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Tag Archives: bamako
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
The manyamagan
Editor’s note: The role of manyamagan[1] has no equivalent in Western culture. “It is still carried out in several regions of our country,” wrote Aoua Keita in 1975; “it is exclusively female, very often passed down from mother to daughter … Continue reading
Twilight of the griot
Editor’s note: In preparing a book manuscript on marriage based on 2010-2012 fieldwork, I find some interviews that I can’t integrate into the project. I’ve decided to start posting a few of the more noteworthy ones, translated and edited, to … Continue reading
A lesson in sociability
While 2018 has been an eventful year for Mali–mostly for the wrong reasons–it’s also seen my least frequent blogging since I began in 2011. Instead of tracking the political and security situation on the ground as it goes from bad … Continue reading
Getting a read on Serval
From January 2013 through July 2014, the French military carried out on Malian territory a vast intervention codenamed Opération Serval. It has been reputed to be the largest unilateral overseas deployment of France’s armed forces since the Algerian war ended … Continue reading
How to get filthy rich in sinking Africa
When a government gets serious about fighting corruption, certain effects quickly become visible. As a New York Times article showed last week in the case of Nigeria, once President Buhari’s crackdown got underway a few months ago, the people who’d … Continue reading
Writing the Afropolis
Ryan Skinner’s Bamako Sounds is undoubtedly the most intelligent book I’ve read about contemporary Bamako in general, and its music scene in particular. It’s an important work, less for what it says about a given set of musical styles than … Continue reading
Who wants peace in Mali?
“We should not be misled by talk of entering a time of peace. Peace is not the absence of war; it is the absence of the rumors of war, the threats of war, the preparations for war….” – Gil Scott … Continue reading
Why Ebola can–and must–be stopped in Mali
To bring us up to date on efforts to contain Mali’s Ebola outbreak, here is a post from a guest blogger who recently concluded a visit to Bamako where he observed the ongoing public health campaign by various international, governmental, and … Continue reading
Can Malians trust each other?
As the Malian government and northern rebels prepare for negotiations called for by the “roadmap” recently signed in Algiers, it’s worth asking how much trust exists between the different sides. Afrobarometer survey data collected last December suggests that inter-ethnic trust … Continue reading
Bridges from Bamako 