Abstract
The notion of community evokes many traits, meanings, presumptions and images of people cohabiting in harmony: ‘Community is tradition; society is change. Community is feeling; society is rationality. Community is female; society is male. Community is warm and wet and intimate; society is cold and dry and formal. Community is love; society is, well, business’ (Berger 1988, p. 324). Yet observations made in what people call the community of Matadi, a suburb of Monrovia, would suggest otherwise. Anthropologists such as Barth (1969), Goodenough (1971, 1976) and Hannerz (1969) questioned notions of homogeneity amongst collective cultures and focused on inequalities and the uneven distribution of power, knowledge and wealth within. Arising from their studies was a new theme of ‘individuals attempting to make the best of complex situations, jostling for position and denotation. And with this emphasis came an almost inevitable problematization of community’ (Amit and Rapport 2002, p. 16). This analysis appreciates the problems that any notion of community brings with it. At the same time it needs to be understood that the Matadi community—the primary research site—is a consequence of an enormously complex situation wherein contemporary issues of jostling and denotation are minor when one considers the history, traditions and circumstances that conceived the establishment of this Liberian community.
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Notes
- 1.
The ‘face value’ that Rapport refers to here is really a translation of indigenous concepts of community into a romantic ideal of ‘community’ pointing to a notion of ‘primitive communism’.
- 2.
Due to the civil conflict many young people missed 14 years of education, so age has no factor in the school year one attends. It is not unusual to see men in their late twenties in high school.
- 3.
Slang term for gossip.
- 4.
Communities can be large in size and highly overpopulated; neighbours are seen as those in the direct vicinity of one’s home. Whilst residing in a compound my neighbours were other families living inside the compound, and this acknowledgement did not go beyond those walls.
- 5.
Being classed as a married person doesn’t necessarily mean an official marriage ceremony has taken place. The majority of adult couples residing together as a family are unmarried but are referred to and viewed by the community as married.
- 6.
The school building project ran out of money halfway through construction but has been used for classes in the last few years despite not being completed. The breeze block shell stands without windows, doors or any finishing to the rough brick work. Wooden scaffolding aids to stabilise the building.
- 7.
50LD (Liberian dollar) converts to £0.35p. In Liberia 50LD would buy ten small bags of water or a large cup of uncooked rice.
- 8.
The ‘Korean Church’ in Matadi is a Christian church led by a Korean family.
- 9.
These were small wooden boxed structures secured by a padlock and always watched over by men sitting on plastic chairs next to it.
- 10.
1LD is the equivalent of 0.01penny and 30LD = £0.21p.
- 11.
An ‘outsider’ is someone who lives outside of the community or a stranger.
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Collison, H. (2016). Matadi: Structure and Power in a Post-Conflict Urban Community. In: Youth and Sport for Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52470-6_5
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