Moral mobility and a vigilante’s stony ascent in urban Burkina Faso

Vigilantism in Africa is usually associated with upward mobility. Particularly in contexts of poverty and fragile state security, scholarship tends to frame it as a predatory project seeking power and resources. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with Koglweogo vigilante groups in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, this article challenges this perspective by exploring the Koglweogo’s everyday struggle for advancement and reconstructing an incident resulting in the death of a prisoner. In unpacking the relationship between vigilantism, social mobility, and ethics in Africa, it argues that vigilantes can only achieve upward mobility if they continue to be recognised as moral selves despite their violence, and that their social ascent is always shadowed by the possibility of moral paralysis. Based on this insight, the article demonstrates that vigilantism is not merely a phenomenon that watches others, but that is also being watched, and therefore must carefully watch itself. It further concludes that social mobility is not only dependent on education, power, and networks, but also on moral practice.