ABSTRACT

By looking at smugglers in Northwestern Uganda, in particular a group of fuel smugglers called the OPEC boys, this chapter explains how smuggling can be perceived as a socially legitimate activity. It shows how smugglers can be regarded as social bandits (Hobsbawm 1959, 1981), through their strong links with the local population. In explaining this, the chapter shows how smuggling is understood through local social imaginaries (Taylor 2004; Grant 2014), and how smugglers act as an uncivil society, representing actors from the informal economy (Bayat 1997a, 1997b).