Muslim Families in Global Senegal

Beth A. Buggenhagen

Description

Social and moral values in the global Senegalese community

Senegalese Murid migrants have circulated cargo and currency through official and unofficial networks in Africa and the world. Muslim Families in Global Senegal focuses on trade and the transmission of enduring social value though cloth, videos of life-cycle rituals, and religious offerings. Highlighting women's participation in these networks and the financial strategies they rely on, Beth Buggenhagen reveals the deep connections between economic profits and ritual and social authority. Buggenhagen discovers that these strategies are not responses to a dispersed community in crisis, but rather produce new roles, wealth, and worth for Senegalese women in all parts of the globe.

Acknowledgements
Names and Relationships

Prologue: Welcome to Khar Yalla
1. Global Senegal
2. Homes and Their Histories
3. The Promise of Paradise
4. A Tale of Two Sisters
5. A Lamb Slaughtered
6. Home Economics
7. Only Trouble

Epilogue

Glossary of Arabic and Wolof Terms
Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• Social Science
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• África
• General officer
• Social sciences
• Anthropology
• Religion
• General
• Islam
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 06 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253005359
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

MUSLIM FAMILIES IN GLOBAL SENEGAL
Muslim Families in Global Senegal
MONEY TAKES CARE OF SHAME
Beth Buggenhagen

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931
2012 by Beth A. Buggenhagen All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Buggenhagen, Beth A. (Beth Anne), [date] Muslim families in global Senegal : money takes care of shame / Beth Buggenhagen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35710-6 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-22367-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00535-9 (e-book) 1. Muslims-Senegal-Dakar-Social conditions. 2. Muslims- Senegal-Dakar-Economic conditions. 3. Muslim women-Senegal-Dakar- Social conditions. 4. Muslim women- Senegal-Dakar-Economic conditions. I. Title. DT 549.9. D 34 B 85 2012 305.69709663-dc23 2011031946
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
This book is dedicated to Evelyn and Ada
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NAMES AND RELATIONSHIPS
PROLOGUE: Welcome to Khar Yalla

1. Global Senegal
2. Homes and Their Histories
3. The Promise of Paradise
4. A Tale of Two Sisters
5. A Lamb Slaughtered
6. Home Economics
7. Only Trouble
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY
NOTES
REFERENCES
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge my host family in Senegal for their unending generosity and patience. I would also like to thank the women s association in Khar Yalla for teaching me about women s lives in Senegal. To protect their privacy, I have changed people s names in the text, though they did not ask me to. Unfortunately, that prevents me from naming them here, but I hope that they will accept my gratitude. Without them, there would not be a book.
Several foundations and institutions supported this work at various stages. I thank the government of Senegal for granting me permission to conduct research there. I thank Dr. Moussa Seck at ENDA SYSPRO for introducing me to the neighborhood of Grand Yoff and facilitating my studying there in 1992, and Emanuel Seyni Ndione for allowing me to work at CHODAK. I would like to acknowledge the Wenner-Gren Foundation for its support of my fieldwork in Senegal in 1999-2000; the West African Research Center and IFAN in Dakar, especially Dr. Khadim Mbacke for his invaluable assistance and Dr. Bachir Diagne for arranging research clearance; the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago for support of my dissertation writing; the National Endowment for the Humanities for a summer stipend to conduct research in New York City; and the College Arts and Humanities Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington, for a one-semester teaching release to complete the manuscript.
The people who have influenced me are too numerous to list, but I want to thank those who provided me with invaluable insight, expertise, and conversation in and about Senegal: Dior Konate, Ibrahima Sene, Cheikh Anta Babou Mbacke, Cheikh Gueye, and Mansour Tall. During my fieldwork in 1999-2000, I was also grateful for the friendship and camaraderie of Erin Augis, Tim Mangin, Brett O Bannon, and Suzanne Scheld.
My thinking about the manuscript was deepened by discussions with colleagues and students at the University of Chicago (especially the African Studies Workshop: Misty Bastian, Rob Blunt, Anne-Maria Makhulu, Adeline Masquelier, Jesse Shipley, James Smith, Brad Weiss, and Hylton White), the University of Rochester, and Indiana University. I am especially grateful to my academic advisors, including the undergraduate professors who introduced me to anthropology and to West Africa, Gracia Clark and Maria Grosz Ngate; to Andrew Apter, Ralph Austen, and Jean and John Comaroff at the University of Chicago; and to John Hunwick at Northwestern University. I thank Katherine Buggenhagen, Dior Konate, and Ellen Sieber for deepening my knowledge of textiles and weaving. I thank Nicole Castor, Emily McEwan Fujita, and Rachel Reynolds for their insight and careful reading of this project at various stages. I also thank Stephen Jackson and Dorothea Schultz. I am grateful to my husband, family, and friends, who endured multiple fieldwork trips and the long process of writing and revising and only occasionally and with the best of intentions asked when I would finish the book.
I would like to recognize the careful work of my research assistant, Katherine Wiley, a doctoral candidate at Indiana University. I am especially grateful for the comments of the anonymous reviewers and the assistance of Dee Mortensen at Indiana University Press.
I have dedicated this book to my daughters, Evelyn and Ada, and I am also grateful to the smart and loving women who cared for them while I worked.
NAMES AND RELATIONSHIPS
ABDOUL AZIZ G ER: second oldest son of Sokna and Demba
AMINATA (Ami): friend of Ramatoulaye
BINTU: daughter fostered to G er family
CHEIKH CAAYA: husband of Cora
CORA: friend of Sokna
DEMBA G ER: husband of Sokna G er
JIGEEN G ER: oldest daughter of Sokna and Demba
MODOU BAXA: father of Penda s child
MUSA MBACKE: Murid trader and suitor of Bintu
PENDA: daughter of Cora
RAMATOULAYE (Rama)G ER: second oldest daughter of Sokna and Demba
SOKNA G ER: wife of Demba G er
MUSLIM FAMILIES IN GLOBAL SENEGAL
PROLOGUE
Welcome to Khar Yalla
Throughout the day, public transport drivers who were unwilling to venture onto the unpaved streets of Khar Yalla contributed to the congestion at the roundabout. It was at one time patriotically painted red, yellow, and green by youth reclaiming and cleaning up their streets during the set setal (renewal) movement of the early 1990s. By 2000, it was blackened with exhaust and peeling paint. The density of the traffic in this quartier populaire 1 was matched by the density of its population, which led some Dakaroise to refer to this neighborhood on the periphery of the nation s capital as a bidonville . 2 Its early residents were evicted from the self-built structures, or shantytowns, of central Dakar. Many residents were rural exiles who had escaped declining agricultural output, and they had named their new settlement Khar Yalla, meaning waiting for God. It was a bustling neighborhood marked by the constant movement of people striving to earn a living. There were people who were working, retired, and unemployed, and there were rural and urban exiles. Over the years, Khar Yalla has welcomed refugees from zones of conflict in West Africa, including Guinea-Bissau, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the drawn-out secessionist struggle in Casamance, a region in southern Senegal. It has been home to many ethnic groups from Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania, including the Wolof, Serer, Manjack, Pulaar, Diola, Brama, and Bambara.
Residents often complained about the car rapide , the urban van transport, which jammed the roundabout with noxious billowing exhaust. The vans apprenti 3 called out the destinations of Ndakaru, Ndakaru or Pikine, Pikine, coaxing aboard riders who were headed to work as traders, tailors, office workers, or teachers; to a family celebration; or to one of the major markets. If taxi drivers were not washing the dusty residue from their cars as they waited for fares, they could be found gathered under the shade of the thatched structure erected near the entrance to this urban neighborhood, where they gambled on a game called mankala , rolled out mats to pray, brewed attaya (mint tea), or ordered a sweet, milky caf Tuba from one of the nearby rice shops, which were run by women. Overnight, many of the taxi men who inhabited Khar Yalla parked their cars at its entrance. As many residents slept, minibuses lay in wait for passengers seeking to make a nocturnal journey home to the Casamance region of southern Senegal.
Khar Yalla was one of the last neighborhoods to be settled in the larger area known as the Grand Yoff region of Dakar and came into being as a result of colonial and postcolonial attempts to control space in the capital city. As Dakar prepared to become the colonial capital in 1956, many urban residents were designated as squatters and lost their right to land. They were removed from the city center and reassigned to semi-urban locations, including Grand Yoff. The same process was repeated in the 1970s when 90,000 persons were evicted from the center of Dakar (Davis 2006:98, 102). These city improvement operations were performed under the pretense of ameliorating health and sanitation conditions that were associated with high population density and makeshift homes. These operations built upon decades of colonial urban policy (dating back to 1915) that sought to separate the African population from the French population and government workers from manual laborers, traders, and craftspeople (Sow 1983:47).
As the urban poor were removed and the temporary structures that had formed their neighborhoods were razed, they were replaced by smart modernist homes, paved streets, and sidewalks. These homes were constructed by SICAP (Soci t Immobili re du Cap Vert) and OHLM (Office des Habitations Loyer Mod r ) for salaried workers who, after World War II, were employed largely in the service of the colonial administration. The modern suburbs of Scan