Day 1 Thursday 6th September

Les inconnus de l’époque moderne dans l’Ouest saharien : interrogations autour de l’implantation territoriale des Wlād Dlεym.

Benjamin Acloque, EHESS – LAS

Dans l’état actuel de rareté des sources, l’Histoire du Sahara à l’ouest de Tombouctou en est réduite à des suppositions. L’historiographie coloniale, et au-delà, a comblé les lacunes en se fiant aux récits postérieurs de groupes légitimant leur présence dans ces parages, ce qui correspondait à la vision figée, anhistorique, que les Européens pouvait se faire de la région. De nombreux indices donnent pourtant à penser des déplacements de populations et des rivalités religieuses.

À partir de l’exemple la qabīla des Wlād Dlεym, considérée comme issue des Arabes Maˁqīl, on revisitera les évidences si fragiles qui fondent notre vision de l’Ouest saharien des XVI^e et XVII^e siècles. Plutôt que de voir les Wlād Dlεym nomadisant très anciennement sur la côte, nous envisagerons leur déplacement depuis les environs du Twat vers l’Atlantique, à la faveur des bouleversements dans le commerce transsaharien consécutif aux effervescences religieuses au Twat comme à Tombouctou, et aux incursions des sultans de Marrakech au Sahara.

10,000 MSS, 1850 authors across 300 years: a preview of ALA-V

Charles Stewart, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Northwestern University

In October Brill published the final geographic slice of the Arabic Literature of Africa series that was begun by Hunwick and O'Fahey 25 years ago. ALA volume 5 is, in fact, three volumes, encompassing the Hassaniyya-speaking world and Senegal Valley; it documents the legacy of fabled Sanhaja scholarship in Wadan, Tichitt, Walata and Timbuktu after those centers declined in the 17th century. Through it we learn about venerated teachers, intrepid travelers, occasional mujtahids, endless poets, breathtaking piety, enormous egos, advanced but rural education that Ibn Khaldun told us could not exist, and legal controversies triggered from abroad by such things as recitation styles, Salafi ideas and Wahhabi thinking. 

In light of ALA V, this paper speculates on the very limited parameters for manuscripts and authors yet to be discovered across the Sahel. It will survey what ALA-V tells us about the (remarkably similar) contents of Saharan libraries, texts studied and subjects favored, and, through an analysis of 2000 derivative works across 300 years of writing, we can sketch an outline of the intellectual history of the Sahara. All this adds up to much less than speculation about the millions of manuscripts waiting to be found in and around the Niger Bend, but much more than the adoration of select, colorful works under a simplistic, Timbuktu-centric vision of Islamic scholarship in the Sahel.

Historical ‘demonizing’ of the Sahara and Contemporary Legacies: Mali in Crisis 2012-15

Ann McDougall, University of Alberta

In this paper I address the question of ‘historical myths’ and how they distort our interpretation of African History, except that I want to go further and argue that they can and do actually shape that history. My case study is contemporary Mali.

I draw on my previous publications about ways in which the Sahara was both constructed (literarily) to reflect European interests, fears and political interests (i.e. abolition of slavery), and simultaneously made to ‘disappear’ – to become the ‘Saharan void’ in which anything violent, cruel, deceitful, racist (anti-white), Muslim (anti-Christian ) and exploitative (slave raiding, slave trading) can and will occur. I also noted that what had not been yet explored in the context of these processes was the role of ‘the Sahara’s sahelian neighbours’, to wit: “Their relationship with the desert that in most cases actually forms part of their respective contemporary nation- states, is an extremely ambiguous one. To whatever extent historical images of religious and social conflict (coalescing around jihads and slave trading/raiding) are ‘constructs’, the reality remembered in these countries tends to reflect and reinforce them. . . . No matter that those nineteenth-century jihads and subsequent reactions to colonial rule brought the whole region firmly into the Muslim fold and that intellectually as well as through ‘familial’ networks, the desert and its sahelian margins are a societal unity – the images of the past are what are used to further the social and political goals of contemporary sedentary governments.”¹

I will link analyses of the recent crisis to this historiographic paradigm, showing how it played out in Mali’s early history but most significantly, in the recent war that challenged the very existence of national existence. The crisis itself reflected the dual nature of Malian identity – ‘sub-Saharan, Saharan’ as well as its differing understandings of ‘being Muslim’ -- once again, the Saharan ‘terrorist’ version as opposed to the sub-Saharan ‘moderate’ view. But the fuel to flames within Mali itself also drew largely on the legacies of slavery associated with the Sahara and Saharans. Mali’s present owes much to the myths and mysteries shrouding its Saharan past.
11. POLITICAL PROJECTS IN/AS SOURCES

Chair/Discussant: Lynne Brydon

Fante ‘origins’: the problematic evidence of ‘tradition’

Robin Law, University of Stirling

The Fante state was already in existence when detailed contemporary documentation of the area begins, in the early 17^th century, so that our perception of its origins and earlier history are primarily dependent on local oral traditions. However, such traditions are inherently problematic, since they evidently reflect views about political ideology and practice in recent times, as well as (and perhaps more than) the period to which they purportedly refer. Moreover, given the early establishment of literacy in this particular area, the content of local “traditions” has been compromised by “feedback” from published European sources. This paper will attempt to interpret and evaluate the stories told about the origins of the Fante polity, with particular reference to the supposed migration of its founders from the interior, and to accounts of the establishment of a central political authority.
Negotiating European presences in West-Africa in text: contemporary African historiographical responses to the reality and discourse of colonialism

Michel Doortmont, University of Groningen and African Studies Centre Leiden

This paper reviews the ways in which African intellectuals and activists reacted to the onslaught of European colonialism in the 19th century, by way of local and national histories, as well as cultural-historical texts. Over the past decades, many African historical texts and oral sources have become available through (critical) academic and other publications. This offers the opportunity to ask structured - and more generalised - questions about the nature of these texts and oral sources in relation to the discourse of colonialism. Issues addressed in this paper will include the ways in which literacy influenced the way in which African historical texts were presented, the intellectual revolution literacy brought about, including the possibilities it offered to respond to colonialism, and the formation of new African historigraphical traditions in the process.
.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
Ablͻɖe Safui (the Key to Freedom): writing the new nation in a West African border town

Kate Skinner, DASA, University of Birmingham

Scholars have long valued African-owned newspapers as sources for reconstructing C19 and C20 political and social histories. The most studied newspapers are those produced in the major cities, written in English or French, and preserved in national archives. By contrast, African-language newspapers, particularly those that were produced in rural areas, are often patchily preserved or difficult to translate. Ablͻɖe Safui is the only privately-owned Ewe-language publication which was sustained over a 20 year period, spanning decolonisation and the emergence of single-party authoritarian regimes in the new nation-states of Ghana and Togo. Evident within its pages are debates among rural Africans about the purpose of the state, the nature of Pan-African relationships and the impact of the Cold War, but whilst Ablͻɖe Safui is clearly a rare and valuable historical source, it is inadequate simply to mine its pages for data or to treat it unproblematically as a 'voice from below'. Given the ephemeral nature of many other African-language publications, we need to explain how and why this newspaper was produced, distributed and consumed over an extended period. In this paper I consider Ablͻɖe Safui as a personal project, doggedly pursued by a single owner-editor in a bid to establish his legitimacy as a spokesman for the many people who experience political independence as a disappointment.
Hermeneutics of Amharic literature: a philosophical reading.

Sara Marzagora, PhD candidate, SOAS, University of London

For decades, Amharic literature has been interpreted in a teleological way (Kane 1975, Fikre 1985). The early works of the first half of the 20^th century were not considered novels but merely ‘creative writings’ because their moralistic, allegorical structure. From the 1950s-1960s onwards, so the critical reading goes, the first accomplished novels were finally produced, in fully-fledged realist style. But when moving beyond aesthetic considerations and taking into account the social context in which these literary works were produced, it becomes clear that the didacticism, moral polarization and allegorical elements of Amharic literature were far from being the product of a lack of literary skills. They were rather in line with the philosophy of learning prevalent in Ethiopia at the time. Most Ethiopian fiction writers were also influential ideologues, and their literary works are imbued with their political ideas. Literature was often used as a fictional exemplification of wider socio-political arguments over the management of the Ethiopian state. In this context, moral didacticism becomes an element of strength, not of weakness. These literary works have never been employed before as historical sources – yet they prove invaluable to reconstruct the intellectual debates going on in Ethiopia at the time. Amharic literary history is indeed intrinsically intertwined with the development of Ethiopian political philosophy. To the question, “where can one find African philosophy?”, this paper, in line with Alena Rettova and Kai Kresse, answers that literature can certainly prove one of the major hosts of African philosophy.

1^ Ann McDougall, “Constructing Emptiness: Islam, Violence and Terror in the Historical Making of the Sahara” in Idem (Guest Ed.), The War on Terror in the Sahara, special issue Journal of Contemporary African Studies 25:1 (2007).