Senegal: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Steven J. Salm
Department of History
Xavier University of Louisiana
I attended the CIEE International Development Seminar, “Senegal: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” from 10 to 22 June, 2005. The seminar was an unmitigated success! Our co-hosts, Serigne Ndiaye and Catherine Menyhart of CIEE, scheduled a variety of informative and provocative lectures and activities and organized the complex logistics in a remarkably efficient manner. My objectives in attending the seminar were to enhance my overall knowledge of Senegal, experience Senegal’s culture and history first-hand, expand the breadth of my teaching and scholarship, encourage students to pursue study abroad opportunities, and establish professional links with Senegalese academics and seminar participants. The ten-day seminar met all of my objectives.
The daily schedule included a mixture of lecture and sight visits. Speakers from a wide range of disciplines at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop and others from local NGOs presented us with information on historical and present-day politics, the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, religion and Islamic Brotherhoods, literature, development, and social issues such as family life, health, and education. In addition, the group engaged in invaluable excursions that reinforced much of what we had heard in the lectures. These included a visit to the IFAN Museum in Dakar, where we viewed various aspects of Senegalese and West African traditional cultures, and a trip to historic sights on the former slave-trading island of Gorée, including the Maison des Esclaves, the Musée de la Femme, and the IFAN museum. We also spent a weekend at Toubab Dialaw, a village outside of Dakar that hosts a cultural workshop where visitors can participate in drumming, dancing, and batik making. Gorée Island, in particular, provided the opportunity to see the slave trading fortresses and collect photographs that I will be able to integrate into my classroom presentations. We also visited the West African Research Center, the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, a local bookstore, and the FORUT Media Centre de Dakar. These visits provided invaluable resources that will become useful in future research visits. The Media Centre was most impressive! The directors not only train aspiring Senegalese filmmakers in the techniques they need to make films and provide students with the necessary equipment, they also focus on producing documentaries designed to address and alleviate major community problems and promote development. The focus on transforming youth frustrations and utilizing community participation to identify problems was very interesting. Youth collect data, perform visibility studies, define the problem, create and produce a film, and then show it to the community as a way of creating debate and dialogue that can move toward implementation. This impressive program is punctuated each year by the Festival du Film de Quartiers, now the largest film festival in Senegal.
The information, books, and visual resources that I acquired in the lectures and sight visits will be a useful tool in enhancing classroom instruction. As an Africanist, I was already familiar with many of the general ideas covered by the lecturers but more specific details about Senegal and personal anecdotes will improve my teaching of World Civilizations, Black Atlantic, and the History of Africa. Photographs will also be useful in elucidating ideas in these classes as well as the History of Popular Culture in Africa. I can combine the information and images of other slave trading centers such as Elmina Castle in Ghana and Bunce Island in Sierra Leone with those of Gorée Island to make discussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the Black Atlantic and World Civilizations courses more effective. My experiences in Senegal also made me more aware of the impressive genres of Senegalese/Francophone literature, music, and film and allowed me to expand my knowledge of Senegalese popular culture, general urban and youth history, and further analyze the impact of globalization on African cultures. Of course, in a seminar with 21 people, conversations with colleagues also contribute to new pedagogical ideas. In discussion of syllabi, I became aware of new books and lecture topics that I will be able to incorporate into my various courses.
Although I have lived and traveled in Ghana and Sierra Leone a number of years, Senegal was a new experience for me that will enhance my classroom teaching and inform future research activities for years to come. My current research interests are youth, urban, and popular culture; Dakar, the capital of Senegal, had plenty of all to offer in abundance. I was able to collect numerous photographs depicting cultural hybridity and the impact of westernization in Senegal. It is clear that Senegalese youth look toward the United States for many of their cultural influences but it is certainly not a case of cultural hegemony imposed by the Western world. Dakar youth adopt and adapt outside influences to their own particular environment. For example, I had the pleasure of attending evening concerts by Saintrick and Coumba Gawlo Seck at L’Institut Français Léopold Sedar Senghor. The opening acts included young Senegalese rappers who clearly mimicked some of the features of Western rap and hip-hop, but also mixed local languages with French and addressed topics relating to their environment. One of the most impressive cultural experiences for me was being able to attend a concert of Orchestra Baobab, one of the original Senegalese popular bands from the early 1970s. The band split up for almost twenty years and has reunited only recently. Seeing this show reinforced my knowledge of the shared musical influences, including Samba, Rumba, and Jazz, that came together to create new forms of popular music not just in Ghana but also throughout West Africa. I commend Serigne and Catherine for keeping abreast of evening cultural events such as these. The cultural hybridity of Senegal can be seen in the many photographs that I collected. Some of these include a traditional griot singer/musician dressed in a Charlotte Hornets warm-up suit, the complexity of the architecture that dots Dakar’s landscape, the creativity in advertisements and dress, and of course the wide variety of tourist art sold in every corner of the city. As I had hoped, my experiences in Senegal will help me to broaden the range of my current research and take a more truly West African approach by intellectually blurring some of the arbitrary lines drawn during the colonial era.
The last goal of attending the IFDS in Senegal was to gather information on CIEE’s study abroad program and disseminate it to Xavier students. I would have no doubt whatsoever recommending this program to undergraduates looking to spend a year in Africa. Senegal is a stable and progressive country. The study program, situated on Suffolk University’s Dakar campus, offers unique opportunities for students wishing to improve their French and/or learn Wolof, as well as for those in history, political science, sociology, business, and most other disciplines. CIEE arranges for students to live with families around the campus area, providing an excellent opportunity to not only learn about a culture but to live in it. Many students also engage in research projects or participate in community service projects and internships while in Senegal.
With the support of administration and the Center for International and Intercultural Programs, Xavier is making great strides toward internationalizing the curriculum and increasing student involvement in study abroad programs, but we need to increase faculty support as well. I look forward not only to the opportunity of incorporating data and images of Senegalese history and society into my classroom teaching and enhancing my present and future research activities, but also to making presentations to colleagues and students that will further these goals. Study abroad experiences for Xavier students will lead to an increased appreciation of local and global issues and contribute to a better understanding of their role as future leaders in constructing “a more just and humane society,” an important part of Xavier University’s educational mission. I wish to express my gratitude to CIEE and the ExxonMobil Fellowship for making my participation in the seminar possible. I look forward to acting as a reference for future IFDS participants and working with CIEE again.