Christine Fricke is a lecturer at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Mainz University. She is currently completing her doctoral thesis on the temporal, affective and aesthetic entanglements and significations of oil in urban Gabon.
This paper argues that uncertainty is intricately entwined with temporalities and aff ects. Taking the uncertain future of oil in Gabon as my ethnographic example, I trace fi ve versions with which people contemplate depletion: a scenario, a vision / plan, a calculation, a dream, and a desire. I show how these versions not only diff er in their prognosis, but also conjure up diverse histories, temporalities and aff ects that, ultimately, entail fairly distinct forms of uncertainty.
