Half-houses of intimacy: Taptomi, ansa belleh and drawback discourses in urban Sierra Leone

Abstract

This article explores how intimacy in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is negotiated through local speech forms such as taptomi (‘stays with me’), ansa belleh (‘answering the belly’), marraide de pikin (‘marrying the child’) and close friend . These terms constitute what I call half-houses : provisional arrangements that mimic fully acknowledged unions but remain socially or legally incomplete. Building on concepts of retro-legitimation , drawback discourse and quantum words , the article shows how linguistic acts both confer and withhold recognition, stabilizing male honour while exposing women to stigma. The study combines ethnographic narratives, experiential review and discourse analysis to map these practices as cultural infrastructures of intimacy. In so doing, it highlights their role as stress tests of legitimacy, revealing how patriarchal authority, economic precarity and customary norms converge to rehabilitate men while disciplining women. The analysis contributes to African urban, feminist and sociolinguistic scholarship.