senegal presentation
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Senegal: Elements of History and Culture, and Research on Sustainable Development
Research by Rachel Signer from summer 2010
Elements of Senegalese History
• Some background:• Senegal was the center of the West African
slave trade• Dakar, the capital city, was the capital of
French West Africa (the colonial territory)• Dakar is now a bustling city and center of
international black and African culture, arts, politics, education
Food
• Meals served family-style, sitting on the floor, eaten with hands, mother breaks up fish or meat and distributes according to hierarchy
Religion
• Mystical Islam, or Sufism, is the main religion in Senegal, with a small Christian minority
Religion, cont.
• Koranic education typical for many Senegalese • Islamic culture gives power to men• Prayer 5 times per day• Fasting during month of Ramadan• Beliefs about how to be a good person (ethics)• Sufism characterized by tolerance, openness
toward other belief systems
Religion, cont.
• Religion creates important social ties; society is divided into Sufi Brotherhoods
Religion, cont.
• Senegalese rastafarians: the Baye-Falls, practice a more flexible version of Islam
Kinship
• Family is cornerstone of society; mothers govern the home and fathers are responsible for working to support family
Kinship, cont.
• Children are often cared for by multiple relatives, not necessarily just parents
• Respect for elders
•Young girls help out with housework from early age; shows strong character
Kinship, cont.
• Marriage is often arranged; usually people marry within their “caste”; a person from a griot family would marry another griot; with modernity this is changing
• Homosexuality is virtually “nonexistent”• A girl over the age of 18 is considered to be
getting too old to be single; this too is changing as more women pursue education
Development issues in Senegal
• Rural-urban divide; urban capital very developed while rural areas have little
• Lack of trustworthy infrastructure (electrical outages on regular basis, water shortages)
• Serious agricultural problems as small farmers cannot produce enough to support themselves and large farms don’t really exist; thus a poor, rural country must import food
• Malaria is prevalent• High youth unemployment• Corruption and debt problems in national government
Research in northern Senegalese village
• Needs-assessment: What does this community need in order to improve their collective quality of life?
• Divided up into research teams, focusing on specific topics: agriculture, fishing, herding, environment, gender, social/cultural, etc.
Research, cont.• Sustainable
development: defined as the ability of a community to maintain its own long-term progress, according to its needs and wishes (can outsiders really do this?)
• Methods: interviews, participant-observation
Research, cont.
• My group focused on the sociocultural needs: religion, social equality, leadership, music/arts, traditional culture
Results of research
• Community would benefit from strong youth leadership (but this might be antithetical to culture that reveres elders)
• Franco-Islamic education model would be best due to importance of religion alongside need for Western (“formal”) education
• Traditional recipes and agriculture should be revitalized to promote health
• Cultural Center should exist to help community preserve artistic traditions and create new ones
That’s it!
• The End!
• Go to Africa, it’s amazing. =)
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