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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Fishing in Troubled Waters: Disquettes and Thiofs in Dakar
Author:Nyamnjoh, Francis B.ISNI
Year:2005
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:75
Issue:3
Pages:295-324
Language:English
Geographic term:Senegal
Subjects:urban life
gender relations
sexuality
terminology
Urbanization and Migration
Economics and Trade
Health and Nutrition
urbanization
economics
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3556750
Abstract:This article traces metaphors of consumerism, commoditized sex and sexified commodities that proliferate throughout urban Africa, signalling the intensified globalization of images of desire and opportunity, on the one hand, and chronic poverty and destitution, on the other. Focusing on sexual economies in Dakar, Senegal, as a case in point, the article analyses how, in situations of increasing scarcity and transurban articulations, language, sex possession, loss, self-construction and self-corruption mutually shape each other. It focuses on the relationship between 'disquettes' (trendy girls) and 'thiofs' (trendy young men, also the name of a prized fish), representing textures and intricacies that arise as the interdependencies among status, pleasure, appropriation, seduction and livelihood are worked out. It examines how these operations themselves elaborate a landscape of possibilities always on the verge of overflowing established sense and sentiments, yet somehow reined in, held, albeit in a highly tenuous relationship, to what is known and valued. It shows how the city makes itself urban, despite the nearly impossible economic and political conditions it faces, through a capacity to narrate these tales of fishing (as well as fishy stories). The author stresses the need for further research on the lethal cocktail of the globalization of consumerism and poverty in marginal sites of accumulation in Africa. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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