TY - JOUR
T1 - Orgies of the Moment
T2 - Bataille's Anthropology of Transgression and the Defiance of Danger in Post-socialist Mozambique
AU - Groes-Green, Christian
PY - 2010/12/15
Y1 - 2010/12/15
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
U2 - 10.1177/1463499610386662
DO - 10.1177/1463499610386662
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1463-4996
VL - 10
SP - 385
EP - 407
JO - Anthropological Theory
JF - Anthropological Theory
IS - 4
ER -