Les margouillats et les papiers kamikazes: intermédiaires de l’identité, citoyenneté et moralité à Abidjan

This article analyses the activity of so-called margouillats, informal go-betweens found around the Abidjan court house who work to “get papers released” for people having filed a request for civil documents, particularly birth certificates and other documents proving citizenship. The article describes their integration into the administrative practices of document production and the interpersonal networks of the court “food chain.” Analysis of bureaucratic corruption is of secondary importance to the moral justifications brought to the commodification of nationality. Focusing on the moral ly liminal space of the production of a false identity document, the article suggests that these intermediaries do not erase the political boundaries of citizenship, but rather, through capillary action, extend the discriminating action of the state into the street.