Fada: Boredom and Belonging in Niger

by Adeline Masquelier

Niger most often comes into the public eye as an example of deprivation and insecurity. Urban centers have become concentrated areas of unemployment filled with young men trying, against all odds, to find jobs and fill their time with meaningful occupations. At the heart of Adeline Masquelier’s groundbreaking book is the fada—a space where men gather to escape boredom by talking, playing cards, listening to music, and drinking tea. As a place in which new forms of sociability and belonging are forged outside the unattainable arena of work, the fada has become an integral part of Niger’s urban landscape. By considering the fada as a site of experimentation, Masquelier offers a nuanced depiction of how young men in urban Niger engage in the quest for recognition and reinvent their own masculinity in the absence of conventional avenues to self-realization. In an era when fledgling and advanced economies alike are struggling to support meaningful forms of employment, this book offers a timely glimpse into how to create spaces of stability, respect, and creativity in the face of diminished opportunities and precarity.
 

Genres: Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

Published April 23, 2019

Reviews

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I now know something about Niger, and there are interesting (if somewhat mirror-world) resonances between Nigerien youth precarity and the developing gig economy in the West and how Western millennials increasingly must make their livings. (Obviously the degree to which Nigerien youth experience disenfranchisement and poverty is much more extreme than for most Westerners of the same age cohort.)

[Alek Sigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This ethnography elegantly examines the phenomenon of Nigerien fada—streetside associations of young men who sit around drinking tea, lifting weights, and listening to hip hop music. Fada are used as a prism to reflect various anthropological themes including masculinity, youth, ethics, politics, urban life and embodiment.