Fada
Boredom and Belonging in Niger
by Adeline Masquelier
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Cloth: 978-0-226-62420-4 | Paper: 978-0-226-62434-1 | Electronic: 978-0-226-62448-8
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.001.0001
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Niger most often comes into the public eye as an example of deprivation and insecurity. Urban centers have become concentrated areas of unemployment filled with young men trying, against all odds, to find jobs and fill their time with meaningful occupations. At the heart of Adeline Masquelier’s groundbreaking book is the fada—a space where men gather to escape boredom by talking, playing cards, listening to music, and drinking tea. As a place in which new forms of sociability and belonging are forged outside the unattainable arena of work, the fada has become an integral part of Niger’s urban landscape. By considering the fada as a site of experimentation, Masquelier offers a nuanced depiction of how young men in urban Niger engage in the quest for recognition and reinvent their own masculinity in the absence of conventional avenues to self-realization. In an era when fledgling and advanced economies alike are struggling to support meaningful forms of employment, this book offers a timely glimpse into how to create spaces of stability, respect, and creativity in the face of diminished opportunities and precarity.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Adeline Masquelier is professor of anthropology at Tulane University. She is coeditor of Critical Terms for the Study of Africa, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
REVIEWS
“This vivid and humanizing portrayal of young men’s lives in urban Niger challenges many assumptions about Islam, masculinity, and ‘stuck youth’ in Africa. Fada is a must-read for gender and African studies scholars, as well as those interested in aesthetics and emergent youth cultures in the global South.”
— Marcia C. Inhorn, Yale University
“With Fada, Masquelier provides a sensitive, nuanced, and exhaustive understanding of the lived experience of young men and women in urban Niger. Masquelier’s unparalleled ethnographic appreciation of communities in Niger and her depth of experience allow her to capture the fadas as ‘dwelling’ in all their innovative and compelling forms. These are the ‘moral laboratories’ where solidarities are forged and tested, where sociality is offered up with tea and hip-hop, and where people are on the move even as they carefully wait for what the future holds.”
— Brad Weiss, College of William & Mary
“A brilliant ethnographic and theoretical intervention graced by elegant writing. This book will captivate anyone with an interest in youth culture in demographically explosive, employment-challenged contemporary Africa. The fada where precarious youths congregate in the cities of Niger are social laboratories, at once sites of participatory politics and biting critique, of boredom and masculine conviviality, of hope and dreaming, of sartorial excess and Muslim piety. This is an immensely informative and pleasurable read.”
— Charles Piot, Duke University
"Masquelier discusses Niger's fadas—informal gathering places where unemployed men gather to socialize and form new relationships and a sense of identity. Fadas are a consequence of widespread underemployment, and the author uses them to illuminate the life worlds of young Nigérien men. In seven thematic chapters, the author explores the existential value of tea making; of fashion, hip-hop, and religion; and of weight lifting and graffiti—all of which are part of the fada experience. But Masquelier's real subject is time, her thick descriptions of ritual, place, and process notwithstanding. Time is not so much passed as enlivened in the fadas: young men are simultaneously waiting and making their future together. A wonderful demonstration of ethnography and an admirable example of 'anthropology of the good'. . . will be valuable to scholars of Niger in particular and West Africa generally. Highly recommended. "
— CHOICE
"Masquelier’s highly sophisticated ethnography skillfully weds vivid thick description of quotidian lived experience that highlights local voices with original theoretical in‐sights. The result is a complex, engaging monograph that is indispensable for understanding the ways by which urban youth navigate the challenges they face in the world’s poorest country with agency and dexterity, while simultaneously contributing important theorization of youth, gender, masculinity, identities, and the urban."
— Anthropos
TABLE OF CONTENTS
One / Waiting for Tea
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0001
[Tea;Tea-making;sociality;waiting;time]
This chapter discusses the making and sharing of tea, a practice young men have come to value greatly as they struggle to fill their days with purpose. Itexplores the texture of "teatime" at the fada and how the emergence of a new sociality centered on the consumption of tea shapes the temporality of waiting.It shows how in the absence of other temporal markers punctuating daily life, teatime becomes a key happening, enabling young men to carve out meaningful temporalities and regain control over the flow of time.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Two / The Writing on the Walls: Ma(r)king the Place of Youth
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0002
[wall writing;place making;public space;intimate space;the street;temporality]
This chapter examines the fada as an aesthetic project through which locality is materially and socially produced. It considers the inscriptions young men design on the walls against which they sit in the street and argues that, by making their presence visible in public space, these wall writings turn the street into a key locus of male sociality. A major argument of this chapter is that fadas both claim public space and constitute places of intimacy. Understanding the fadas' relation to space also means considering their temporalities. This chapter contends that the walls and the inscriptions they carry bear the imprint of time and, as such, they provide evidence of the dynamic, performative quality of places young men create.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Three / Snapshots: Bringing (Invisible) Women into View
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0003
[women;invisibility;domesticity;fantasy;nighttime]
This chaptershifts the focus to the women of the fada and attempts to pull them out ofinvisibility. It argues that although the fada is viewed as a masculine space, women are critical to the definition of masculinity and to the fada itself, as an institution whose continued existence hinges on the performance of female labor and social engagement. The discussion of women's contributions to the fada unfoldson threeregisters:domesticity, fantasy, and nighttime.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Four / Hip-Hop, Truth, and Islam
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0004
[Hip-hop;Islam;Muslim identity;truth;ambivalence]
This chapter considers the role of hip-hop in the constitution of young men's Muslim identities through the analytical prism of ambivalence. It describes how young men's attempts to navigate between contradictory moral requirements plays out in the context of their engagement with hip-hop. Though young often men say rap music is not part of Islam, they nevertheless see it as a moral project destined to uncover the truth about social injustice. By focusing on truth, this chapter highlights how young men negotiate the contradictory ethical requirements of being Muslim and doing (or listening to) hip-hop.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Five / Keeping Watch: Bodywork, Street Ethics, and Masculinity
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0005
[street ethics;bodybuilding;practices of self-making;insecurity;masculinity;crime prevention]
This chapter explores "street ethics" as a dimension of the everyday at the fada by considering practices of self-making, such as bodybuilding, through which young men earn respect while reinventing themselves as watchmen.The concept of street ethics puts the accent on the moral ambiguity of projects, such as bodybuilding, that test the limits of the good in times of insecurity. This chapter analyses bodybuildingas part of a wider moral economy in which muscularity, as a synonym for masculinity, becomes a source of valued capital. It demonstrates how young men's involvement in crime prevention is rooted in their very marginality.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Six / Dress and the Time of Youth
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0006
[dress;youth;adulthood;performance]
This chapter considers how young men's dress performances are bound up in the definition of youth as both a stage of life and a lifestyle manifested by particular experiences of belonging and exclusion. It demonstrates how young men use dress to perform a range of improvisational identities so as to map out alternative life trajectories, at times to access adulthood, at other times to claim youth. It argues that as a platform for sharing ideas and experimenting with trends, the fada offers a supportive space where young men can negotiate their position in the life cycle.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Seven / Zigzag Politics: Tea, Ballots, and Agency
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0007
[zigzag politics;political landscape;tactical navigation;dependency;provisional agency]
After discussing the fraught connection between fadas and politics, this chapter focuses on the case of a young man who aspired to a career in politics as an example of "zigzag politics," a tactical navigation of the political landscape that requires one to shift directions whenever necessary so as to canvas all possible options. It argues that the emergence of zigzag politics in Niger signals how the rules of the game have changed even if at some level they replicate the networks of patronage and clientielism that have long structured the local field of accumulative politics. Though an exploration of the role of relationally in processes of self-making, this chapter also engages with the question of dependency, which scholars tend to shy away from. It shows how a young man's attempt to secure political connections exemplifies the virtuous nature of provisional agency rather than passivity or victimhood.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Conclusion
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226624488.003.0008
[experimentation;boredom;belonging;temporality;practices of self-making]
The conclusion draws together the book's general argument about the fada as site of experimentation where young men overcome boredom and redefine the terms of belonging. It summarizes a larger discussion on the experiential fabric of male sociality and the texture of temporality by revisiting briefly ways in which young men forge daily regimens and predictable routines and engage practices of self-making ranging from weight work to sartorial performances.
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
