The Modernity Bluff

Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte d’Ivoire

Sasha Newell

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780226575209, 9780226575193
• eBook ISBN: 9780226575216
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

In Côte d'Ivoire, appearing modern is so important for success that many young men deplete their already meager resources to project an illusion of wealth in a fantastic display of Western imitation, spending far more than they can afford on brand name clothing, accessories, technology, and a robust nightlife. Such imitation, however, is not primarily meant to deceive—rather, as Sasha Newell argues in The Modernity Bluff, it is an explicit performance so valued in Côte d'Ivoire it has become a matter of national pride.

Called bluffeurs, these young urban men operate in a system of cultural economy where reputation is essential for financial success. That reputation is measured by familiarity with and access to the fashionable and expensive, which leads to a paradoxical state of affairs in which the wasting of wealth is essential to its accumulation. Using the consumption of Western goods to express their cultural mastery over Western taste, Newell argues, bluffeurs engage a global hierarchy that is profoundly modern, one that values performance over authenticity­—highlighting the counterfeit nature of modernity itself.

INDEX

The letter f following a page number denotes a figure.

Abdou (pseud.), 37, 42, 207, 265n4

Abidjan, 1–3, 8, 10, 22–24; population of, 23, 47; as Yere City, 43. See also names of districts

Abidjan.net, 54, 266n16

Absalam (pseud.), 148–49, 152, 226, 240

acculturation, 14, 44, 221, 224

Adjame, 121–22, 187

Ado-Ado (Nigeria), 78

advertisers and advertisements, 54, 156–57, 251

African Americans, 9, 140, 165, 167, 225, 236. See also hip-hop culture

African in Paris, An (Dadié), 183

Agnew, Jean-Cristophe, 249–50

Agni ethnic group, 259, 268n5

Akan ethnic groups, 128, 168, 185, 187, 259–60, 269n3

Akindes, Simon, 34, 48, 50

All Our Kin (Stack), 84–85

alterity: and faire le show, 140; and migration, 208, 210, 212; and Nouchi speech, 36–37, 39, 44, 61

“alternative” modernities, 252–53

Amondji, Marcel, 227

Anango ethnic group, 219

Anderson, Benedict, 220, 225, 245

Antoine, Philippe, 186

Appadurai, Arjun, 109, 209, 239

appearance, 15, 20, 30, 139, 249–50; and clothing, 145–47, 150–55, 169–71, 180, 194; and migration, 194, 209

apprentices, 84, 121

Apter, Andrew, 5, 159, 253–54, 257, 263n5

armed robbery, 80–81, 83, 124

assimilation, 45, 220, 267n2

Atié ethnic group, 187, 268n1

audience, 1–4, 15, 256; and clothing, 144, 147, 179, 181, 242; and dance, 110, 115; and faire le show, 1–3, 100–101, 103, 106, 110, 115, 118–20, 122, 126–30, 140; and masking, 20–21; metonymic audience, 103; and Nouchi speech, 43, 52–53, 55, 59; and potlatch, 127–28; women as, 130

Austen, Ralph, 67

A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Content
• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION
• ONE / Enregistering Modernity, Bluffing Criminality: How Nouchi Speech Reinvented the Nation
• TWO / Bizness and “Blood Brothers”: The Moral Economy of Crime
• THREE / Faire le show: Masculinity and the Performative Success of Waste
• FOUR / Fashioning Alterity: Masking, Metonymy, and Otherworld Origins
• FIVE / Paris Is Hard like a Rock: Migration and the Spatial Hierarchy of Global Relations
• SIX / Counterfeit Belongings: Branding the Ivoirian Political Crisis
• CONCLUSION / Modernity as Bluff
• Notes
• Glossary
• References
• Index