Orgies of the Moment: Bataille's Anthropology of Transgression and the Defiance of Danger in Post-socialist Mozambique

Christian Groes-Green

17 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

In this article I explore socially marginalized young men's excessive acts of violence, drug use, death race and unsafe sex against the background of George Bataille's anthropology of transgression. When young men in the Mozambican capital engage in dangerous sex or violent riots, the findings indicate, it is less a sign of ignorance about HIV or indifference towards the rule of law than an expression of living in a 'state of emergency' where transgressive defiance of danger and death become attractive. Everyday transgressions of young men who call themselves moluwene (wild, unruly) are moulded in narratives and acts which at once oppose a smouldering socialist ideology of education and a neoliberal regime exiling marginalized young men from the realms of work and consumption to permanent unemployment, poverty and orgies of the moment.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftAnthropological Theory
Vol/bind10
Udgave nummer4
Sider (fra-til)385-407
Antal sider22
ISSN1463-4996
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 15 dec. 2010

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