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In Senegal, the Muridiyya, a large Islamic Sufi order, is the single most influential religious organization, including among its numbers the nation’s president. Yet little is known of this sect in the West. Drawn from a wide variety of archival, oral, and iconographic sources in Arabic, French, and Wolof, Fighting the Greater Jihad offers an astute analysis of the founding and development of the order and a biographical study of its founder, Cheikh Amadu Bamba Mbacke. Cheikh Anta Babou explores the forging of Murid identity and pedagogy around the person and initiative of Amadu Bamba as well as the continuing reconstruction of this identity by more recent followers. He makes a compelling ...
Highlights the role of transnational space making in the construction of diasporic Muridiyya identity. The construction of collective identity among the Muridiyya abroad is a communal but contested endeavor. Differing conceptions of what should be the mission of Muridiyya institutions in the diaspora reveal disciples’ conflicting politics and challenge the notion of the order’s homogeneity. While some insist on the universal dimension of Ahmadu Bamba Mbakke’s calling and emphasize dawa (proselytizing), others prioritize preserving Muridiyya identity abroad by consolidating the linkages with the leadership in Senegal. Diasporic reimaginings of the Muridiyya abroad, in turn, inspire cult...
While nearly one in every five people in the world today is Muslim, Islam is spreading most rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three Africans today practices a form of Islam. Sub-Saharan Africa is today home to over 150 million Muslims. Although immensely varied, African Islam, the authors demonstrate, is defined by three overarching beliefs. First, African Islam is local Islam, with no ordained clergy or international body to regulate doctrine. At the same time, the importance of Islam as a source of communal identity, both within African societies and as part of the worldwide Islamic community, is a defining feature of the African Muslim worldview. Finally, there is a pervasive belief among African Muslims that the West is on a new crusade against Islam. At a time of growing interest in the worldwide expansion of Islam, the Islamic revival in Africa deserves special attention. With in-depth coverage of Islam in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Pride, Faith, and Fear provides both a general overview of African Islam and a detailed picture of Muslim politics--which are increasingly national politics--in some of Africa's most populous regions.
Drawing from the diverse fields of postcolonial studies, literary studies, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, environmental studies, and development studies, among others, Gender and Sexuality in Senegalese Societies demonstrates the urgency and necessity of new research in gender and queer studies in and on Senegalese societies. By focusing on subjects that have thus far been largely neglected in national and scholarly debates, the chapters are subversive, complex, and inclusive, centering within Senegalese studies themes and elements of alternative, nonbinary, variant, and nonheteronormative gender identities, sexualities, and voices. Contributors demonstrate that nationalist and anticolonial discourses propelled by deep and lingering socioeconomic inequalities have led, in postcolonial Senegal, to vitriolic scapegoating of individuals and communities with variant sexual and gender identities. The chapters in this volume look inward to the voices and experiences of the Senegalese people to challenge nationalist representations of advocacy for the liberation of gender and sexual minorities in Senegal as a function of a Western neocolonialist agenda.
As Senegal prepares to celebrate fifty years of independence from French colonial rule, academic and policy circles are engaged in a vigorous debate about its experience in nation building. An important aspect of this debate is the impact of globalization on Senegal, particularly the massive labor migration that began directly after independence. From Tokyo to Melbourne, from Turin to Buenos Aires, from to Paris to New York, 300,000 Senegalese immigrants are simultaneously negotiating their integration into their host society and seriously impacting the development of their homeland. This book addresses the modes of organization of transnational societies in the globalized context, and speci...
With the death of John McCracken in 2017, Malawi lost a pre-eminent historian. This book celebrates McCracken’s contribution to the study of Malawi’s history and seeks to build on his legacy. Part of his genius was that he identified themes that hold the key to understanding the history of Malawi in its broader perspective. The authors contributing to this volume address these themes, assessing the progress of historiography and setting an agenda for the further advance of historical studies. The book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and all who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of Malawi’s past and present.
In the wake of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s and health reforms in the 1990s, the majority of sub-Saharan African governments spend less than ten dollars per capita on health annually, and many Africans have limited access to basic medical care. Using a community-level approach, anthropologist Ellen E. Foley analyzes the implementation of global health policies and how they become intertwined with existing social and political inequalities in Senegal. Your Pocket Is What Cures You examines qualitative shifts in health and healing spurred by these reforms, and analyzes the dilemmas they create for health professionals and patients alike. It also explores how cultural frameworks,...
From the acclaimed author of Fordlandia, the story of a remarkable slave rebellion that illuminates America's struggle with slavery and freedom during the Age of Revolution and beyond One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, Captain Amasa Delano, a New England seal hunter, climbed aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying scores of West Africans he thought were slaves. They weren't. Having earlier seized control of the vessel and slaughtered most of the crew, they were staging an elaborate ruse, acting as if they were humble servants. When Delano, an idealistic, anti-slavery republican, finally realized the deception, he responded with explosive violence. Drawing on research on four continents, The Empire of Necessity explores the multiple forces that culminated in this extraordinary event—an event that already inspired Herman Melville's masterpiece Benito Cereno. Now historian Greg Grandin, with the gripping storytelling that was praised in Fordlandia, uses the dramatic happenings of that day to map a new transnational history of slavery in the Americas, capturing the clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was the New World in the early 1800s.
The Store in the Hood is a comprehensive study of conflicts between immigrant merchants and customers throughout the U.S. during the 20th century. From the lynchings of Sicilian immigrant merchants in the late 1800s, to the riots in L.A. following the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King, to present-day Detroit, recurrent conflicts between immigrant business owners and their customers have disrupted the stability of American life. Devastating human lives, property and public order, these conflicts have been the subject of periodic investigations that are generally limited in scope and emphasize the outlooks and cultural practices of the involved groups as the root of most di...