Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T10:38:45.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Assembling emergence: making art and selling gas in Bulawayo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2019

Abstract

This article is an ethnographic investigation of the labours of making art and selling liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. It locates these activities within a shared social world, centred on one of Bulawayo's major art galleries, and it demonstrates that artists and LPG dealers use similar strategies to respond to the political conditions of life in the city. This article frames these conditions as unpredictable, insofar as they change frequently and crystallize in unexpected forms, and it argues that both groups are attempting to act within these conditions and shape them into emergent assemblages. In adopting this term ‘assemblage’, which has been elaborated theoretically by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and their many interlocutors, this article emphasizes both the mutability and the unpredictability of these formations. The artists who work in the gallery, for their part, make their art by assembling their chosen media. The processes by which they choose their media constitute assemblages as well, in that artists have to adapt their artistic visions to the materials that Zimbabwe's market can provide. Street dealers in gas also produce emergent assemblages against the backdrop of unpredictability. If they want to make natural gas available to consumers, dealers must shepherd their medium through an always emergent process of distribution. They participate in transnational networks of trade, but they also theorize innovative strategies of procurement, develop circuits of trust and loyalty, and conjure up visions of a predatory state. Like artists, they use their work to construct dynamic representations of the world around them. Artists may produce images, and dealers circulate gas, but this article shows that conceptualizing these practices in terms of ‘assemblages’ calls their commonalities into view. In doing so, it also demonstrates that these practices complicate easy distinctions between aesthetics, economics and politics.

Résumé

Cet article est une enquête ethnographique sur le travail de création artistique et le travail de vente de gaz de pétrole liquéfié (GPL) à Bulawayo (Zimbabwe). Il situe ces activités dans un univers social partagé centré sur l'une des principales galeries d'art de Bulawayo, et démontre que les artistes et les vendeurs de GPL utilisent des stratégies semblables pour répondre aux conditions de vie politiques dans la ville. Cet article présente ces conditions comme imprévisibles, dans la mesure où elles changent fréquemment et se cristallisent en formes inattendues, et soutient que ces deux groupes tentent d'agir dans le cadre de ces conditions et d'en faire des assemblages émergents. En adoptant ce terme d’« assemblage », théoriquement élaboré par Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari et leurs nombreux interlocuteurs, cet article souligne à la fois la mutabilité et l'imprévisibilité de ces formations. Pour leur part, les artistes qui travaillent dans la galerie créent leur art en assemblant les supports qu'ils choisissent d'utiliser. Les processus de sélection des supports utilisés constituent également des assemblages, en ce que les artistes doivent adapter leurs visions artistiques aux matériaux que le marché zimbabwéen peut fournir. Les marchands de gaz produisent aussi des assemblages émergents dans ce contexte d'imprévisibilité. S'ils veulent mettre du gaz naturel à la disposition des consommateurs, les marchands doivent le faire à travers un processus de distribution toujours émergent. Ils intègrent des réseaux commerciaux transnationaux, mais ils théorisent également des stratégies innovantes d'approvisionnement, développent des circuits de confiance et de loyauté, et inventent des visions d’État prédateur. Comme les artistes, ils utilisent leur travail pour construire des représentations dynamiques du monde qui les entoure. Les artistes produisent des images tandis que les marchands distribuent du gaz, mais cet article montre que la conceptualisation de ces pratiques en termes d’« assemblages » révèle leurs éléments communs. Ce faisant, il démontre également que ces pratiques compliquent les distinctions faciles entre esthétique, économie et politique.

Type
Ethnographies of emergence
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (2013) Arts of the Political: new openings for the Left. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bolt, M. (2012) ‘Waged entrepreneurs, policed informality: work, the regulation of space and the economy of the Zimbabwean–South African border’, Africa 82 (1): 111–30.Google Scholar
Bratton, M. and Masunungure, E. (2006) ‘Popular reactions to state repression: Operation Marumbatsvina in Zimbabwe’, African Affairs 106 (442): 2145.Google Scholar
Canclini, N. G. (2014) Art Beyond Itself: anthropology for a society without a story line. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Chagonda, T. (2016) ‘The other face of the Zimbabwean crisis: the black market and dealers during Zimbabwe's decade of economic meltdown, 2000–2008’, Review of African Political Economy 43 (147): 131–41.Google Scholar
Degani, M. (2017) ‘Modal reasoning in Dar es Salaam's power network’, American Ethnologist 44 (2): 300–14.Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2011) A Thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. and Parnet, C. (2007) Dialogues II. New York NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Diagne, S. B. (2011) African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the idea of négritude. Translated by Jeffers, C.. London: Seagull Books.Google Scholar
Fontein, J. (2009) ‘Anticipating the tsunami: rumours, planning and the arbitrary state in Zimbabwe’, Africa 79 (3): 369–98.Google Scholar
Grossberg, L. (2009) ‘The conversation of cultural studies’, Cultural Studies 23: 177–82.Google Scholar
Guyer, J. I. (2004) Marginal Gains: monetary transactions in Atlantic Africa. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hart, K. (1973) ‘Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 11 (1): 6189.Google Scholar
Hart, K. (2000) ‘Kinship, contract, and trust: the economic organization of migrants in an African city slum’ in Gambetta, D. (ed.), Trust: making and breaking cooperative relations. Electronic edition. Oxford: Department of Sociology, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Hart, K. (2005) ‘Formal bureaucracy and the emergent forms of the informal economy’. UNU-WIDER Research Paper 11. Helsinki: United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER).Google Scholar
Hoffman, D. (2011) The War Machines: young men and violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Jeganathan, P. (2004) ‘Checkpoint: anthropology, identity, and the state’ in Das, V. and Poole, D. (eds), Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Jones, J. L. (2010a) ‘Freeze! Movement, narrative and the disciplining of price in hyperinflationary Zimbabwe’, Social Dynamics 36 (2): 338–51.Google Scholar
Jones, J. L. (2010b) ‘Nothing is straight in Zimbabwe: the rise of the kukiya-kiya economy 2000–2008’, Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (2): 285–99.Google Scholar
Kernaghan, R. (2015) ‘Cocaine's minor destinies: ephemerality and legal threat on the margins of the Peruvian state’, American Ethnologist 42 (4): 658–72.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P. (2014) ‘The status of the LP gas industry in South Africa’. Paper presented at the International Conference on the Industrial and Commercial Use of Energy, Cape Town, 19–20 August.Google Scholar
Majaka, N. (2015) ‘Zim life to get worse, darker’, Daily News, 5 September <https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2015/09/05/zim-life-to-get-worse-darker>, accessed 27 May 2018.,+accessed+27+May+2018.>Google Scholar
Makaripe, T. (2015) ‘Illegal gas trading threatens lives’, Financial Gazette, 13 August <http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/illegal-gas-trading-threatens-lives/>, accessed 27 May 2018.,+accessed+27+May+2018.>Google Scholar
Manning, E. (2009) Relationships: movement, art, philosophy. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Masco, J. (2014) The Theater of Operations: national security affect from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Massumi, B. (1992) A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: deviations from Deleuze and Guattari. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Massumi, B. (ed.) (2015) Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Mawowa, S. and Matongo, A. (2010) ‘Inside Zimbabwe's roadside currency trade: the “World Bank” of Bulawayo’, Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (2): 319–37.Google Scholar
Mpofu, S. (2019) ‘Art as journalism in Zimbabwe’, Journalism Studies 20 (1): 6078.Google Scholar
Musoni, F. (2010) ‘Operation Murambatsvina and the politics of street vendors in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (2): 301–17.Google Scholar
Musoni, F. (2014) ‘Forced resettlement, ethnicity, and the (un)making of the Ndebele identity in Buhera District, Zimbabwe’, African Studies Review 57 (3): 79100.Google Scholar
Ndlela, D. B. (2006) Informal Cross-border Trade: the case of Zimbabwe. Midrand, South Africa: Institute for Global Dialogue.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2012) ‘Rethinking chimurenga and gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: a critique of partisan national history’, African Studies Review 55 (3): 126.Google Scholar
Nyamunda, T. (2014) ‘Cross-border couriers as symbols of regional grievance? The malayitsha remittance system in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe’, African Diaspora 7: 3862.Google Scholar
Okeke-Agulu, C. (2015) Postcolonial Modernism: art and decolonization in twentieth-century Nigeria. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Roitman, J. (1990) ‘The politics of informal markets in sub-Saharan Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies 28 (4): 671–96.Google Scholar
Roitman, J. (1998) ‘The garrison-entrepôt (l'entrepôt-garnison)’, Cahiers d’Études Africaines 38 (150–2): 297329.Google Scholar
Stewart, K. (2007) Ordinary Affects. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Stewart, K. (2008) ‘Weak theory in an unfinished world’, Journal of Folklore Research 45 (1): 7182.Google Scholar
Taussig, M. T. (2012) Beauty and the Beast. Chicago IL and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Verran, H. (2001) Science and an African Logic. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar