“Tying your ngemb”: Negotiating identity in Senegalese wrestling

Abstract

More than merely a combat sport, Senegalese wrestling combines professional athleticism with cultural traditions, political relations, and religious belief. For many young men in Senegal, wrestling also represents a model of success in otherwise challenging circumstances characterized by socio-economic crisis and increasing precarity. Young wrestlers must navigate and perform an elaborate set of identities in order to demonstrate their success—both within the sand-filled arenas in which fights take place, and in the complex social worlds which have emerged around the practice. Referring to a panoply of identity markers including ethnicity, religious affiliation, and village or neighborhood loyalty, wrestlers simultaneously demonstrate their alignment with dominant discourses around masculinity and urban knowledge. The article draws upon lengthy ethnographic research to explore the dynamic, contradictory, and hybrid processes of identity construction through which wrestlers present themselves to the world.

“Punching is a sickness”

“…Since the late 1980s, increasingly commercialized sporting industries have opened new paths to social and global mobility for elite athletes, and they have inspired similar dreams for scores more aspirants (Besnier et al., 2021). Pursuing these dreams, athletes follow strict training programs (Besnier, 2012; Esson, 2013; Guinness, 2018); become fervently religious in the hope of harnessing divine powers (Kovač, 2022; Rial, 2012); and co‐opt occult forces (Fanoli, 2022; Hann et al., 2021). These commitments aim to cultivate bodies and dispositions fit to compete on global stages.…”