Paper short abstract:

At Abidjan’s courthouse, just outside the entrance hall, there’s a crowd of informal intermediaries waiting for their clients. They offer their service for an easier release of documents Working as middlemen between state officials and citizens, they navigate through different forms of morality.

Paper long abstract:

In the administrative district of Abidjan, sitting on the sidewalks and on the benches in the gardens just outside the entrance hall of the courthouse, there's a crowd of informal intermediaries waiting for their clients: for the citizens who come to the "palais de justice" in order to obtain documents of identity, official statements of Ivorian nationality, personal criminal records etc. These intermediaries are known as "margouillats" (agama lizards) by the Abidjan's crowds. They offer their service for an easier and faster release of documents, bypassing the formal procedure thanks to their "personal contacts" with the bureaucrats working in the courthouse. Their work as middlemen, between state officials and citizens, intersects and combine different moralities: the "morality of the belly" reigning in the street, the impersonal morality of bureaucracy, the moral expectations of citizen coming into contact with the state.