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'Connections and transformations in Africa' |  |
| A workshop at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21 November, 2006 |
return to: Index page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
Migration
is a much discussed item and migrant's potentials as economic
agents are acquiring more and more attention in development
debates and policy making. However the focus on economic
remittances is potentially overshadowing many other aspects
equally important for understanding migrants social organization,
livelihood and behavior. To counterbalance this focus on economic
remittances, Levitt (1998/2003) therefore directed the focus
towards what she calls "social remittances", that are
transferred vice versa between migrants and their home
communities.
In this research project the ways in which these social
remittances and the social relations of migrants and their
families are transformed by movement and the establishment of new
connections and power relations are central. The changes in
social hierarchies of mobile Fulbe are studied in different
geographical settings, focusing on the interconnections between
rural central
The free and noble are subjected to codes of honour, which are
directly related to a certain (symbolic) social opposition
between slaves and noblemen. This is called ndimu
(in Fulfulde): a complex set of rules and norms for behavior
reserved for the free. In the past, slaves used to do all the
physical work and were not considered a part of the ndimu
(nobility) nor pulaaku
(the Fulbe community). Noblemen more so than others, were and to
a certain extent still are expected to behave according to the
pulaaku rules, which are directly related to the behavior of
Fulbe men and women in public.
Today ancestry, kinship and lineage belonging inform about one’s
position in society and are therefore an important means of
identity and status ascription. The memories of this rather rigid
and hierarchical division of society are alive and still inform
people's identity, despite the abolition of slavery in 1905 and
the installation of decentralisation from 1992 onwards. These
were both important events for the promotion of equal access to
citizenship. Some say that there is still a kind of mental
slavery and that former slaves to date are denied full honour by
their respective masters and by institutionalized societal rules
of conduct (pulaaku).
So in central Mali the difference between people of different
status positions is institutionalized in manifold social rules of
conduct. Changes are however taking place as well, and rules of
conduct are contested or slightly interpreted differently, or
simply no longer practiced. This is a general process that is not
only going on within Fulbe society, but within different ethnic
groups in Mali as a whole. The central research question is
whether, why and how typical Sahelian social hierarchies are
maintained and transformed in a globalising world, since the
formal abolition of slavery?
The
link between this research and the new theme group is in the
first place an approach that argues for considering the
(historical and current) importance of the different technologies
contributing to increasing/decreasing options for mobility
(migration) in Fulbe society. Mobility plays a key role in
designing human agency and lifestyle and is a means by which new
social relations (connections) are established and old ones
transformed. The nature of mobility seems to have changed
drastically: new directions and distances are traveled. This
changing nature of mobility is certainly due to newly introduced
technologies that generated new (e.g. translocal) connections and
disconnections.
One can discern three "technological fields" that
contributed to past and current transformations in mobility among
the Fulbe of Central Mali. In the first place that is ICT (new
communication possibilities thanks to telephone, internet,
satellite), secondly one should think of technical technologies
(I.C.E. in cars, busses, airplanes/ concrete roads and
infrastructure in general). Thirdly new social technologies
evolved, such as new hosting networks to rely upon, 'modern'
education requiring students to move to and being hosted in
cities, new power divisions because of colonisation and recently
decentralization triggered new forms of social connections, also
in e.g. marriage alliances, etc. The research is explicitly
focused on these newly established social technologies in
connection to older ones. Social relations and networks are
obviously transformed, resulting from increasing connections
between technology and mobility.
Important sub questions are whether changes in social hierarchies
are facilitated by opting for movement? And in what ways does
movement (geographical mobility) contribute to obtaining higher
or lower status (social mobility)? Do people feel that by moving
from one place to another, their possibilities for changing their
place in society and their social network are enlarged (as a kind
of impression management) or, on the contrary, reduced (social
disconnection)? How does mobility change technologies of power
and dependence and in what ways does it affect the memory of
hierarchy and individuals’ senses of self in relation to
others? Can we, in the end, consider mobility and the
technologies used for it, as processors for emancipation, as
generators of new power constellations?
In
addition to the mobility aspect, there will be an explicit focus
on the ways in which communication technology contributes to the
shaping of new social status and power connections. In what
manners do such ICT 's create new technological venues for
connecting people in hierarchical interdependence? In how far are
(or aren't) old hierarchies criticized or maybe rather reinforced
because of new communication technologies? So ICT's will be
considered in as far as they affect social technologies that
unveil the social construction of power transformations as
mediated by them.
return to: Index page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
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