DERECHO AL TERRITORIO DE COMUNIDADES INDÍGENAS

There are few Subalɓe who still practise their ‘traditional’ occupation, as most places in Fouta are not self-sufficient and the need to participate in a monetary economy is forcing men to seek paid employment. Many young men seek work in urban centres to support their families. Today a man who stays in the village and undertakes the traditional occupation of his occupational group (hinnde) is not as highly regarded as his brothers working in the urban centres or abroad. Economic migrants come back with money which improves the family’s standard of living. They are able to eat better, construct more stable houses and buy goods; their wives and children receive new clothes and shoes more regularly. They are able to pay for medical treatment of relatives – the families enjoy better physical and psychological health. There is therefore an enormous pressure on young men of any caste to bring back as much money as possible, in order to receive consideration and be respected.

‘Emigration’, however, is not a recent phenomenon. Wane (1969) writes that the ‘Toucouleur du Fouta’ uses the same tools for agriculture that his ancestors have used and attempts by the colonial government to modernise the ‘anachronism’ of its methods and the insufficiency of production have had limited success (Wane 1969: 23). Whereas peanut plantations are successful in many Wolof areas in Senegal, agriculture has never gone beyond subsistence farming in the Senegal River valley. Instead of making money by working on his land, the Toucouleur migrates to urban centres to earn cash to provide for the family (Wane 1969: 23; also see Diop 1965).

Emigration statistics from the 2002 census show that 3.3% (43,363) citizens registered in Matam and 8% (105,214) of those registered in the region of St Louis left their home regions to seek work in other regions of Senegal. In contrast, 1.6 % or 21,080 persons, migrated into the region of Matam from inside or outside of Senegal. 3.3%, or 43,327 persons, migrated into the region of St Louis from outside Senegal.

These statistics inadequately depict migration and do not sufficiently distinguish between short-term and long-term migration. Nevertheless the 2002 census emphasises that the region of the ‘Vallée du fleuve Senegal’ has been affected by international emigration for longer than the other areas in Senegal. The reason for this is given as the increasing desertification since the 1970s.66

The Futanke themselves say that emigration has always existed and if a migrant does not manage to make money on his journey, he at least accumulates wisdom and friends. Some of the men clandestinely emigrate to Europe and work illegally.67 Some perform unskilled jobs in dire conditions for 10 years or more until they have saved enough money to construct new buildings for the family and the village community. Although they have faced years of hard work, the respect they receive from their relatives upon their return is enormous. As a result some men therefore prefer to take on these hardships rather than work locally for NGOs and local councils, who are the main employers in the area, as teachers, medical professionals, etc. ‘Development’ through organisations and local structures is not as well respected as ‘emigration’ because remittance brings wealth into the heart of the families and is much more visible than change through NGOs and community development projects. Instead development ‘projects’ are often criticised for not ‘giving’ enough money. ‘Giving’ is extremely important in Futanke society, a gesture that goes beyond goodwill, hard work or intelligence. Someone who gives and is able to give receives respect and recognition – more than a Jaltaaɓe (skilful fisherman) could ever earn by following the ‘traditional occupation’.

To make the differences more explicit I want to elaborate on two cases of emigrants in Bito. When I first came to Bito, there were two men who had ‘made it’ to Europe, one of them clandestinely in a canoe from Morocco to Spain, where he pretended to

66 _{‘L’émigration internationale, qui jadis affectait principalement les peoples de la Vallée du Fleuve}

Sénégal, est d’envergure national.’ (Senegal – Troisième Recensement Général de la Population et de l’Habitat 2002: 32).

67

Unfortunately the 2002 census shows no statistics for international emigration. However, as far as international immigration is concerned, the highest proportion of immigrants from abroad are Peul (Fulani) at 28.6% (Senegal – Troisième Recensement Général de la Population et de l’Habitat 2002: 40) and 50.5% of international immigrants réside in Dakar. In terms of long-term immigration for the regions of Matam and St Louis, 0.4% are other West African migrants in Matam, 0.9% in St Louis; Central African long-term immigrants are 0.1% in Matam and 1.2% in St Louis; American 0.6% in Matam and 6.3% in St Louis; Europeans 0.1% in Matam and 4.8% in St Louis.

be an asylum seeker from Guinea who had lost his papers. As he could speak one of the Guinean languages (Pulaar) he was accepted. After doing unskilled work in Spain for seven years, he had just returned for the first time in March 2007 and married one of the local girls, a beautiful girl about 14 years old. This trip had been far from easy, he was stabbed, nearly drowned and, even after he was granted the status of ‘asylum seeker’, life and earning money had not been easy. However, Khalidou was able to have a more luxurious wedding than most of his other kin because he had more money. It was also possible for him to give little sums of cash to other villagers when they were in need. In a way he was also considered a bit of a hero because, despite the hardships he had to endure, he will be able to secure a better life for his wives and kin than other villagers.

The husband of a female informant of mine, Hawa Sow, was also an emigrant who was back for the first time in five years to visit the family. Adama was a well- educated man who spoke good French, some German and English and had worked in accounting before emigrating to France. In France he had worked in a factory in the suburbs of Paris for years and had evidently been broken by life there. Although he was unhappy about not seeing his wife and children for years, it was preferable to staying in Bito with no employment. Sending money back to his family secured their livelihood and security as well as social standing and respectability within the community. Hawa’s house had solar electric cells on the roof, which meant that they had enough electricity for a few hours of light in the evening and for her friends in the village to leave their mobile phones to be charged up. They also had a television and a DVD player that worked sometimes.68 Her bedroom was beautifully decorated with painted walls – not mud-brick – and a wooden carved bed with a spring-mattress instead of a foam mattress. Hawa has to fetch water from the well and perform her daily duties like all the other village women but her family never runs out of food and others consider her lucky.

68 _{During the Africa Cup 2007, some villagers brought three charged up car batteries into the emigrant}

houses with television to watch the match. Whenever one of the batteries was empty it was quickly exchanged. Apart from that people rarely watch television and have perhaps seen a few images on DVD.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter was to provide the background for understanding salient relations which may influence someone’s decision to hold on to excision and oppose the national ban or to join the ‘abandonment movement’. These salient relations are based on status group, age group, kinship and patronym. When thinking about what might influence people to join others in opposing the law and the NGOs or to join the ‘abandonment movement’, it is important to highlight the following aspects discussed in this chapter.

First, Futanke social structure is hierarchical and the noble status groups take the political decisions that affect social life and the livelihood of everybody.

Second, each status group is considered to have authority over the knowledge and skills of an occupational background, which is rarely challenged. This means that a Tooroodo marabout who recommends excision on religious grounds can only be challenged by someone who is also an expert in this field and not by those whose expertise is related to weaving or the river.

Third, social kinship practices, like joking relationships between age groups (fedde) or patronyms (yettoode), create ties of solidarity between people from different social backgrounds and oblige so-called ‘cousins’ to be loyal towards each other and help each other out. This may mean that someone feels obliged to support the group they have ‘traditional’ alliances with when having to choose between taking sides with ‘abandonment movement’, or opposition to the law. (For further examples see the section in chapter 4, on the exciser Kumba Kawri, as well as chapters 7 and 8.)

Fourth, joking relationships represent a mechanism that reminds people of social norms, codes of honour and obligation, because their ‘joking cousin’ ridicules them if their behaviour diverges from what everyone else does. When it comes to continuing excision or renouncing the practice, joking relations may stop someone from doing something different to everyone else for fear of being humiliated.

Lastly, I discussed the high esteem accorded to emigrants and the great influence emigrants have on their kin at home. This is mainly due to the financial support they are able to provide to family and friends. Thus, people try not to displease them.

Chapter 4: Making gender: changing ‘traditions’, initiation and

the procedure of female and male circumcision

This chapter explores how gender is made through female and male circumcision. In my fieldwork village, Bito, the men were barely aware of when exactly their daughters were excised. Many men I met across Fouta explained this to me in a similar way to the following informant: ‘With girls, you cannot know when they are excised. It’s women’s business. Your own daughter can be taken away for excision one evening and the next day you don’t even realise that she was excised the previous night’ (H. Ly, Bito). Just as Ahmadu (2000, 2009), Dellenborg (2004), and Hernlund (2000, 2003) argue for Mande subgroups in the Gambia, Casamance and Sierra Leone, excision in Fouta Toro is considered to be something that women take care of, men do not get involved or need to be informed of the details. However, in contrast to the respective literature, in Fouta Toro excision is not practised during initiation at all and never has been, according to my informants’ views and anecdotal evidence.

Roy Dilley notes too: ‘While male circumcision and initiation is the focus of much communal activity, female excision, involving clitoridectomy and sometimes infibulation, is done much more privately behind closed doors and with little public ceremony’ (Dilley 2004: 119). Some of my informants explained that excision did not need the celebration and time of seclusion that boys needed after circumcision because it was not ‘a big deal’ and much less problematic than male circumcision. For example Aissata, a woman in my host family, told me that: ‘They [girls] are just taken over to the exciser and tack, it is cut away. It’s not so bad [c’est pas grave], they cry a bit and then it’s over after 24 hours, it’s all healed up and fine.’ In contrast, she said:

the boys have more problems with their circumcision to heal than the girls. With the girls, the little thing that looks like a ñebbe, you know? It’s like a little bean. It is cut, tack, they cry a bit and then it is all over. But the boys can’t wash for weeks and are all kept together.

Throughout my time in Fouta I met many women and men who shared the belief that male circumcision is a lot more traumatic and harmful than female circumcision, which is why boys needed a period of seclusion after circumcision whereas girls did not. The rhetoric of governmental and non-governmental intervention against female circumcision bases its appeal for ‘abandonment’ on the opposite assumption. To come to an understanding of how the Futanke reacted to the ban on excision and how the so-called ‘consequences’ of excision are problematised in local discourses alongside the governmental and non-governmental propaganda, it is salient to look at how male and female circumcision are practised in Fouta Toro.

Upon reading recent West African ethnography on female circumcision one might expect that initiation and coming of age would be strongly associated with the practice in Fouta Toro as well. Furthermore, one might presume after reading such ethnography that the Futanke’s opposition to the ban by the Senegalese government was somehow related to constructions of gender and ethnic identity through initiation and the ‘making’ of a person through coming of age. If this was the case, one would imagine that the Futanke’s opposition was a symptom of their holding on to so-called ‘traditions’ that incorporate rites that are markers of ethnic identity and personhood. However, I will show in this chapter that none of these presumptions are accurate.

In the first section of this chapter I discuss West African ethnography on initiation and reaching the status of a woman through excision. As I show, becoming a responsible person is intrinsically tied to initiation ceremonies among the Mandinka in the Gambia (Ahmadu 2005; Ahmadu and Shweder 2009; Hernlund 2000, 2003) and southern Senegal as well as co-habitants like the Diola (Dellenborg 2004). I contrast these cases to excision in Fouta Toro subsequently. I argue that the opposition to the law from Fouta Toro is not connected to the loss of ‘tribal rites of passage’ and coming of age through circumcision, as might be expected among Mande sub-groups (Ahmadu 2000, 2009; Bledsoe 1984), as female excision in Fouta does not involve such rites. Nonetheless, by contrasting how female excision and male circumcision are practised according to local discourses, I show that gender is made through circumcision. I argue that as Griaule (1948) described among the Dogon, female excision and male circumcision are about feminising or masculinising the

androgynous body (also see Ahmadu 2005, 2009). Excision and circumcision create the physical foundations for appropriate adulthood and render a person marriageable.

Furthermore, the imaginary boundaries between ‘the state’ and the ‘NGOs’ on the one hand and the ‘traditionalists’ (those who want to hold on to the practice) on the other, are by no means as clear-cut as one might imagine. On the contrary, the division between those who uphold the practice as an ethnic and religious tradition, and NGO workers, is often blurred, and individuals move freely between the two conceptual camps. I show that so-called ‘tradition’ is a term that accords value to a practice because of the relationship it represents between those who have passed it on and those who have taken it up. ‘Tradition’ does not mean that the practice has never changed, but that it is re-invented and accorded value by each generation who take it up.