Paper short abstract:

Commercial motorbike riders in Sierra Leone face a variety of social constraints and insecurities in pursuing their everyday activities. Navigating the social and physical landscape they constantly re-invent themselves to comply with various demands posed by different actors and the environment.

Paper long abstract:

Commercial motorbike riders in Sierra Leone-many of them former fighters in the civil war-navigate a highly fluid landscape that requires their actions and selfs to be constantly tuned to the movement of the immediate socio-political environment as well as to its future unfolding. Particularly exposed to critical scrutiny of the people around them due to their activity and their past as fighters, they are bound to ride a variety of (social, moral, imaginative) trails to comply with all the demands, thereby molding their selves as well as the spaces they move in. My contribution aims at shedding a light on the tactics the riders in Makeni apply to move within the exigencies of the present, the legacies of the past and the longings for the future, and the challenges they face. Floating in constantly transforming social and physical landscapes, they constantly have to change their shape. For not losing orientation, they try weave a reliable network to enjoy the security of a fixed place. By providing transport and other services to the community, within town, but also beyond national borders they actively shape the landscape and their own imaginaries and longings. The multiplicity of roads potentially possible to take for riders for shaping their everyday life, the freedom but also urge to position themselves, poses at the same time great challenges to the individual not to lose orientation, but to know how to govern their own lives.