Unbroken circles and unfinished legacies: a Gambian story

Abstract

This is a story, an unfinished one as every story that takes shape from a real experience. It’s both the story of a life and a memoir of a journey. They are interdependent but maintain their own singularity insofar as in every voice resounds the peculiarity of the individual. But these are not single voices, they don’t carry within them the danger of a single story, because as Chimananda Ngozi Adichie argues “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Born and raised from a daily exchange, by practicing an active and shared listening and throughout the experiencing of everyday life in urban Gambia, the oral account of activist Alieu Bah, also known as Immortal X, and the ethnographic narrative carried out using both writing and photography are mutually developing, intersecting and echoing with other voices and other stories. The first section focuses on Alieu’s life story, recorded as a dialogue where we were both involved, and maintains in its written form a trace of this alternation of voices. His account, always grounded in the Gambian historical and socio-political context, begins with the memories of the childhood, crosses the spiritual and political awakening and ends with a future challenge. The second part explores through ethnographic narration and documentary photography everyday life in contemporary Gambia. It’s the product of a singular experience in which portraits of the neighborhood, reflections on politics and society, fleeting encounters and intimate connections all come together.