La nation « par le côté »

Multiple Choice: Language Use and Cultural Practice in Rural Casamance between Convergence and Divergence

“…Social practices in the Lower Casamance have not systematically been investigated in relation to language use. In the following, I draw attention to those among them for which an impact on the internal structure of communities and on linguistic ideologies and practice have 10 Joking relationships, rather than relying on static ethnolinguistic criteria, operate very much on the same principle (Canut 2006, Canut & Smith 2006, de Jong 2005, Smith 2006. These relationships are widespread throughout West Africa and rely on differences that can be contextually evoked to create special relationships of inversion or solidarity.…”

“…It is not accidental that diaspora organisations are instrumental in promoting essentialist ideas about belonging, and in creating those discourses that justify them. In the Casamance context (see Bühnen 1994, Lüpke 2011, chapter 2 of Lüpke & Storch 2013, Smith 2006, statutes decree the ancestors as monolingual, homogeneous groups, oral histories are streamlined to create particular lineages, carnivalesque cultural manifestations claim elements of material culture for particular ethnic groups. Strikingly, these activities enforce the subaltern status of 'minority' cultures rather than gaining them full membership in the kaleidoscope of ethnolinguistic units.…”

On the Matter (and Materiality) of the Nation: Interpreting Casamance's Unresolved Separatist Struggle

“…The 1940s Diola prophetess Aline Sitoé Diatta, an icon of anti‐colonialism for the MFDC, was honoured by the state, and an inquiry was ordered into her supposedly mysterious disappearance (see Toliver‐Diallo 2005). The cultivation of local cultures within the Senegalese nation were encouraged, and the West African tradition of joking relationships was drawn upon to attempt to highlight interethnic connections, thus laying a new grid of intercultural ties throughout Senegal (see de Jong 2005; Smith 2006). 22 Traditional Diola kingships were mobilised in the promotion of ‘peace’ (Marut 2009).…”

Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life

“…Wolof language is a lingua franca in much of Senegal, and people whose first language is something else (Joola, for example) are far more likely to acquire Wolof than to become multilingual in other African languages, such as Pulaar (spoken by Tukulor) or Serer. The interethnic pairs who engage in this joking are the peripheral ones, who, Smith (2006) argues, in thus affirming their solidarity and equal status, support one another in opposition to the nationally dominant Wolof. 16 Although I sometimes heard Wolof refer to Serer as categorically jaam and make ethnic jokes about them-somewhat analogous to the old (and offensive) category of "Polish jokes" in the United States-I did not witness any such joking directed toward a Serer person face to face or even in their presence.…”

“…Recent literature on Serer indicates that in relation to Tukulor or Joola-other Senegalese ethnic groups-an interethnic pair can be assimilated to the joking relationship, so that two people of different ethnicity, say one Serer and one Tukulor, can draw on the same kinds of conventional joking, accusing one another of being the dependent "slave, " as occurs with paired clans. Along with Smith (2006) and De Jong (2005), I take this pattern-or at least the conspicuousness of it-to be fairly recent, an extension of the joking relationship "up" in scale from patriclan to ethnic category. The pragmatics seem to be largely political, activated when, for example, a Tukulor official is posted to a Serer region, or, in the 1990s, when Joola communities in the far south of Senegal were showing sympathy for a separatist movement.…”