Occult return, divine grace, and saabui : practising transnational kinship in postsocialist Guinea

Abstract

Abstract In the Republic of Guinea, where transnational migration has become a critical path to prestige among young urbanites, migrant success abroad is intimately connected to the cultivation of kin ties at home. For performing artists, who were the darlings of Guinea's Socialist Revolution (1958‐84), the experience of migration is uniquely linked to the fall of the socialist state and to the precarity of urban life in contemporary Africa. This article describes how Guinean artists manage distance and uncertainty through three practices: occult aggression, grace‐seeking, and patronage ( saabui ), which together illustrate the contours and limitations of kinship's efficacy in transnational space. By exploring transnational kinship as an intersubjective and productive practice that can extend beyond obligation or solidarity and into the realm of magic, this article proposes new ways of conceptualizing what it means for migrants to maintain significant connections across national borders.

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