Debrouille
http://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=débrouille
| La débrouille 🇫🇷 | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Location: Former French and Belgian colonies in sub-Saharan Africa | ||
| Definition: Daily ways of navigating their environment and coping with unforeseen circumstances | ||
| Keywords: France – European Union – Belgium - Facilitation – Network – Personal connections | ||
| Clusters: Conformity | ||
| Author: Cécile B. Vigouroux | ||
| Affiliation: Simon Fraser University, Canada | ||
By Cécile B. Vigouroux, Simon Fraser University, Canada
| débrouille, a French term that can be loosely translated in English as ‘make do’, ‘fend for oneself’, refers to people’s daily ways of navigating their environment and coping with unforeseen circumstances. It is about finding alternative pathways to navigate the harsh socioeconomic and institutional realities in which one finds themself. The notion encompasses a set of socio-economic practices, matrix of perceptions, and identity performances, especially in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa where it is commonly used, although the term is also in usage in Hexagonal France and French-speaking Belgium. La débrouille is often associated with a socially valorized way of being. Its practitioners characterize themselves as street-smart, quick-minded, and entrepreneurial. In the context of Congolese migrants in Cape Town, South Africa, la débrouille and the skills and mindset associated with it are essentialized as markers of group identity. On the social ground this identity translates into social stratification along regional and linguistic divides, such as between Lingalaphones from Kinshasa and Swahiliphone from the Eastern provinces. |
The term débrouille originates in the nineteenth-century European empire- building context (Murphy 2016). It was apparently first coined in the North African French army in the 1850s. In 1872, the noun and its derivatives entered the French lexicon and were extrapolated to new domains. Along with alternative names such as système D, short for système de la débrouillardise, the term débrouille has been ‘central to French and Francophone cultural imagination’ (Murphy 2015: 351). During World War I, the French poilu, a foot soldier, became the epitome of la débrouillardise thanks to his ability to rely on ‘brain over brawn’ (Murphy 2016: 46). A dictionary of soldier slang defines système D in the following terms: The système Dé… brouille consists in making something out of nothing, in seizing every opportunity or bit of good luck when it arises, in taking advantage of circumstances, the terrain, men and anything you can get your hands on to accomplish (François Déchelette 1918: 206). In Africa, several categories capture various nuances of la débrouille, expressed in indigenous vernaculars. For instance, in Mauritania, an onomatopeia that imitates the sound of an object falling repeatedly (tcheb-tchib) and verbs for usurp or seize (el- gazra; < yag’zar ) are used to index different types of individual or group trajectories. These refer to various strategies for survival and fast social success, as well as the social philosophy of navigating a wide range of contexts, from being jobless to joining the political elite (Salem 2001). In Tunisia the expression of racing for bread (al khobza) encapsulates aspects of the political economy of la débrouille, which Meddeb defines as ‘a way of life that involves domesticating uncertainties, taming dangers, violence and risks in order to access material resources that are essential to dignity and a decent life’ (my translation) (2011: 36). As a reference to ways of behaving and thinking, la débrouille is pervasive in many parts of the African continent. It is less clear how the word spread to the former French and Belgian African exploitation colonies, where it is often constructed as ‘African’. débrouille practices have been narrativized in several important cultural performances.
For instance, in Senegal, Goorgoorlou or Góor-góorlu (Making an Effort, Toughing Up, Doing one’s Best) is the name of a popular comic strip turned into a TV series that portrays the daily peregrinations of the main character Goor, who struggles to make ends meet after he lost his salaried job. The series created by cartoonist T.T. Fons (stage name for Alfonse Mendy) came out in the late 1980s at the time of the International Monetary Fund’s and the World Bank’s drastic structural adjustments of terms of loans to Senegal, which led to the rise of informal economy and the pauperization of the population. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), la débrouille has been narrativized by the renowned Congolese musician Pépé Kallé in his 1985 song Article 15 Beta Libanga (‘Article 15[:] break [a] stone’). Article 15 is commonly used in DRC as an alternative name to la débrouille. It allegedly refers to a fictitious clause in the 1960 constitution of seceded South Kasai. According to Kisangani & Bobb (2010: 31), Article 15 simply instructed state authorities to do whatever they can (débrouillez-vous). Since the Mobutu regime (1965-1997), it has become the unofficial motto of Congolese struggling to make ends meet and, for some, to monopolize local or national state resources (Piermay 1993). In the literature on sub-Saharan Africa, la débrouille has varyingly been associated with survival strategies (Nkuku Khonde & Rémon 2006); creativity (Persyn & Ladrière); coping mechanisms (Waage 2006, pace de Villers 2002); resilience, everyday resistance to hardship, and/or subversion of a social and political order (Iñiguez de Heredia 2017). These explanations capture what la débrouille means in different situations. It is a social practice that both is shaped by the field in which it is deployed and in turn fashions the latter (Bourdieu 1984). As both a set of practices and a matrix of perceptions, la débrouille often involves serependipity. Its practitioners (viz, débrouilleurs) are not just reactive to the dire situations in which they are caught. They deploy a range of individual and social resources by tapping into a vast repertoire of cultural practices, norms and beliefs. Anthropologist Janet MacGaffey was the first scholar to coin the expression débrouille in reference to informal economic activities in the DRC (MacGaffey 1993; Ayimpam 2014). La débrouille includes a vast repertoire of practices: small-scale street trading such as selling cigarettes or homecooked donuts (Vigouroux 2017), high jacking one’s neighbor’s electrical wires, diamond smuggling, or money laundering. However, la débrouille need not be reduced to its mercantile dimension because it involves the complex social dynamics within which it is deployed. The accumulation of social capital is essential in la débrouille. In some cases, its practitioners can convert the social capital into an economic one. One of the most praised values in la débrouille is information, such as knowing the right person, the right moment and the right place to buy commodities at a better price. Those who have access to this information may either trade it for money or capitalize on it to create a network of dependents with the expectation of later returns. Failure to honor the social debt may lead to ostracization. Researchers doing empirical work on la débrouille face methodological challenges. For instance, the wide-ranging nature of the socioeconomic practices involved makes it difficult to get an all-inclusive snapshot of the activities it encompasses and the underlying social organization the latter rest upon. Only a long immersion with the research subject(s) enables the investigator to access information that leads to a better understanding of the logic of their practices.
References
Ayimpam, S. 2014. Économie de la débrouille à Kinshasa. Paris: Karthala.
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Questions de Sociologie. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.
Dechelette, F. 1918. L’Argot des Poilus. Dictionnaire Humoristique et Philologique du Langage des Soldats de la Grande Guerre de 1914. Paris: Jouve & C ie éditeurs.
de Villers, G. 2002. ‘Introduction’, in G. de Villers, B. Jewsiewicki, and L. Monnier (eds), Manières de Vivre. Économie de la débrouille dans les Villes du Congo/Zaïre. Paris: L’Harmattan, 11-32.
Iñiguez de Heredia, M. 2017. Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and State-making.
Insights from 'Africa's World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Kisangani, E.F., Bobb, S. 2010. Historical Dictionary of the Democraticc Republic of the Congo. Plymouth: Scarecrow.
MacGaffey, J. 1993. ‘On se débrouille: Réflexion sur la deuxième Économie et les Relations entre les Classes au Zaïre’, in J. Omasombo (ed.), Le Zaïre à l'Épreuve de l'Histoire Immédiate. Paris : Karthala: 143-59.
Meddeb, H. 2011. ‘L'Ambivalence de la Course à “el Khobza''. Obéir et se Révolter en Tunisie’, Politique Africaine, 121(1): 35-51.
Murphy, L. 2015. ‘A Brief History of le Système D’, Contemporary French Civilization, 40(3): 351-371.
Murphy, L. 2016. The Art of Survival. New haven and London: Yale University Press.
Nkuku Khonde, C., Rémon M. 2006. Stratégies de Survie à Lubumbashi (RD Congo). Paris: L’Harmattan.
Persyn, P., Ladrière, F. 2004. ‘The Miracle of Life in Kinshasa: New Approaches to Public Health’, in T. Trefon (ed.), 65-81.
Piermay, J-L. 1993. ‘L’article 15, ou le Zaïre à la Recherche d'Articulations de Rechange’, Travaux de l'Institut Géographique de Reims, 83-84: 99-107.
Salem, Z. O. A. 2001. ‘Tcheb-Tchib and compagnie. Lexique de la survie et figures de la réussite en Mauritanie’, Politique Africaine, 82(2): 78-100.
Vigouroux, C. B. 2017. ‘Rethinking (Un)skilled Migrants: Whose skills, what skills, for what and for whom?’, in S.Canagarajah (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language. London & New York: Routledge: 312-329.
Waage, T. 2006. ‘Coping with Unpredictability: “Preparing for Life” in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon’, In C. Christiansen, M. Utas, and H. E. Vigh (eds), Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood Social Becoming in an African Context. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet: 61-87.