Mystical Graffiti and the Refabulation of Dakar

Roberts, Allen F.; Roberts, Mary Nooter

doi:10.2979/aft.2007.54.2.50

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In fact, in some video productions, the exact same scene is repeated throughout. The use of repetition in the video resonates with the practice of dhikr and its emphasis on repetition (Roberts and Roberts 2007:57). As I described, the viewer is presented with alternating images of dhikr chanting and wealth in disciples, offerings, and infrastructure.…”

Section: Repetition Duration and Montagementioning

confidence: 91%

“…Images of Shaykh Amadou Bamba, the Murid founder, and other major religious figures are wildly popular in Senegal; they grace the walls of homes and shops. In navigating the city, one is struck by the prominence of Muslim themes in urban expressive forms such as public murals and graffiti that have transformed secular spaces and places of work into places of piety (Roberts and Roberts 2007; Roberts, Roberts, Armenian, and Guèye 2003:4), and in popular and religious music heard in shops and on public transportation (McLaughlin 1997). Even the modernist rational layout of the city, its grids, boulevards, and round points carry the names of Muslim figures and iconography of the Sufi congregations.…”

Section: Islam's New Publicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Roberts and Roberts (2000) argue that there is also a particularly Sufi way of seeing religious images that understands these objects as generative of something else. For Murid adepts in particular, who often hold or sit in front of images during devotional practices including dhikr , who touch these photos and then their heart, the seat of Sufi knowledge, baraka is sought through visual imagery and practices (Roberts and Roberts 2007:56). Although Murid disciples do not seem to use the Mággal videocassettes to aid in their practice of dhikr , as they do with the images of Bamba, pilgrimage videos are an important means through which one accrues baraka , divine merit, and participates in and produces the Muridiyya through the act of viewing, even if from afar.…”

Section: Repetition Duration and Montagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As I described, the viewer is presented with alternating images of dhikr chanting and wealth in disciples, offerings, and infrastructure. Repetition has a certain multiplier effect in this case, amplifying opportunities for the viewer to receive grace that disciples say has the potential to lead to spiritual and material well‐being (Roberts and Roberts 2007:67).…”

Section: Repetition Duration and Montagementioning

confidence: 99%

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Islam and the Media of Devotion in and out of Senegal

Buggenhagen

2010

Visual Anthropology Review

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Few devotees of the Muridiyya, a Sufi congregation that emerged in colonial Senegal at the turn of the twentieth century, have the opportunity to glimpse or touch their spiritual masters. ExaltedMurid figures rarely leave their compounds in rural Tuba and access to them is restricted to highranking initiates such as Muslim scholars, government and business leaders. Ordinary disciples are more likely to view religious figures in the variety of media circulating in an out of Senegal.The desire for and appreciation of mediation to facilitate proper practice and proximity to the Divine distinguish Murid adepts from their Sunni counterparts. The electronic mediation of devotional practices produces feelings of nearness to spiritual leaders for disciples in Senegal and abroad. Through visual practices related to electronic media devotees receive religious merit and grace that lead to spiritual and material enrichment and create their spiritual community.[Key words: electronic media, circulation and value, Sufism, Senegal] Islam's New PublicityIn the evenings during my fieldwork in the Senegalese capital of Dakar in the late 1990s I would often listen to a call and answer show on Radio Dunyaa. Muslim men and women would

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Section: Repetition Duration and Montagementioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Islam's New Publicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Repetition Duration and Montagementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Repetition Duration and Montagementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Islam and the Media of Devotion in and out of Senegal

Buggenhagen

2010

Visual Anthropology Review

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“…The result is something iike Alice and the looking glass: might it be possible to enter the image itself? (See Roberts and Roberts (2008) for a different Mouride case of this phenomenon. )…”

Section: Senegalese Use Of Lenticular Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flickering images, floating signifiers: optical innovation and visual piety in senegal

Roberts

2008

Material Religion

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Ethnography on the Road: Infrastructural Vision and the Unruly Present in Contemporary Dakar

Melly¹

2013

Africa

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During his term as President, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal sought to make tangible and proximal his ‘vision’ for the country's future through the construction and rehabilitation of vital arteries in the capital, Dakar. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, this essay takes as its focus these ambitious road projects and their local interpretations and everyday effects. I argue that Dakar's infrastructural transformation made spectacularly visible not only distant and implausible futures but also a very particular vision of the present that rationalized, emphasized, and even celebrated the everyday hardships wrought by infrastructural change. Avowedly ahistorical and centred squarely on the individual, these discourses of hardship cast infrastructural change as a future-focused project brought about through ‘temporary’ inconveniences and disruptions endured for the sake of the nation. What emerges from this analysis is a more complex view of neo-liberal reform and urban change in contemporary Africa.

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Mystical Graffiti and the Refabulation of Dakar

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

Islam and the Media of Devotion in and out of Senegal

Islam and the Media of Devotion in and out of Senegal

Flickering images, floating signifiers: optical innovation and visual piety in senegal

Ethnography on the Road: Infrastructural Vision and the Unruly Present in Contemporary Dakar

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