Paper short abstract:

Trust and distrust are aspects that contribute to the democratic exercise in municipal governance, involving institutions and actors. My paper is based on an ethnography conducted in the municipality of Beira in Mozambique, where I interacted with street vendors.

Paper long abstract:

In principle, trust is an important factor that conditions democratic practice. People’s trust in the institutions and political elites directly involved in the governance is one central aspect, whereas trust among fellow citizens, is another. In this paper, I will explore people’s distrust in municipal governance as articulated in the specific context of the city of Beira in Mozambique where socioeconomically disadvantaged citizens look with suspicion at the political elites in power, as well as at the public institutions they run. Such a distrust in turn presents important challenges to the democratic practices. The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork, notably conversations with Beira street vendors as well as different local narratives of the history of the ruling party FRELIMO. First, I present street vendors’ reflections on ethnicity, notably the discrimination that they perceive are practiced by people of the Ndau ethnicity, to which the Mayor belongs, in relation to other ethnicities. Second, I describe local narratives on how in Beira FRELIMO’s political opponents were targets of persecution and intimidation. The central argument is that distrust in municipal governance as observed among street vendors in Beira seems to result from the combination of factors pertaining to ethnicity and history, as well as to the everyday experience of marginalization.