In the context of the suspension of US assistance, an interesting piece by @kopalo.bsky.social on how narratives of catastrophe dominate the way Africa is viewed and how that needs to change... www.africanistperspective.com/p/how-reflex... - ThreadSky

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vincentfoucher.bsky.social • 22 days ago

In the context of the suspension of US assistance, an interesting piece by @kopalo.bsky.social on how narratives of catastrophe dominate the way Africa is viewed and how that needs to change... https://www.africanistperspective.com/p/how-reflexive-catastrophizing-inhibits?r=1xc3o9

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vincentfoucher.bsky.social•22 days ago

There is little doubt that "narratives of catastrophe" that dominate much of the talk about Africa are part of its problems. Narratives have impact. On foreign partners (donors but also investors - interest rates more or less measure anxiety viz potential catastrophes). But also on African agents.

vincentfoucher.bsky.social•22 days ago

Henrik Vigh has described the special pessimism that many Bissau-Guineans deploy when they talk about their country. This sense that it's going to waste. That there is no hope. Kriol has this saying:"Djitu ka ten" - there is no way.

vincentfoucher.bsky.social•22 days ago

One hears this other turn of phrase a lot in Bissau: "So na Guiné". It means that there are (bad and messy) things that happen "only in Guinea [Bissau]". A mix of self-irony and bitterness.

vincentfoucher.bsky.social•22 days ago

Like that one time when power from the main power station was down and the generator at Bissau's main hospital went down during a round of surgeries (bc the fuel had been diverted by some grandee, so the story went).

vincentfoucher.bsky.social•22 days ago

It's not just in Guinea-Bissau. In other countries too, people have this dark humour about what it's like to live there, to be a citizen of a country exceptionally messy, doomed.

vincentfoucher.bsky.social•22 days ago

Conversely, there are African countries in where there is a sense of exceptionalism, and it does have impact. Senegal is one of those, and Christian Coulon has written a piece about that in the volume below.

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