Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa

306 Pages·2012·2.959 MB·English

by  James McDougall, Judith Scheele (eds.)

SAHARAN FRONTIERS
Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa
Paul A. Silverstein, Susan Slyomovics,
and Ted Swedenburg
EDITORS
SAHARAN
FRONTIERS
Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa
EDITED BY
James McDougall and Judith Scheele
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
Th is book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
© 2012 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher. Th e Association of American University Presses’
Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to
this prohibition.
Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Saharan frontiers : space and mobility in Northwest Africa /
edited by James McDougall and Judith Scheele.
p. cm. — (Public cultures of the Middle East and North Africa)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00124-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00126-9
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00131-3 (e-book) 1. Africans—
Sahara—Migrations. 2. Sahara—Emigration and immigration. 3. Trade
routes—Sahara. 4. Sahara—Ethnic relations. 5. Africa, North—
Relations—Africa, West. 6. Africa, West—Relations—Africa, North.
I. McDougall, James, [date] II. Scheele, Judith, [date]
DT333.S27 2012
304.8'20966—dc23 2011049611
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Note on Spelling and Transliteration ix
Introduction 1
Time and Space in the Sahara
JUDITH SCHEELE AND JAMES MCDOUGALL
PART 1. FRAMING SAHARAN AFRICA
1. Situations Both Alike? 25
Connectivity, the Mediterranean, the Sahara
PEREGRINE HORDEN
2. On Being Saharan 39
E. ANN MCDOUGALL
3. Saharan Trade in Classical Antiquity 58
KATIA SCHÖRLE
4. Frontiers, Borderlands, and Saharan/World History 73
JAMES MCDOUGALL
PART 2. ENVIRONMENT, TERRITORY, AND COMMUNITY
5. The Rites of Baba Merzug 93
Diaspora, Ibadism, and Social Status in the Valley of the Mzab
FATMA OUSSEDIK
6. Celebrating Mawlid in Timimoun 109
Ritual as Words in Motion, Space as Time Stood Still
ABDERRAHMANE MOUSSAOUI
vi Contents
7. Villages and Crossroads 131
Changing Territorialities among the Tuareg of Northern Mali
CHARLES GRÉMONT
8. Ethnicity and Interdependence 146
Moors and Haalpulaaren in the Senegal Valley
OLIVIER LESERVOISIER
PART 3. STRANGERS, SPACE, AND LABOR
9. Mauritania and the New Frontier of Europe 165
From Transit to Residence
ARMELLE CHOPLIN
10. Living Together and Living Apart in Nouakchott 185
LAURENCE MARFAING
11. Cultural Interaction and the Artisanal Economy
in Tamanrasset 200
DIDA BADI
PART 4. ECONOMIES OF MOVEMENT
12. Notes on the Informal Economy in
Southern Morocco 215
MOHAMED OUDADA
13. Garage or Caravanserail 222
Saharan Connectivity in Al-Khalīl, Northern Mali
JUDITH SCHEELE
14. Movements of People and Goods 238
Local Impacts and Dynamics of Migration
to and through the Central Sahara
JULIEN BRACHET
Glossary 257
Bibliography 259
List of Contributors 283
Index 285
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Th is book developed from a series of conversations between the editors over sev-
eral years, arising from a convergence of interests between our separate projects
on the history and anthropology of northwest Africa, and more particularly from
a three-day, international, multidisciplinary conference, “Navigating Northwest
Africa: Towards an Analysis of Saharan Connectivity?,” which was held at
Magdalen College, Oxford, in September 2008. Most of the chapters in this volume
originated as papers presented at that conference. Th e meeting was generously
sponsored by a number of institutions without whose support this project would
not have been possible, and we are very happy to be able to record our thanks
to them: Magdalen College, Oxford; the International Migration Institute at the
James Martin 21st Century School, University of Oxford; the Middle East Centre,
St. Antony’s College, Oxford; the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford;
the Oxford Research Network on Government in Africa; the Khalid Abdallah Al
Saud Chair for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of
Oxford; the African Studies Association (UK); the Moroccan-British Society; and
the Maison Française, Oxford.
We are grateful to Hein de Haas, Clive Holes, Michael Willis, and Benedetta
Rossi, who as panel chairs and discussants not only facilitated discussion of
the papers but also provided invaluable comments from their diff erent areas of
expertise. Our students at the School of Oriental and African Studies and Oxford
(especially those in James McDougall’s undergraduate class “Th e Saharan World:
Society, Culture, and Politics in Northwest Africa” at SOAS in 2008–2009, and in
our jointly taught graduate seminar “History and Anthropology in the Sahara” at
Oxford in 2010–2011) have been thoughtful and constructive (if unwitting) audi-
ences on whom many of the ideas in this book have been tried out.
Bringing the volume to completion has taken—of course—rather longer
than we originally anticipated, and we would like to thank all the contributors
for their patience as well as for their timeliness in responding to our queries and
requests. Katia Schörle, Charles Grémont, Armelle Choplin, and most especially
Julien Brachet deserve additional and heartfelt thanks for providing expertly
drawn maps in unreasonably quick time. Apart from chapters 1–4 and 13, all of the
contributions to this book were originally written in French, and were translated
viii Acknowledgments
by the editors. Each chapter was subsequently revised by both editors in collabora-
tion with each author. While the ideas and arguments of these chapters, as well as
the original research on which they are based, are therefore entirely the property
of their authors, any infelicities or errors in their expression are the responsibility
of the editors.
NOTE ON SPELLING
AND TRANSLITERATION
For the sake of clarity, words in Berber, Arabic, or other West African languages
have been transliterated according to the simplest available method in each case.
For Arabic, we have adopted a simplifi ed transliteration showing long vowels with
a macron (awlād) and indicating the ‘ayn (sharī‘a), but we have not used diacritics
to indicate emphatic consonants. Hamza is indicated when it occurs mid-word
(qā’id), in a phrase (bi’smi-llāh), or at the end of a plural form (shurafā’). Place
names and proper names are given in the most familiar form in use in the region,
elsewhere in the English-language literature, and on the most widely available
maps (especially Michelin map 741, “Africa North and West”). We depart from
widespread conventions only in a few cases for precision of transliteration, e.g.,
qsar instead of ksar, qsūr instead of ksur/ksour, shaykh instead of sheikh/cheikh.