Contribution short abstract:

This paper traces the diasporic lifeworlds of the Serer Niominka from the drowning Sine-Saloum Delta, Senegal in southern Spain and inquires the ’minor tactics’ they (have to) employ at the intersections of participation and refusal to achieve a livable ’life within limits’.

Contribution long abstract:

Southern Spain’s desiccating agricultural landscape is a formulation of the Plantationocene, where control over humans and non-humans is high, while land is neatly parceled, engineered and terraformed, packed under a ’sea of plastic’ and watered and farmed to ruination – mainly on the back of African migrant labor. This paper inquires into Serer Niominka laborers' subaltern agency and how they strive to achieve a livable ’life within limits’ in the context of exploitative labor and dependence, racism, undocumentedness and landlessness. It traces when, how and why the Serer Niominka (can or have to) render themselves legible to employers, NGOs, the state or the public and reproduce their categorisations or become appropriated and exploitable (e.g. via labor, health care, unionizing) and when, how and why they (can or have to) rather nurture refusal and their own sovereign communal realities (e.g. via redistributive economies, village network groups). It critically inquires into the co-production of participation and refusal within the framework of ’minor tactics’ and links them to key Senegalese norms of dignity (ngor); benevolence, generosity, reciprocity and honor (teranga); modesty and restraint (kersa); and discretion (sutura). Ultimately, it maps in what forms the Serer Niominka community is able to constitute Black (Under)Commons beyond property and citizenship, total independence or a shared good, justice and comprehensive change and in what ways it thereby also challenges traditional views of the Mediterranean as a purely European, white, or classical space – and helps us refine our understandings of the possibilities and limits of Black (Under)Commons.