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Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
In this position paper we explore particular examples from our respective ethnographic researches on how interrelations between mobility and the dynamics of institutionalized authority occur and are determined by certain ideas of what future social arrangements should look like.
Paper long abstract:
This paper argues that in understanding how certain forms of authority have an impact on social and spatial mobility, we need to explore how both – that is authority and mobility – relate to local, social and cultural ideas of future-making. In this position paper we explore particular examples from our respective ethnographic researches (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana) on how interrelations between mobility and the dynamics of institutionalized authority occur and are determined by certain ideas of what future social arrangements should look like. By focusing on how intermediary institutions (such as chieftaincy and religion) engage with mobility, the paper asks how various forms of mobility affect the formation, consolidation, or decline of these institutions and how, the other way round, such institutions restrict or foster mobility. While these institutions may differ in how they perceive of mobility as a means of avoiding or exerting authority, this paper is interested in conceptualising how mobility thus becomes ‘projectified’ in these ethnographic cases. How is the exercise of authority by these intermediary institutions engaging the formulation of specific modalities of (spatial and social) mobility in view of imagining their future social arrangements? What are the underlying dynamics that allow for a comparison with other situations in the African context? The paper is interested in making a contribution that will allow for a conceptual positioning that may enhance a further analytical reflection on how mobility, institutionalized authority and temporality relate to and mutually affect each other in a wide variety of African settings.
Institutionalized authority, mobility and trajectories of future-making
Session 1 Saturday 3 June, 2023, -