View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives Elin Selboe Changing continuities: Multi-activity in the network politics of Colobane, Dakar Dissertation submitted for the PhD degree in Human Geography Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Sociology and Human Geography University of Oslo August 2008 Table of Contents List of acronyms ................................................................................................................... vii Summary ............................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... xi 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 Research questions ................................................................................................................. 4 Outline of the dissertation ...................................................................................................... 6 2. Ethnography and fieldwork in Colobane .................................................... 11 Introduction to Senegal, Dakar and Colobane ..................................................................... 11 Researching local political practices through ethnographic fieldwork ................................ 14 The choice of Colobane as the setting for research and fieldwork .................................. 16 Working in the field: participation, observation and conversations/ interviews ............. 19 Learning strategies, positionality and social networks ......................................................... 25 Continued analysis and making sense of the material after fieldwork ............................ 35 Situated knowledges, reflexivity and accounting for the research process .......................... 37 3. A conceptual framework for analysing network politics .......................... 41 State-society relations .......................................................................................................... 42 The politics of the postcolonial African state ....................................................................... 45 The pursuit of hegemony among postcolonial elites ........................................................ 46 The politics of the belly and the significance of social networks ..................................... 49 The politics of social practice ............................................................................................... 55 Habitus ............................................................................................................................. 55 Fields ................................................................................................................................ 57 Capital .............................................................................................................................. 59 Network politics: the importance of social capital ............................................................... 60 The importance of social capital for access to resources in network politics ................. 61 The socio-symbolic capital of representation .................................................................. 63 Bourdieu’s conception of a formal political field ............................................................ 64 Generating an extended notion of politics ............................................................................ 65 i 4. The (re)negotiations of the Senegalese social contract .............................. 71 The intermediary of Islam in Senegalese state-society relations ......................................... 72 Senegalese Sufi-Islam and the ties between marabouts and followers ............................ 72 The use of religious intermediaries by colonial authorities ............................................. 74 State and society in postcolonial Senegal ........................................................................ 75 The postcolonial social contract ........................................................................................... 77 Marabouts and followers ................................................................................................. 78 Marabouts and political authorities ................................................................................. 80 The renegotiation of the Senegalese social contract ............................................................ 83 Economic crisis ................................................................................................................ 84 Political crisis and popular pressure for change ............................................................. 86 Religious revival and debate ............................................................................................ 89 Changed practices and renegotiated relations in the religious field ..................................... 90 Changes in religious organisation ................................................................................... 90 Popular debate on the political authority of marabouts and the possible separation between political and religious spheres ........................................................................... 92 Changes in the political practices of marabouts .............................................................. 94 A renegotiated social contract and the change of regime in 2000........................................ 98 Hopes and expectations resulting from the Alternance ................................................. 100 5. The neighbourhood of Colobane and the inhabitants’ multi-activity in network politics ................................................................................................ 103 Colobane ............................................................................................................................. 103 Multi-activity and the importance of social networks ........................................................ 107 6. Délégués de quartier as traditional mediators of local state-society relations ............................................................................................................ 111 At the interface between the local population and state institutions .................................. 112 The délégués de quartier as state representatives ......................................................... 112 The délégué de quartier as a representative of the population and local authority ...... 114 The politics of appointment: whose representative? .......................................................... 116 The délégués de quartier as representatives of and belonging to the local notables .... 116 The political game of appointing the délégués in the municipality of Dakar: the influence ii of party politics ............................................................................................................... 118 The origins of the power and legitimacy of the délégués de quartier ................................ 120 The future: threat of extinction or possible renewal? ......................................................... 122 Generational dynamics and societal changes ................................................................ 122 State neglect ................................................................................................................... 124 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 128 7. Local state-society relations and the political field: the dominance of network politics ................................................................................................ 131 The commune d’arrondissement and legitimacy among the inhabitants of Colobane: general distrust, but hopes of change ................................................................................. 133 The struggle among the professionals of the formal political field .................................... 136 ‘Eating’ to secure political support or for personal accumulation of capital ............... 141 Relational practices and negotiations for exchanges of symbolic and material resources between politicians and inhabitants .................................................................................... 145 Inequality, but logic of flexibility ................................................................................... 148 The work of networks ..................................................................................................... 151 Changing continuities in local network politics ................................................................. 153 8. Religious associations in Colobane ............................................................ 157 Dahiras and religious movements .................................................................................. 158 Religious activities and functions ...................................................................................... 160 The relations with religious authorities and hierarchy .................................................. 161 The social and economic practices of religious associations ............................................. 165