Gogou

A gogou (Ziba: Gogou; CT: gogou) is a kind of government-run shelter and services provision centre, primarily in urban areas, in Dezevau. Generally, they provide accommodation, food, water, sanitary and other facilities in exchange for scrip from local employment, or for free (though often at a lower standard). They were originally established as a way to facilitate urbanisation, as there were many issues in terms of providing services and housing to new immigrants at the same time as they took up jobs in the city. However, gogous quickly became important in both urbanising and interurban politics, as they were an easy way for people to gain residency in a municipality, whereupon they were accorded certain rights within it; municipalities could deny the allocation of their housing to prevent immigration, but they could not prevent people from living in gogous once they were established. Despite fierce local conflicts over gogous, they have become both a cultural and political staple of urbanism in Dezevau; one of the defining planks in the establishment of municipal politics was the linking of municipal status to the maintenance of a gogou. Though their importance has decreased, both with the slower rate of urbanisation and greater power accruing to municipalities, they remain one of the main institutions facilitating internal migration in Dezevau, as well as significant centres for welfare distribution more broadly. Though the term has found some official usage, gogou was originally the colloquial shortening of godiangujaoma gounaudhai bobemhe zebiumhi daiza ( Godiangujaomagounaudhai bobemhezebiumhi daiza, "Industrialisation Commission Labour Mobility Office").