Living with and for Others Vicarious Viability and the Search for Social Being

Drawing on fieldwork conducted in West Africa, North Africa and Europe, this article ethnographically traces smuggling trajectories to shed light on how impoverished segments of the Guinea-Bissauan population seek to create socially meaningful lives under conditions of constraint. It examines the ways in which people attempt to reposition themselves and craft socially acceptable existences through migration and shows how, for those with few resources, engagement in the cocaine trade that transits Guinea-Bissau en route to Europe may be seen to constitute a possibility of doing so. The ethnography, thus, highlights a movement out of the country that is directed towards a future that leads back home. It clarifies how involvement in cocaine smuggling and dealing is driven by efforts to attain the social value, recognition and relational worth that is seen as inaccessible in Bissau. For the urban poor, the trade potentially affords a meaningful and qualified continuance of life.