Paper short abstract:

This paper explores novel ideas of work and the self in contemporary Namibia as they emerge at the juncture between discourses on self-realization and emerging idioms of fortune.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores novel ideas of work and the self in contemporary Namibia as they emerge at the juncture between discourses on self-realization and emerging idioms of fortune. Rather than locating my ethnography within well-rehearsed arguments on the 'occult economies' in Africa, I want to build instead on a recent anthropological literature that has begun to address the relationship between work and self within the context of emerging neoliberal discourses and practices on gambling, fate and fortune, on what Festa refers to as 'fortunational capitalism'. In particular I am interested in the ways in which contingency, play, fate and luck, and the dreams and hopes for the future that current neoliberalism promotes contribute to the making and remaking of ideas of work and the self. My ethnographic evidence comes from fieldwork conducted amongst young entrepreneurs living in Windhoek, Namibia's booming capital. Ambitious and enterprising these youth have transformed their knowledge of IT and the media into an online and TV competition called Taramo Live. The business with his sleek graphics and catchy tunes is the latest addition to the appearance and consolidation of raffles, mobile phone competitions and prize draws in Southern Africa. In this paper I bring to the fore the ways in which the youth process of self-making relies on composite biographical narratives that are constantly created, imagined and performed within the contingent context of Namibia's 'fortunational capitalism'. Here I will show how novel ideas of work are central to this process of self-making.