Abdoulie Kurang shares original insights into the practice known as “Bumsing” in Gambia, whereby youngster receives material gains from western tourists in exchange of sexual favours. He argues that this practice is a function of the rising precarity among Gambian workers in the tourism industry following successive socio-economic crises in the last decade. Although tourism is one of Gambia’s important industries, it has failed to alleviate poverty, leaving low-skilled workers to scrap for crumbs.
Spotting an alleged “Bumster” (also locally known as “Beach Boy”, “Chanter” or “Beach Hustler”) sitting alone along Senegambia Beach presents me with an opportunity to get a potential respondent for my studies on low-skilled labour in Gambia’s tourism economy. In this context, a Bumster is commonly perceived to be predominantly a youngster who befriends and sometimes tricks Western tourists for monetary/material gains and/or travel opportunities to the West. This survival strategy is commonly referred to as “Bumsing”. As I approached him and told him about my research intentions, without hesitation, he murmured: “we are over-researched”. Grinding idly under the scorching sun, his gaze was on the middle-aged female white tourist lying down on a beach bed with headphones in her ears. Pointing to the gender and racial complexion of the sunbathing tourist is important in this context given the emphasis placed on the female “toubab” (Western tourist), particularly that from Scandinavian countries. Perhaps, here, accentuation towards the white race tourists is a (un)conscious fetishism or general pathology of the postcolonial being, as it may be the case of the western tourist fetishizing the “native”. To my naivety, the presence of the tourist within reach of a conversation presents an opportunity for this dreadlocked youth; thus, I assumed that my presence might be a nuisance in that situation. Interestingly, in this area, the dreadlock hairstyle (coupled with Rastafarian culture) appears to be one of the main identifiable traits of a Bumster. Upon a brief talk with the Bumster, our conversations helped me see a different perspective on the dynamics. He was a local security guard working as waiter, attentively catering to the service request of tourists.
On a different occasion, in my frantic efforts to simplify my research focus, carefully navigating culturally sensitive and tabooed topics around sex work, this time, the respondent abruptly pre-empts my questions: “Are you here to talk about sex tourism?” “Do you think I am a Bumster ?” I later realised that his interjections were underpinned by the worker’s longstanding experience with the research community and/or media around such subject matters. Within this vibrant geographical and socioeconomic zone of Senegambia, the epicentre of the Gambia’s tourism industry, there are visible securitising and policing measures aimed at addressing the Bumster syndrome. This act is arguably tied to sex tourism i.e., mostly transactional sex between the tourist and Bumster. Given its derogatory nature, this livelihood strategy heralded heavy profiling and criminalising of (young) locals working and/or loitering in the nearby areas.
Racial identity (with preferential treatment to white tourists and alike–people generally coming from the West) and demeanour likely determine one’s proneness to routine police scrutiny at the entrance of Senegambia. Arguably, this amounts to making Senegambia a securitised-racialised economic zone. Overarchingly, such evidence of differential treatment and injustice embedded in peripheral tourism economies seems to be longstanding critical academic and policy discourses. In the Gambian case, the centrality of tourism to economic development has led to tourist-centric and market-centric planning over such human welfare concerns, it appears that promoting holidaying in Gambia–“the smiling coast of Africa”–has remained the ulterior motive of the government, since the 1980s. With the government’s inability to foot tourism investments, neoliberal policies paved the way for (foreign) private investments in tours, hotels, restaurants, and other recreational businesses. Alongside this, several national policy and programmatic interventions have been undertaken to make tourism pro-poor–meaning tourism that alleviates poverty and supports local community development. These seemingly inherent policy contradictions beg the question: how do we reconcile this profiteering logic of tourism with welfare for the poor? The gradual decline of state capitalism and the accentuation of private-led investment has considerably weakened state control of the sector. With economic benefits not trickling down, coupled with an all-inclusive package and capital flight in the sector—with major proceeds of tourism leaving the country by virtue of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and high-end expatriates—further pushes the low-skilled workers to scramble for crumbs in the sector.
In formal establishments like hotels and restaurants, low-skilled workers are the waiters, cooks, cleaners, and security guards, amongst other defining low-tier roles. In this highly informal tourism economy, the low-skilled-cum-precarious workers are often taxi drivers, fruit sellers, horse riders, hawkers, or craftspersons, amongst others. This overarching group of workers work in perilous situations given their heightened vulnerabilities to exploitative labour, wages and vagaries of tourism. The fragility and seasonality of the Gambia’s tourism sector makes the low-skilled worker precarious, as well as the high-end worker. But their level of precarity fundamentally differ. Emerging from successive crises, spanning from the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Gambia’s 2016-17 political impasse, and the global Covid pandemic, the atmosphere of struggle and desperation is highly evident amongst all strands of workers. For a poverty-stricken country, the mounting living costs and inflation of the Dalasi (Gambian currency) have put further strains on the low-skilled workers in the sector. This notably adds to work-related riskiness–spanning from the seasonality of employment, low wages, sexual harassment, over-hours, lack of sick leave; and most notably, the lack of social protection. They are the disposal precarious workers lacking the protective presence of the state in their lives.
The Gambia’s tourism sector is marked by formal-informal sector fluidity. For such low-end workers, it is an industry where one works as a day waiter in a local restaurant and a taxi driver at night. This speaks to the fluidity and diversity of livelihood strategies. Given this, spanning almost a year of study and observation within this area, it became noticeable that the alleged Bumster is not a defined socioeconomic class but a rather loose and heterogeneous group of proletarianized toiling mass of low-skilled workers. “Bumsing” is not a sole defining livelihood strategy; they are mostly individuals employed in formal and informal economic activities. The precarity of their occupation pushes them to the margins of the tourism economy. Furthermore, this observation made me notice that the Bumster is not the idled and lazy youth trying to get easy money and associated opportunities from Western tourists, as often portrayed. Often juggling two or more precarious jobs, the Bumster is one of the most hardworking individuals scrapping for survival beneath the glossy infrastructures and amusements of the industry. Without hesitation and protocols, the local beach hustler provides cheap services to tourist and locals–be it community tours or visit to local (“exotic”) restaurants. Their approach to engaging tourists may sometimes seem very unconventional and dubious. Yet, the fluidity of the tourist-local relations and interactions makes it hard to determine the intention of the tourist and (alleged) Bumster as to who is using who, and who wields and lacks agency.
Given the vagueness of Bumsing, one could equally argue that the high-end hotel owner or tour operator desperately trying to befriend a tourist for business purposes is also a Bumster. What is understandable is that tourists visit destinations with expectations of leisure, adventure and exoticism, and the (native) Bumster indulges in these desires. Thus, portraying these locals as the predators in this relationship is a blinded single story. This projects the tourists as naïve unconscious/unaware masses of leisure-seeking pilgrims in “exotic” lands, who lack agency in the face of local temptations. Given the economic advantage over locals, the tourist may be the one preying on the local beach boy–perhaps for sexual adventures. Notwithstanding the dynamic of the relations, often times, genuine intimate relations and longstanding friendships are established in the process.
