WORKING PAPER 3 - Le temps des «Bilgueitts»: un village «maraboutique» Sahélien au XXIème siècle
Creators: name: FREIRE, Francisco
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2010
Subjects: Identidade
Sahel
Mauritânia
Tribo
Islão
Identity
Mauritania
Tribe
Islam
Identité
Mauritanie
Tribu

description: <strong>Abstract</strong> The November 2006 local elections in the Sahelian village of Taguilalett in southwestern Mauritania, with its contemporary political debates pushed the operative limits of received wisdom and traditional anthropological knowledge of the region. In this paper I focus on the zwâya (“maraboutic”)status of the Awlâd Sidi al-Valli (a fraction of the Awlâd Daiman tribe), as debated during the electoral campaign. This qabila that is traditionally reputed for Islamic knowledge and whose members are known for their “noble”, humble and pious character removed from worldly interests, currently exhibits other forms of social definition, thereby clearly redefining the qabila’s traditional role as religious specialists. This community, which is paradigmatic of a long regional tradition of Islamic knowledge, seems today to discuss its modes of identification with other elements, mitigating any simplistic reading of statutary appurtenance (cf. Cleaveland 1998; Taylor 2002). I provide an ethnographic description of various different scapes (Appadurai 1996) that are pertinent to village life, thus completing a discussion of its contemporary tropes,which, as I show, are largely dissociated from the traditional “maraboutic” order (cf. Norris 1969; Stewart 1973; Marchesin 1992).The “political” objects that permeated this relatively remote corner of southwestern Mauritania quickly took one to other, less desert-like contexts where the songs, the t-shirts, caps, pins, stickers and pens are already well-known conventions for political debate. All of this dashed any romantic (anthropological?!) hopes of working with a pristine “ethical community”, deeply attached to Islamic learning. The zwâya in this region, while historically celebrated for its great 'ulama, for the reserve of its women, and the education of its children, should also be considered as a community clearly imbricated in global capitalism, or with new models of professional and individual achievement (Haenni 2005), as so clearly illustrated in the moniker Bill Gates (Bilgueitts, in Hassaniyya) used for one important politician. I will discuss these new elements of identity with the presence of “classical” analytical forms (centered in rural tribal spheres), suggesting a reconfiguration, or, at least, an acute revision of overly standardized conceptual approaches. The discussions studied in this Muslim tribal milieu also points to a fundamental de-essentialisation of the Islamic contexts (even if working in a community reputed for its Islamic knowledge), re-defining a social context that today only includes Islam as one of its many different anchors of identity. The current worldwide Islamic resurgence (Bayat 2007; Deeb 2006; Mahmud 2005; Wickham 2002) is not directly studied here, however, the traditional “maraboutic” status of the group and its reconfiguration, might signal fundamental changes in the way “Islamic” daily life is to be understood.