of consumption 240 6.4 Vertical control and productive debts: la asociación naná mangue 244 6.5 The moral economy of ‘negocio’: the ambivalences of ‘economic wrongdoing’ 247 6.6 Conclusion: Crisis in tHe abundance? 249 Conclusion Making connections: Negocio, brokers and extraversion or another how of Capitalism in Equatorial Guinea? 251 Epilogue El popó nacional and Malabo International Fashion week: versions of a failed consumer nationhood 254 Introduction 259 One dress for one national identity? 260 7 Values, Heritage and folklore: tHe process of invention of Vestido Nacional as narrated by its protagonists 262 Seis etnias, un popó. THe iconograpHy of a traditional dress 267 From a popó Guineano towards a popó del partido: tHe incorporation of a failed discourse 269 Folklorism. THe tHematisation of cultural diversity 272 FasHionable tradition: constructing a trendy nation in tHe Malabo FasHion week 274 Glossary and abbreviations 279 References 275 APENDIX Introduction and Chapter 1 in Spanish 304 8 List of figures Figure 1 Equatorial Guinea with fieldwork sites 16 Figure 2 Bata, neigHborhoods and marketplaces 16 Figure 3 Malabo, neigHborhoods and marketplaces 17 Figure 4 View from SEMU's central alley, April 2011 62 Figure 5 SEMU, asamsé alley, April 2011 63 Figure 6 Blessing of tHe market stalls in SEMU. 13th of March 2011 (image used to illustrate tHe article publisHed in Ewaiso) 63 Figure 7 Rainy day in Adut Elang, in SEMU, March 2011 64 Figure 8 Elegancia stall in SEMU, March 2011 64 Figure 6 Malabo's historical center, 2011. Photo by ‘Patrimonio Guinea’. 65 Figure 10 Bilaba exchange, from Balandier (1961) 89 Figure 11 King Moka. 2011 111 Figure 12 Child from the Guinean Ambassador in Ethiopia wears Macia’s Uniform in tHe early seventies. ¬Archivo Morgades-Memba 112 Figure 13 Still from 'Al Pié de las Banderas' Hermic Films, 1945. ¬Hernandez Sanjuan 112 Figure 14 Label of a Bubi Hat collected for tHe National Museums of Liverpool at tHe late 19th century: ‘Young man hat trimmed according to tHe latest fashion of tHe Banni (Beney) District’ © National Museums Liverpool (World Museum: 26.6.99.64) 113 Figure 15 Man wearing an old popó del presidente. 8th of March 2010 113 Figure 16 Official demonstration. 8 March 2010 in Malabo. 148 Figure 17 Detail of tHe Official 8 MarcH uniform, Malabo 2010 148 9 Figure 18 Ndowé Women celebrating 8 March in Bata 148 Figure 19 ClotHs awaiting in a shop to be purchased for an event 149 Figure 20 Empty SHopping Mall in Bata. December 2012 149 Figure 21 Stall run by an Igbo trader in Malabo, March 2011 149 Figure 22Retired lady in Her village, wearing a presidential clotH in 2011 150 Figure 23 San Pancracio in Semu, among ‘shoes from Elche’. March 2011 154 Figure 24 Imports of second-Hand clotHing. CHart elaborated from tHe data of tHe UN Comtrade Database 180 Figure 25 Asamsé wareHouse (partly empty because tHe sacs are on Hold in tHe customs) 185 Figure 26 Asamsé in Malabo (Lebanese importer) 186 Figure 27 Asamsé stall, Semu 186 Figure 28 Doing shopping in Cobocalleja (Madrid, Spain). January 2013. 212 Figure 29 Aba produced Male T-SHirt in SEMU 212 Figure 30 Banner of the ‘Aguacate’ Industrial Estate in Fruenlabrada, Madrid; Aguacate Hair extensions and shoes from Elche in SEMU 213 Figure 31 Detail of tHe Popó Nacional Print 277 Figure 32 Detail of tHe drawings by Bualo Bokamba. Popó Nacional 277 Figure 25 Members of COOPCREME at a charity event wearing Popó Nacional. ¬ Morgades-Memba Archive 278 10 Abstract THis tHesis is about grassroots strategies of material and political extraversion. It is an etHnography of tHe provisioning of clotHing goods in Equatorial Guinea and it bridges tHe everyday lives of ordinary people with issues related to political economy and power configurations. Based on more tHan twelve montHs of etHnographic fieldwork, mainly localised at Malabo’s principal marketplace but also complementarily carried out in Spain, it describes tHe strategies Guineans engage with in order to generate livelihoods but also to be able to make material statements about tHeir self-wortH in a context of uncertainty and precariousness. THe exploitation of off-shore oil wells in tHe mid-nineties Has provided an injection of resources to a regime tHat Has been able to consolidate its power and an outside-oriented economy. While tHe extraversion strategies of tHe political elite are known and described in tHe political economic analyses of the country’s contemporary situation, studies about How ordinary Guineans deal and engage with tHis extravert system, an intended contribution of tHis tHesis, are practically non-existent. THe protagonists of my etHnography are market women, wHo Have made from clotHing provisioning botH tHeir source of livelihood and also tHeir mechanism for social inclusion and political participation. THe argument begins with a Historical account, showing How rentist capitalism and extraversion strategies are not a recent phenomenon related to oil exploitation but Have a longer trajectory in Equatorial Guinea.