Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:58:31.061Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

TEATIME: BOREDOM AND THE TEMPORALITIES OF YOUNG MEN IN NIGER

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2013

Adeline Masquelier
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

ABSTRACT

To fight boredom, un(der)employed young men in Niger have joined fadas (youth clubs) where they listen to music, play card games and strike up new friendships – or nurture old ones. Membership in these organizations cuts across social divides, educational backgrounds and religious affiliations, affirming the spirit of egalitarianism and comradeship that drives these largely urban projects. At the fada, conversation routinely takes place around the making and sharing of tea, a ritual idle young men have come to value greatly as they struggle to fill their days with purpose and direction. Whereas elders largely condemn fadas as futile, self-indulgent, and occasionally criminal endeavours, samari (young men) defend their pastimes, claiming that they engage in meaningful activities. In this essay I explore the temporalities of teatime at the fada. Rather than focus on what is lost under conditions of crisis and privation, I consider instead what is produced, and in particular how value, exchange, and affect emerge in the context of daily routines at the fada. In the absence of other temporal markers punctuating daily life, the practice of preparing and consuming tea becomes a key happening, enabling samari to carve out meaningful temporalities and reconfigure their relation to the future.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 470 - 491
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agamben, G. (1998) Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2004) ‘Time-stilled space-slowed: how boredom matters’, Geoforum 35 (6): 739–54.10.1016/j.geoforum.2004.02.005Google Scholar
Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. (2003) Selected Writings: 1938–1940. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Berliner, D. (2005) ‘An impossible transmission: youth religious memories in Guinea-Conakry’, American Ethnologist 32 (4): 576–92.10.1525/ae.2005.32.4.576Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, D. (1999) ‘Adda, Calcutta: dwelling in modernity’, Public Culture 11 (1): 109–45.10.1215/08992363-11-1-109Google Scholar
Cole, J. (2005) ‘Fresh contact in Tamatave, Madagascar: sex, money, and intergenerational transformation’, American Ethnologist 31 (4): 573–88.10.1525/ae.2004.31.4.573Google Scholar
Cole, J. and Durham, D. (2008) ‘Globalization and the temporality of children and youth’ in Cole, J. and Durham, D. (eds), Figuring the Future: globalization and the temporalities of children and youth. Santa Fe NM: School for Advanced Research Press.Google Scholar
Cowan, J. K. (1991) ‘Going out for coffee? Contesting the grounds of gendered pleasures in everyday sociability’ in Loizos, P. and Taxiarchis, E. P. (eds), Contested Identities: gender and kinship in modern Greece. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Das, V. and Poole, D. (eds) (2004) Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
De Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Randall, Steven F.. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dhillon, N. and Yousef, T. (2009) Waiting: the unfulfilled promise of young people in the Middle East. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Durham, D. (2008) ‘Apathy and agency: the romance of agency and youth in Botswana’ in Cole, J. and Durham, D. (eds), Figuring the Future: globalization and the temporalities of children and youth. Santa Fe NM: School for Advanced Research Press.Google Scholar
Felski, R. (2000) Doing Time: feminist theory and postmodern culture. New York NY: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian copperbelt. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gondola, C. D. (2009) ‘Tropical cowboys: westerns, violence and masculinity among the Young Bills of Kinshasa’, Afrique et Histoire 7: 75–98.Google Scholar
Goodstein, E. (2005) Experience Without Qualities: boredom and modernity. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, J. (2007) ‘Prophecy and the near future: thoughts on macroeconomic, evangelical and punctuated time’, American Ethnologist 34 (3): 410–21.Google Scholar
Hall, S. and Jefferson, T. (eds) (1979) Resistance Through Rituals: youth sub-cultures in post-war Britain. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. T. (2005) ‘Getting stuck in the compound: some odds against social adulthood in Lusaka, Zambia’, Africa Today 51 (4): 3–16.Google Scholar
Hassane, H. (2003) ‘Tuer le temps dans les fadas: chômage, mode d'emploi’, Tel Quel (May): 4.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. (1995) The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: world, finitude, solitude. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, M. (2005) Cultural Intimacy: social poetics and the nation-state. New York NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heuzé, G. (1996) Workers of Another World: miners, the countryside and coalfields in Dhanbad. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, D. (2004) ‘The civilian target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: political power, military strategy, and humanitarian intervention’, African Affairs 103: 211–26.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, C. (2008) ‘Generation nowhere: rethinking youth through the lens of un/under-employed young men’, Progress in Human Geography 32 (6): 739–58.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, C. (2010) Timepass: youth, class, and the politics of waiting in India. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jervis, L. L., et al. (2003) ‘Boredom, “trouble”, and the realities of postcolonial reservation life’, Ethos 31 (1): 38–58.Google Scholar
Johnson-Hanks, D. (2002) ‘On the limits of life stages in ethnography: towards a theory of vital conjectures’, American Anthropologist 104 (3): 865–80.Google Scholar
Kieffer, J. (2006) ‘Les jeunes des “grins” de thé et la campagne électorale à Ougadougou’, Politique Africaine 101: 63–82.Google Scholar
Kuhn, R. (1976) The Demon of Noontide: ennui in western literature. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1968) Rethinking Anthropology. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, H. (2004) Rhythmanalysis: space, time and everyday life. New York NY: Continuum.Google Scholar
Lindhardt, M. (2010) ‘ “If you are saved you cannot forget your parents”: agency, power, and social repositioning in Tanzanian born-again Christianity’, Journal of Religion in Africa 40 (3): 240–72.Google Scholar
Loimeier, R. (2005) ‘The baraza: a grassroots institution’, ISIM Review 16 (1): 26–7.Google Scholar
Mains, D. (2007) ‘Neoliberal times: progress, boredom, and shame among young men in urban Ethiopia’, American Ethnologist 34 (4): 659–73.Google Scholar
Makhulu, A.-M., Buggenhagen, B. and Jackson, S. (2010) ‘Introduction’ in Makhulu, A.-M., Buggenhagen, B. and Jackson, S. (eds), Hard Work, Hard Times: global volatility and African subjectivities. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mazzocchetti, J. (2009) Être étudiant à Ouagadougou: itinérances, imaginaire, et précarité. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Mazumdar, R. (2007) Bombay Cinema: an archive of the city. Minneapolis MN: Minnesota University Press.Google Scholar
Musharbash, Y. (2007) ‘Boredom, time, and modernity: an example from aboriginal Australia’, American Anthropologist 109 (2): 307–17.Google Scholar
Ralph, M. (2008) ‘Killing time’, Social Text 26 (4): 1–29.Google Scholar
Raposa, M. L. (1999) Boredom and the Religious Imagination. Charlotteville VA: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Richard, A. and Rudnyckyj, D. (2009) ‘Economies of affect’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (NS) 15: 57–77.Google Scholar
Ruddick, S. (2003) ‘The politics of aging: globalization and the restructuring of youth and childhood’, Antipodes 35: 335–64.Google Scholar
Salzani, C. (2009) ‘The atrophy of experience: Walter Benjamin and boredom’ in Pezze, B. D. and Salzani, C. (eds), Essays on Boredom and Modernity. New York NY: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Schielke, S. (2008) ‘Boredom and despair in contemporary Egypt’, Contemporary Islam 2: 251–70.Google Scholar
Seidou, M. S. (2008) ‘Le dada des “fadas”’, Le Sahel, 14 August: 5.Google Scholar
Tsing, A. (1993) In the Realm of the Diamond Queen. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Vigh, H. (2008) ‘Crisis and chronicity: anthropological perspectives on continuous conflict and decline’, Ethnos 73 (10): 5–24.Google Scholar
Warner, M. (2002) Publics and Counterpublics. New York NY: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Wedeen, L. (2008) Peripheral Visions: publics, power, and performance in Yemen. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, B. (2009) Street Dreams and Hip Hop Barbershops: global fantasy in urban Tanzania. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Yeung, S. (2010) ‘Natural manners: etiquettes, ethics, and sincerity in American conduct manuals’ in Lambek, M. (ed.), Ordinary Ethics: anthropology, language, and action. New York NY: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Zhen, Z. (2000) ‘Mediating time: the “rice bowl of youth” in fin-de-siècle urban China’, Public Culture 12 (1): 93–113.Google Scholar