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Dream and Drama: The Search for Elegance among Congolese Youth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Ch. Didier Gondola
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Abstract:

This paper deals with fashion (la Sape) and its use among Congolese youth as a vehicle to borrow new identities. La Sape is an ambiguous adventure, a sort of Baudelairian voyage, that leads Congolese youth (Sapeurs), not only from a third world city to Paris and Brussels, but also from social dereliction to psychological redemption. It authenticates and validates their quest for a new social identity which the African city has failed to provide its overwhelming population of youth. It is, above all, a study of the interactions between clothing and social (and cultural) identities and the transfer of meaning from one to the other, and vice versa. La Sape allows the Sapeur to define the boundaries that separate him from the Other, but also serves as a defined social territory which distinguishes the Sapeurs from the rest of society. Ultimately, la Sape is redolent with political meanings. It is a political statement which, I argue in this paper, is directed toward the West, the former colonizer, as well as toward the authoritative structures of the African state. I also demonstrate that this political discourse is inseparable from the egotistical and hedonistic dimensions of la Sape.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet article explore la mode (La Sape) et son utilisation parmi les jeunes Congolais comme un medium pour emprunter de nouvelles identités. La Sape est une aventure ambiguë, une sorte de voyage baudelairien qui non seulement conduit les jeunes sapeurs congolais d'une ville du Tiers monde à Paris ou Bruxelles, mais les arrache à une déréliction sociale pour leur accorder une rédemption psychologique à travers le discours de la mode. Par le truchement de la Sape leur quête d'une identité nouvelle, qu'ils ne peuvent acquérir dans le cadre d'une ville africaine qui les marginalise, se trouve authentifiée et en même temps validée. Cette étude ne concerne pas tant la mode que les intéractions entre le vêtement et l'identité sociale et les transferts de sens qui se déroulent entre l'un et l'autre. La Sape permet au sapeur de définir les frontières identitaires entre lui et l'Autre et l'isole dans un boudoir social balisé par le discours égotistique des apparences. Il convient également de considérer la Sape comme un discours politique de résistance à l'égard de l'Occident, ancien colonisateur, aussi bien que vis-à-vis des structures autoritaires de la société congolaise. Ce discours de résistance et les attitudes hédonistes qui l'accompagnent sont inséparables, car toute culture populaire de résistance est, à mon avis, politique parce qu'elle est avant tout culturelle.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , April 1999 , pp. 23 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1999

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