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SECRECY AND THE STATE: THE KANKURANG MASQUERADE IN SENEGAL
This chapter evaluates the use of digital communication in contemporary Africa with the goal of rationalizing its effects on structural layers of African culture. Digital communication has impacted African culture, especially at the material and behavioral layers. This impact is arguably beneficial in terms of easing quality of life and enhancing communication. Nonetheless, the African reinvention of the use of telephone, which incorporates elements of African culture, demonstrates that cultural effect is not a one-way event where the inventor completely influences a passive culture. Instead, Africa has adopted digital communication through a process of rationalization and reinvention that has changed digital communication to satisfy Africa’s cultural needs. Thus, the changes that Africa experiences demonstrate this choice making that is not uninformed, passive, or without agency.
Ménard investigates the transformations of the Poro secret society in a context of migration and the way these reflect and inform dynamics of social change. The chapter explores the resilience of Poro among Sherbros in Sierra Leone, in a region that has recently attracted a large population of migrants. Relations between Sherbros and migrants are grounded in the use of the host–stranger sociocultural idiom, which regulates social obligations between groups and implies the incorporation of migrants into local communities through Poro initiation. As migrants increasingly refuse initiation, the place of Poro in the political and cultural domains is being renegotiated. The chapter demonstrates that while the Poro society becomes progressively disconnected from local politics, it takes on renewed importance within the religious and cultural spheres.
This article examines the traditional initiation of the former Senegalese Minister of Agriculture. At the age of fifty-five the Catholic Minister was initiated into the secrets of the sacred grove and thus acquired the status of adult man. The article demonstrates that Jola ethnic discourse, in which male initiation has become an important symbol, forced the Minister to enter the grove. His initiation turned him into a full member of the Jola ethnic group and qualified him as a trustworthy man capable of representing the people. In the campaign of the Socialist Party internal elections the Minister's initiation nevertheless became a major issue. The electorate did not show unswerving loyalty to 'their' Minister and nominated a non-initiate. The electorate suddenly changed their standards of apt political representation. The article contributes to the contemporary debate on citizenship and primary patriotism by showing that the Senegalese easily shift their position from subject to citizen, and thus empower themselves vis-à-vis elusive politicians. It also shows that politicians penetrate Jola practices of secrecy and thereby further the Jola's integration into the national public sphere.
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