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Doing the handfailure : At the margins of global capitalism
Author(s) -
Baann Cecilie
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8322.12741
Subject(s) - solidarity , capitalism , sociology , fishing , contradiction , ethnography , politics , work (physics) , competition (biology) , political economy , political science , law , epistemology , mechanical engineering , philosophy , anthropology , engineering , ecology , biology
What can an account of manual labour in an increasingly precarious environment tell us about how humans build meaningful lives? Using an ethnographic example from the working relations on a fishing boat based out of the fishing community Tombo in Sierra Leone, I argue that shared bodily work entails possibilities of individual economic gain while simultaneously laying the foundations for solidarity and care. We find a playful competition between working mates at the core of this seeming contradiction. This article explores how people make a living and make a life, not simply despite their continued marginalization in political and economic terms, but through it. In the physically demanding shared labour of hauling a fishing net and learning how to compete for the fish by doing the handfailure , crew members forge relations of care and solidarity that stimulate individual aspirations while asserting the right to life by the sea.