La généalogie imaginaire de la littérature algérienne francophone

This article contends that French language is both the perfect tool for the expression of one’s own identity and the instrument of knowledge that has shut down all possible other ones in Algeria. The works of Rachid Boudjedra (1969) and Yacine Kateb (1966) illustrate the highly ideological dimension of Algerian literature. By debunking the very idea of French literature, their novels fight back the concept of cultural imperialism. Yet, I think that the conflict between ideology and literature did not appear recently, after the colonial wars of independence, but was already underlined at the birth of French language as a national idiom in the writings of an author such as François Rabelais.     

Sémiotique et rhétorique de la duplicité dans la peinture de Bernard Baïfang

The Art of Bernard Baifang finds its strength in the subtlety with which this contemporary painter represents abstractions. Using figures of speech, he translates duplicity into images, a moral perversion that has become endemic in many African countries. A semiotic and rhetorical study of the figurations of duplicity in Feymania and La cité rouge reveals that the achievement of these paintings inspired by the experience of daily life in Cameroon is part of a subversive approach based on a cathartic conception of art.     

Instrumentalisation de la coopération chinoise et transition politique au Sénégal: analyse de l’ère Wade

In countries like Senegal where democracy seems to be institutionalising itself, evaluation of the quality of this practice often happens at critical points of reference such as elections. The democratic changes between Presidents Diouf and Wade in 2000 and between the latter and President Macky Sall in 2012 are generally deemed to be indicators of the healthy condition of democracy in this country. The present article stipulates that the politicians involved in this alternation plan and prepare for it as much at the heart of their administrations as do the political parties, but often also outside election periods. This article demonstrates that the Wade regime, following that mindset, has instrumentalized its cooperation with China in attempt to consolidate its power.     

La "frontière africaine" revisitée: "ethnogenèse" dans les Grassfields de l'est(le cas de la chefferie bamiléké de Batié)

Cet article tente de dater la genèse et de suivre l'évolution dans le temps d'une chefferie Bamiléké (ouest-Cameroun) en l'inscrivant dans ses contexte régional et historique, couvrant la période précoloniale (fin du 17ième siècle approximativement à fin du 19ième siècle). Pour ce faire nous avons recours à la tradition orale telle que celle-ci a été définie par Jan Vansina (1985), que nous complétons par d'autres sources confirmant ou infirmant ces traditions. Nous essayons de mettre à l'épreuve le paradigme de la "frontière africaine" introduit par Igor Kopytoff (1987) et montrons en quoi notre étude de cas conforte certaines de ses hypothèses et en réfute d'autres. L'article porte l'accent sur une contextualisation historique et culturelle des sources utilisées. S'appuyant sur les travaux de certains historiens de l'Afrique centrale (MacGaffey, Miller, Vansina), il conclu par des remarques concernant la conceptualisation du temps et de l'agencéité, l'historicité et la culture des sociétés Grassfields précoloniales.     

L'évolution de la justice traditionnelle dans l'Afrique francophone

L'histoire du football Rwanda commence avec la colonisation du pays. En une cinquantaine d'années, ce jeu sport d'origine anglaise, en intégrant une société agro-pastorale et guerrière, est devenu une pratique culturelle locale. Comprendre ce phénomène nécessite d'articuler l'ancrage colonial d'une activité cosmopolite aux [ré]inventions culturelles locales suscitées par son implantation. Ce texte vise à montrer comment un jeu de balle, en traversant une société en cours d'occidentalisation, a marqué l'édification d'une modernité guerrière reçue et façonnée par les joueurs de l'époque. En traversant les transpositions ludiques d'enjeux sociaux et politiques plus larges, on observe que cette pratique, tout en participant du procès de "civilisation" que s'administra l'institution coloniale, constitua l'un des fers de lance de la lutte pour l'émancipation.     

Mémoire de la violence: du Congo des rébellions au Zaïre des pillages

The author looks into the chain of political violence, as well as into political discourse about past violence, experienced by ordinary Congolese from Independence up to the present. According to him, every major outburst of political violence underwent a discursive recuperation by Congolese/Zairian politicians and produced its own social memory. The Zairian state political culture of violence, blended with people’s experience of every day violence (economic and social), explains the generalisation of violence during the 1990s civil wars and lootings of all major and medium-sized cities.     

Le théologien et le somnambule: un épisode récent de l'histoire almoravide en Mauritanie

In 2012, images of a mystical mermaid known locally as Mami Wata circulated on the Internet and via people's mobile phones, sparking rumours that Chinese labourers had captured her as they were installing underwater fibreoptic cables. Appearing as a grotesque sea-creature with a gnarled, shrivelled body, this new image of Mami Wata challenges older, popular depictions of her as a beautiful maiden. Further, in her deformed body, Mami Wata reveals new tensions arising from promises of wealth and modernisation promoted by both Chinese and Congolese governments. Accounts of rumours/urban legends and metaphors of contagion animate larger contemporary discussions concerning development projects, “otherness” and the influence of the Internet and mobile phone technology on production of popular African culture. The female siren, Mami Wata, is a recurring motif in Kinshasa's collective urban imaginary. Historically she has been an expression of modernity and hybridity through visual representation in popular painting, sculpture and television serials. Now Mami Wata appears in the digital world. In this article, in addition to analysing the ways in which contemporary technology mediates this archetypal figure, I draw on notions of otherness, recent historical, political and economic changes in the Democratic Republic of Congo to analyse the ways they inform the particular shape and meaning that Mami Wata takes when transformed into the digital domain.     

Logiques transnationales et stratégies locales: les étapes de l'implantation des religions afro-brésiliennes au Portugal

The transnationalisation of Afro-Brazilian religions to Portugal is marked by the opening in 1974 of the first terreiro (house of worship) in the city of Lisbon and today there are around 40 terreiros throughout the country. This article will attempt to elucidate the stages in the implantation of Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal at the level of individual religious observance as well as at the more global level of Portuguese society. In order to understand these stages, it is necessary on the one hand to consider the purely local strategies enabling a progressive adaptation of Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal. On the other hand, this study must be situated within comparative research on the transnationalisation of Afro-American religions, which facilitates an understanding of their common processes of legitimisation in new contexts.     

Islam,médias,mise en place du Sénat et article 37 de la Constitution: changement de paradigme au Burkina Faso (1991–2014)?

Abstract

In the context of socio-political liberalisation, which has been happening since 1991, together with the competition between the different religions in the public arena in Burkina Faso, the visibility of Islam has increased considerably with the creation of Islamic media and the growing use of the Internet. This article examines the impact of the growing mediatisation of Islam on the agency and the content of the discourse of Muslim elites in Burkina Faso. This has led to the emergence of new, very mediatised religious figures who have gained authority in the public arena. However, the multiplication of the Islamic message is not accompanied by greater politicisation. Their agency resides rather in their relative capacity to invest in the public arena to defend their vision of society governed by Islamic moral norms. The debate surrounding the introduction of the Senate and the revision of Article 37 of the Constitution between 2011 and 2014 has shown the lacklustre agency of the Muslim leaders.     

L’érosion de l’autorité musulmane à Ouagadougou: le discours de militants de l’Association des Elèves et Etudiants Musulmans au Burkina

Abstract

Whilst religious radicalism is at the heart of media and scientific preoccupations, this study shows that, in Burkina Faso, Muslim authority has experienced a steady regression in the urban environment of Ouagadougou. On the basis of interviews conducted with young Muslims at the University of Ouagadougou, the article proposes a reflection on the factors that are causing such an erosion of authority. If the spiritual dimension of this authority is not being called into question, the temporal dimension is undergoing a process of de-legitimisation, which is increasing in line with the interpenetration of the religious and political spheres as well as the discrediting of the semi-authoritarian regime of Blaise Compaoré. In addition to highlighting the fragmentation of the sectors of authority, the study allows for better identification of the position of youths (“cadets sociaux”) in the religious field.     

L’exil et la négociation du manque dans trois romans de Calixthe Beyala

This article takes as its theme the literature of sub-Saharan Africa, and in particular the prolific work of the Cameroonian author Calixthe Beyala, who, since 1987, has published numerous novels in exile. Calixthe Beyala is among those expatriate writers for whom exile, far from being synonymous with banishment, on the contrary represents true salvation. The article examines how Calixthe Beyala speaks of expatriation in three of her novels: Tu t’appelleras Tanga (Your name shall be Tanga) (1988), Les honneurs perdus (1996) and Comment cuisiner son mari à l’africaine (2000). Belonging to three successive decades, these works relate specifically to the theme of exile and plunge to the heart of Cameroon and to the Cameroonian diaspora in Paris, shedding light on the grieving process linked to the loss of one’s own geographic space, and to the loss of self.     

La présence turque en Côte d’Ivoire contemporaine: entreprise transnationale au service de l’éducation,l’humanitaire et l’islam en Afrique de l’ouest

Many Tanzanians share a basic understanding of the occult as a moving force in the visible world. But at the same time, notions of the occult are characterised by indeterminacies in meaning, thereby allowing for multiple interpretations of particular events. This article explores various readings of two particular incidents that both occurred within a suburb of the city of Iringa in South-central Tanzania. First a Lutheran pastor started suffering from a paralyzed shoulder and a few weeks later an old woman was found lying naked outside of his home in the middle of the night. While both incidents were widely ascribed to witchcraft the article shows how particular interpretations were embedded in and reflective of a dense social climate, characterised by different kinds of tension, inequalities, suspicions of corruption and by religious and medical pluralism and competition. The article argues that the very opaqueness and uncertainty of witchcraft knowledge enabled a variety of actors with different stakes to make claims to truth, spiritual status and moral identity.     

“Les catholiques sont l’élite!”: représentations de l’espace politique par une minorité religieuse au Burkina Faso

Abstract

The Catholic Church occupies a privileged position in the religious arena in Burkina Faso. Having invested very early in the public arena of the country, it constitutes a vital actor in the socio-political landscape of the country as attested to by its involvement in the domains of education and health and its positioning as mediator in times of crisis. Based on a field survey conducted among members of the Catholic community (members of the clergy, religious and lay), this article studies the manner in which Catholics in Burkina Faso portray themselves as a religious community in the country’s political arena. It reveals that in Burkina Faso the Catholics portray themselves as a dominant religious minority in terms of politics due to their disproportionate engagement in the apparatus of the state. The article also shows that the Catholics in Burkina Faso see their dominant position as under threat, on the one hand, from competition by the Protestants and, on the other, by the rise of Islamism.     

Les Ninja,les Cobra et les Zoulou crèvent l’écran à Brazzaville: le rôle les médias et la construction des identités de violence politique

In his recently published studies, the author analyzed the development and use of militia groups in the political conflicts that shook Congo-Brazzaville in the 1990s. After briefly reviewing these events, he points up the change in recruiting militiamen that occurred in the last phase of these conflicts. His text is primarily concerned with the role of Western mass culture in shaping the bodies and identities of these militiamen and the militiamen’s sense of identity. From the late 1950s (here the author draws on the research of Georges Balandier) to the late 1990s, the young men of Brazzaville were inspired in constructing a modernity of their own bodies by certain Western action films. The graphic violence in these films, perpetrated by characters whom the young men adopted as their heroes, legitimated their own use of violence.