Les Actes du Neuvième Congrès International des Études Mandé Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Mande Studies 18-22 Juin 2014/ June 18-22, 2014 RAN Hotel SOMKETA Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso © Association des études mande (MANSA), tous droits réservés ISBN: 978-0-9974719-0-8 Editeurs: Stephen Belcher, Alain Sissao Mise en PDF: Dianna Bell, 7 Juin 2016 Table of Contents / Table de Matières 1. Trevor MARCHAND (SOAS, University of London) and Mary Jo ARNOLDI (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution) Becoming a Mason in Djenné Today (Devenir Maçon à Djenné Aujourd'hui) 2. The Masons of Djennè, Mali Exhibit Images 3. Dianna BELL (Vanderbilt University) May God Accept Us: The Tenet of Baraji among Muslim Kin in Mali, West Africa 4. Jody BENJAMIN (Harvard University) Cotton, Cloth and Cultural Heterogeneity on the Upper Guinea Coast: Merchants, Migrants, Slaves and Speculators, 1785-1807 5. Sten HAGBERG (University of Uppsala) and Bintou KONÉ (Institut Supérieur de Formation et de Recherche Appliquée (ISFRA), Bamako) Femmes politiques en face des enjeux de pouvoir :Une étude ethnographiQue comparée des carrières politiques au Burkina Faso et au Mali 6. Barbara HOFFMAN (Cleveland State University) Vers une Anthropologie de la Mondialisation du Cosmopolitisme et ses Variétés Locales Dans les Villes Africaines 7. Kassim KONÉ (State University of New York at Cortland) Les langues africaines dans le contexte colonial et néocolonial français: L’exemple du Bamana 8. Fatoumata KEITA (Université Mande Bukary) Violences au Nord du Mali sous l’occupation islamistes 9. William MOSELEY (Macalester College) Leçons de la Crise Alimentaire Mondiale de 2008: Comment le Mali n'a éviter le Pire? 10. Mahmoud Malik SAAKO (Senior Curator, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board) The Mande Influence on the Mosque and Palace Architecture in Northern and Part of the Middle Belt of Ghana 11. Seydou CAMARA (Institut des Sciences Humaines) La culture mandingue face à la culture arabo- islamique et à la mondialisation contemporaine 12. Alain Joseph SISSAO ((Institut des Sciences des Sociétés Centre National de la recherché scientifique et Technologique) Les différentes formes d’influence de la littérature Manding sur la littérature Orientale et Occidentale 13. Marcia TIEDE (Northwestern University Library) L’Enfant Sarakolle by Modibo Keita (1936): Construction of a Context 14. Katja Werthmann (Université de Leipzig) Aperçu historique de la ville de Bobo-Dioulasso 15. Yao Marcel KOUAKOU (Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny de Cocody) Les mandé nord et la vie politique en Côte d’Ivoire de 1948 à 1956 Panel: Growing into Knowledge in the 21st Century/Grandir dans la Connaissance au 21e Siècle Co-Chairs : Mary Jo Arnoldi (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution) et Lucy Duran (SOAS, University of London) Becoming a Mason in Djenné Today (Devenir Maçon à Djenné Aujourd'hui) Trevor Marchand (SOAS, University of London) and Mary Jo Arnoldi (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution) In 1988 the historic city of Djenné in Mali, which was founded in the 13th century, along with several adjacent archeological sites whose settlements date back over 2000 years, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is, however, the historic city’s spectacular earthen mosque and its over 200 multi storied mud brick houses that have contributed to Djenné’s current global fame. While Djenné’s monumental architecture has been the focus of much of the international community’s attention, it is the city’s professional masons, who build and maintain these buildings and who hold the key to the continuity of this earthen architectural form. The film “Mud Masons of Djenné” is the centerpiece of an exhibition within the African Voices Hall at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.1 This exhibition and the film is an extension of the research collaboration by Trevor Marchand with Djenné masons in the 2000s. While Marchand has published extensively on the building trades in Djenné, the medium of film, we hoped, would provide these masons with an opportunity to speak directly to local, national and international audiences about their profession. We were interested in exploring with the masons their investment in their profession and the ways that the knowledge and building skills they have acquired have been passed down from one generation to the next through the master/apprentice system. We also wanted to identify and understand, from their perspective, the changes that are taking place in the building trades in this city today. 1 We had originally scheduled filming in Djenné in December 2011, at the beginning of the traditional building season in the city. Our plan was to document the building practices and to interview a variety of masons who were at different stages in their careers –from master masons to apprentices. In late November, however, the armed insurrection in the north of Mali began to escalate and the security situation in the larger region deteriorated. We abandoned the December trip, but were optimistic, overly so as it turned out, that the situation would be resolved in a few months. We rescheduled the filming in Djenné for March 2012, a period near the end of the active building season. However, on March 22nd there was a military coup in Mali and it was again impossible for us to travel to Djenné to film. We did not want to abandon the project, and so we opted to bring the masons to us. We invited five masons to participate in the project and we decided to do the filming in Leiden in the Netherlands. We chose Leiden for several reasons. On previous occasions, several of these masons had taken part in cultural exchanges to Holland and were “at home” in Leiden because of a longstanding cooperation with Dutch scholars from the University of Leiden in studies of Djenné’s architecture and participation in the Dutch-financed restoration of Djenné’s historic mud-brick houses. Annette Schmidt, at the Museum fur Volkenkunde in Leiden who had worked in Djenné, graciously offered to host the film project. Because there was an existing development and cooperation agreement between the Netherlands and Mali, the Dutch embassy in Bamako were extremely helpful and expedited the visa process for the masons. The five masons were joined by our colleague Bilagama Sissoko, of the National Museum in Mali who had filmmaking experience and was acquainted with the masons through past research trips to Djenné. The masons ranged in age from over 80 years old to 21 years old. The eldest was Konbaba Tennepo, a master mason and the youngest was Almamy Kouremansé, an apprentice 2 mason and college student. The group also included three other practicing masons: Boubacar Kouremansé, mason-contractor in his 50s, his cousin Lassane Kouremansé, a mason in his 40s, and a Salif Droufo, a junior mason in his 30s. During a series of interviews these five men shared their personal reflections on their apprenticeship and on traditional building practices. They discussed the various changes that are taking place in the building trades in Djenné today and their hopes and anxieties for the future. Their age differences and their different work experiences and education offered diverse, and sometimes competing generational perspectives on many of the topics. During our week together in Leiden we recorded nearly fifteen hours of interviews in Bamana. Bil Sissoko did a running translation in French during each of the interviews. Several interview sessions were held with each individual mason, and on the final day we brought together the eldest Konbaba and the youngest Almamy for a “discussion” about design, building and the moral comportment of a mason. Between the sessions and during the evenings we reviewed with the masons our previously recorded discussions and collaboratively devised interview topics for the next sessions that would address core concerns of the masons and researchers equally. We were committed to the masons being involved at the various stages of production and being given space to define and express their political views and professional interests. The interview about life and work, the impact of Mali’s current situation on Djenné and its building trade, and the hopes, aspirations and anxieties of the individual masons are rich and nuanced. In selecting excerpts from the interviews for the final film we realized that conducting the interviews in Leiden, rather than in Mali, had actually provided the masons with time outside the pressures of their daily lives in Djenné – a more neutral space so to speak - to 3 reflect upon their professional lives with an eye to both the future sustainability of traditional practices and the changes and transformations that are currently underway. The topics that we explored together in these interviews and which organize the films included conversations about: 1. The ways that each of the men found his way into masonry and the reasons behind each mason’s enduring and passionate commitment to the trade. 2. The body of knowledge-both practical building skills and secret benedictions that is handed down from master to apprentice and how this transmission process is being affected by pressures toward privatization. 3. A growing ethos of individualism and rising competition and the positive and negative impacts that formal schooling and new media such as mobile phones, the internet have had on manual craft vocations such as masonry over the past 25 years. We also filmed several excursions in Leiden to a local mosque and various markets and to a building preservation project outside of Rotterdam. Excerpts from these excursions were also included in the film. The masons’ participation in the film production also took one further important step. Because our film crew was not able to film in Djenné, we sent a camera back with the masons and they provided footage at several building sites, in their homes, in the local schools and in the town.