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The Bombardier Marabout of Dakar – An African Shaman? - Towards a Nominalist Anthropology
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Singleton, Michael J. |
| Copyright Year | 2017 |
| Abstract | – Academic interpretations of shamanism in the West have oscillated between the sociological and the cultural . Anchored in an anecdotal case study of a Senegalese marabout, a less equivocally ethnocentric approach is here proposed in terms of cultures as Projects (or Wholes) which, on account of their irreducibly particular projects (or peculiar parts), appear sometimes marginally convergent but (on the whole) are often radically divergent . A nominalist onto-epistemology could thus suit the anthropological cause more than any other . [Senegal, marabout, shaman, Projects/projects, generalization, nominalism] Michael Singleton, professor emeritus of Anthropology, Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) . Ba, the Bombardier Marabout, carne y hueso In May 1983, a friend and colleague, working like myself in Dakar for the Belgian universities’ development programme in Senegal, asked me to accompany him on a visit to a marabout – not a scavenging stork nor, as in North Africa, the tomb shrine of a saintly Muslim but a prominent if somewhat unorthodox and peripheral figure on the sub-Saharan Islamic scene . My compatriot, a science teacher, belonged to a team of six Belgians seconded to Senegal’s foremost teachers training college . Like others working in West Africa they had just been subject to a fact-finding mission headed by the new minister for cooperation and development . A lady lawyer and member of the Liberal Party, she had divided the number of coopérants by the number of commercial contracts won for Belgium . Senegal having given back less than it had received, “Madame la ministre” had decided to cut back on the gratuitous window dressing which cooperation in the field of higher education represented in her eyes . The financial rewards of aid (“les retombées économiques”; Le Soir 03 . 02 . 1982) being paramount, she informed the six-member-team to which my friend belonged, that their unrewarding project was to be terminated forthwith . Apprised of the situation, their Senegalese students, appreciative of their Belgian mentors, suggested that a typically African solution to the problem could be arranged . They knew of a marabout, Monsieur Ba (a pseudonym), partly specialised in solving such matters . Had he not just rescued from the threat of imminent closure, a development project between Brazil and Senegal? Favourably impressed by the students taking the initiative on behalf of their toubab teachers, Ba had fixed an appointment for 2:00 p .m . May 26 . On the appointed day, we left the campus of the Teacher Training College at 1:00 p .m . in my friend’s VW minibus accompanied by a student from Mali and a neighbour of the marabout . The Dakar address of a villa, fax and phone numbers, together with his name figured on the visiting card the marabout distributed after shaking hands . We met with Monsieur Ba, however, in a second floor apartment of a pleasantly tree-shaded row of a two-storey housing belonging to the middle class in the suburban residential area of Dieuppeul . Though populous and “typically African,” the quarter, relatively chic, The Bombardier Marabout of Dakar – An African Shaman? Towards a Nominalist Anthropology |
| Starting Page | 499 |
| Ending Page | 516 |
| Page Count | 18 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.5771/0257-9774-2017-2-499 |
| Volume Number | 112 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.wcaanet.org/downloads/dejalu/march_2019/Anthropos.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.5771/0257-9774-2017-2-499 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
