Neither Citizen Nor Subject? ‘Lumpen’ Agency and the Legacy of Native Administration in Sierra Leone

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Abstract
The recent conflict in Sierra Leone presents a challenge for analysis. Elite elements have not had the prominence predicted by models of ‘warlord’ political economy, but alternative ethnic or religious nationalisms have yet to come forward to fill the lacunae in state governance. Scholarship focusing on ‘lumpen’ or ‘secular sectarian’ agency only serves to emphasize the conflict's apparent detachment from pre‐war patterns of politics and identity. However, it is argued in this article that long‐term exclusionary processes do in fact underlie these agencies. Here, the central issue is localizing processes of rural sociality. This phenomenon has roots in the pre‐colonial era, but it has been greatly exacerbated by regimes of ‘native administration’ originally imposed by British colonialism. In much of Sierra Leone, de facto citizenship remains a privilege for those domiciled in old villages registered for tax collection. Youths, itinerant workers, and other low status individuals inevitably find themselves in attenuating orders of precedence in access to basic rights and properties. The loss of identity implicit in this process no longer finds a compensating movement in modern education and employment. Here is fertile ground for the rapid growth of ‘lumpen’ agency and perhaps much of the chaos and brutality of the subsequent conflict.

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