ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complexity of their practices and values to discusses how justice is done in the neighbourhoods of Abobo. Today, Abobo is a working-class commune characterised by a strong degree of instability, and it is thought of as the home to young 'microbes', or bands of machete-wielding thieves carrying on the war in Abidjan. Summons and pardons make up the fabric of everyday life in Abobo, involving individuals with different religious beliefs, political opinions, and ethno-national identities in a common experience of justice. Finally, from the interaction of these different uses of justice, two effects emerge that characterise an ethos among those involved in conflict in Abobo's working-class neighbourhoods: the quest for socio-economic success and the attempt to reach a satisfactory form of coexistence in the neighbourhood. The value of my argument lies less in the truth of the facts that my interlocutors report than in the processes of conflict resolution and production of justice that they reveal.
