Brandon D. Lundy

Ethnic Encounters and Everyday Economics in Kassumba, Guinea-Bissau

This paper presents evidence of ethnocultural coexistence strategies as a counter-argument to more pessimistic views for inter-ethnic relations. The community under ethnographic investigation is the semi-isolated, southern village of Kassumba, Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. The minority Islamic Nalú claim territorial hegemony while spiritist Balanta immigrants outnumber the Nalú three to one. This paper finds that inter-ethnic cooperation through hospitality, mutually beneficial economic arrangements, and the fashioning of individual- and community-level social bonds are important approaches to making a living in this village. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussions regarding the relationships between cultural identity, livelihood and the politicized organization of space.

Trading on the margins: locating continuities of exchange in Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau has experienced more than 40 years of failed economic policies since independence. Simultaneously, a few astute social theorists recognize that this country may in part be governed by internal logics and enduring local power structures that allow for continuity in the face of on-going political and economic ruptures. This article highlights these contours and continuities focusing on the merchant classes of contemporary Guinea-Bissau. How do both immigrant and indigenous entrepreneurs continue to eke out a living in this deleterious west African small state? How are social networks and cultural identity tied to business practices? Findings are based on 19 semi-structured interviews from 8 different locations throughout the country. Representative themes are investment in kin and kind at all levels; reliance on specific cultural and economic expertise; apprenticeships and insularity within homogeneous types of economic enterprises; and finally, long-term investment strategies aimed at profit over professional development, and livelihood and continuity over innovation. This article demonstrates that trading on the margins provides novel opportunities, particularly for locally grounded south-south investors and entrepreneurs, including increased flexibility in dealing with the state apparatus and its functionaries, informality, anonymity, growth potential, and specific micro-environmental knowledge.

Challenging adulthood: Changing initiation rites among the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau

ABSTRACT This article is about how changing initiation rites among the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau are affecting their society, and how neoliberal changes in society are affecting Balanta rites of passage and definitions of adulthood. The transmission of cultural knowledge and the social structures that support it have undergone profound transformations in the era of globalisation. In light of these changing initiation rites, this article explores how Balanta communities perceive and value male initiation today. The article begins by tracing the historical importance of Balanta initiation rites. It then considers how this cultural institution has been changed by global economic and political developments. Migration, urbanisation, and capitalism are reframing the importance of Balanta initiation as a site of contestation – the status quo versus modernity. Here as elsewhere on the continent, the effects of global capitalism are readily observable through the changes in localised cultural institutions, in this case, the collective rites of passage known as fanadu.