The Prestige Economy: Veteran Clubs and Youngmen’s Competition in Bamenda, Cameroon

The overwhelming presence of male youth in African cities is difficult to ignore. Whether employed or unemployed, within private and public spheres, either socialising or participating in the organisation of urban living, young men are everywhere. They do not only constitute the growing majority of inhabitant in African cities but also are actively involved in shaping urban realities mainly as fixers, and not only as perpetrators or victims as often portrayed. This paper examines attempts by young men in Bamenda, Cameroon to transform their city through the creation of prestige associations called veteran clubs. The basic question is how male youth in African cities cope with the many challenges that the weakness of the state, the economy and the many aspects of the on-going processes of globalisation provokes. It explores how urban young men develop new modes of agency that allows them to maintain an active attitude despite the permanent difficulties of finding a place in a society that apparently does not have one for them. Thus, the focus is on the strategies used by young men to ‘manage impressions’ and win the respect of other men (especially their peers) and the community. I argue that such competition for attention serves to ‘fix’ (or stabilise) communities, lifestyles and young men’s lost positions and broken trajectories within the city. With little possibility of accumulation and redistribution, young men create myriad spaces to play, negotiate and enhance their identities. In what is herein referred to as competing for attention, young men engage in performative acts, seeking each other’s attention and subsequent confirmation as accomplished. Even though they are culturally constructed as ‘empty vessels’ (infants) by a structural system of ‘bigmanity’ that treats them as stakes, they struggle to represent themselves as social adults or relevant stakeholders with essence through conspicuous consumption.