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Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Ciência Política This dissertation analyses power principles and configurations in Guinea Bissau’s pluralistic political scenario, as highlighted by the phenomenon of the criança-irân (spirit-children). Working within a political theory framework, the grounds for the analysis are endogenous conceptualisations of humanness. The qualitative study takes an interpretivist epistemological and inductive-deductive approach. Its conceptual groundwork is in political relations and intersubjectivity (Levinas, [1946/7] 1987; Bongmba, 2001, Han, [2005] 2019); biopolitics (Agamben, 1995, 1996); communitarian political community (Menkiti, 2002, 2004, Gyekye, 2003, Wiredu, 2001); and the Africanisation of power (Chabal, 1992). The thesis offers an analytical model comprising of three category-concepts: bíos zōḗ, nomos, and locus. The phenomenon of the criança-irân complements the conceptual framework as analytical lenses. The existence of these liminal and hybrid beings (neither human or spirit) points to the threshold ordering relations of power between a political subject (ego) and political subjects other than oneself (alter). The centrality of intersubjective relations, along with the ontological relevance of community and kin (djorson), past-ward temporality, and land (tchon) show the binomial ego-djorson as foundational to the political community. The endogenous polity devises a configuration of power (nomos) that combines the symbolic duties of chiefs with communal councils. As these give preference to participatory, dialogical, and consensual politics, they reveal intersubjective power relations at odds with the foundational principles of the official state nomos. The criança-irân is the signifier of humanness, political relations, and the order of the polity. Broad acknowledgement or acceptance of the phenomenon augments the intermingling of power principles and configurations beyond the institutionalised nomoi. The political space is an example of Africanisation, generated by the syncretism of endogenous and exogenous conceptualisations of power. The result is a hybrid space in which several loci of the political coexist and intertwine. N/A |
