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Author Archives: brucewhitehouse
Selling Amway in the Congo
This is a story about some encounters I had nearly 20 years ago in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, while researching my dissertation on transnational migrants from the western Sahel. It was in Brazzaville that I got to know a Malian named Malik, who one day asked if I’d heard of Amway, the U.S. network marketing company. He invited me to attend one of its sales pitch meetings at a local home. Malik had recently signed on to sell Amway products, and he wanted me to hear about them from the fellow who had recruited him. What follows is a tale of desperation and hope, capitalism and power. Continue reading
How France lost Mali… and the Sahel
“The French military, suffused with colonial ideology and stuck in obsolete schemas of the ‘War on Terror,’ is incapable of correctly analyzing the situation. Caught between French decision-makers unwilling to lose face and African leaders shirking their responsibilities, it is … Continue reading
Who’s getting Mali’s gold?
For the past few years, Mali’s industrial gold production (as reported by the Malian government in various press outlets) has been trending upward: This is surely good news: add rising production levels to the climbing value of gold on world … Continue reading
The mirage of Malian democracy
Today marks 33 years since Mali embarked on its transition from single-party authoritarian rule to multiparty democracy. Many of us observing events in the country have presumed that throughout its two decades of multiparty, democratic rule beginning in the early … Continue reading
Betting big on sovereignty
In ordering French troops to quit Malian soil “without delay,” Mali’s transitional authorities are making a high-stakes wager. Their bet seems to be that whatever price the evacuation of Operation Barkhane imposes on Malians in the short term, it will … Continue reading
Making Mali great again?
Or, The Mali that can say “No” A dramatic shift has been taking shape in Mali, and two recent events suggest that it is now irreversible. One: the massive rallies in Bamako and dozens of other cities and towns throughout … Continue reading
Cherchez la France: Mali’s complex postcolonial identity
There’s an old French expression cherchez la femme–literally, “look for the woman.” In the 1850s, novelist Alexandre Dumas used this phrase to convey his sense that whatever tensions or conflicts arose between people, somewhere at the root of them would … Continue reading
Bamako’s mood: good for Goïta, bad for France…
Pollster Sidiki Guindo has just unveiled results from a phone survey of 1144 Bamako residents conducted between September 30 and October 3 (see full results here). The results will surely warm the heart of Mali’s president, Colonel Assimi Goïta, because … Continue reading
A la recherche de l’avenir de Bamako : Un manifeste ethnographique
Au risque de paraître trop hâtif ou empressé, je voudrais aborder maintenant [le sujet] la question de mes prochaines recherches à Bamako. Le manuscrit de livre tiré de mes recherches passées reste bloqué pour le moment ; j’ai commencé ces … Continue reading
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Looking for Bamako’s future: An ethnographic manifesto
It is probably premature of me, perhaps even somewhat rash, to choose this time to write about my next research project in Bamako. After all, the book manuscript stemming from my current project (on the city’s changing contours of marriage … Continue reading
Bridges from Bamako 