Modernity as Marginality: The making and the experience of peripherality in the Bijagó islands (Guinea-Bissau)

Abstract

In this article I will trace back the feelings of peripherality and marginality expressed by a group of young men in the Bijago Islands to the historical and political processes that marginalised the rural communities in Guinea-Bissau in the late colonial and post-independence period and excluded them from the formation of the state. These processes were supported and justified by the concomitant formation and diffusion of ideas of civilisation and development that produced and still produce ideological opposition between urban populations and rural communities. Following the seminal work of Anna Tsing, I will consider how the paradigm of the Bijago region as an out-of-the-way place has been constructed over time through the grand narratives of civilisation and development.