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POST-SLAVERY REFRACTIONS: SUBJECTIVITY AND SLAVE DESCENT IN A GAMBIAN LIFE STORY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2016

Paolo Gaibazzi
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Abstract

The article draws on the life story of Musa, a Soninke man from a Gambian village, to shed light on the experience and subjective dimension of slave descent in West Africa. After spending most of his life abroad as a migrant, Musa retired to his home village and came to terms with his status identity as a slave descendant. Rather than by status hierarchies alone, however, Musa's social position was modulated by other aspirations and obligations, particularly those inherent in becoming an elder and a returnee. These predicaments of the self, constructed on the basis of age, masculinity and cosmopolitan knowledge, shaped his life and delineated the space in which he variously interpreted and navigated the legacy of slavery. By foregrounding the ways in which slave descent is dynamically refracted by this broader process of self-making, this article thus goes beyond a framework centred primarily on fixed status identities and on the dynamics of resistance/submission, highlighting instead the multifaceted, even contradictory, positioning of slave descendants in post-slavery Senegambia.

Résumé

Cet article s’appuie sur l’histoire de la vie de Musa, un Soninké d’un village de Gambie, pour apporter un éclairage sur l’expérience et la dimension subjective de la descendance d’esclaves en Afrique de l’Ouest. Après avoir passé l’essentiel de son existence à l’étranger en tant que migrant, Musa est revenu dans son village natal et s’est accommodé de l’identité liée à son statut de descendant d’esclave. La position sociale de Musa a été modulée par des hiérarchies de statut, mais aussi par d’autres aspirations et obligations inhérentes, notamment, au fait de devenir un ancien et un émigré rentré au pays. Ces difficultés du soi fondé sur l’âge, la masculinité et un savoir cosmopolite, ont façonné sa vie et délimité l’espace dans lequel il a interprété l’héritage de l’esclavage et composé avec lui. Cet article, en mettant en avant la manière dont ce processus plus large d’auto-réalisation réfracte dynamiquement la descendance d’esclaves, va au-delà d’un cadre essentiellement centré sur des identités figées liées au statut et sur la dynamique de résistance/soumission, mettant en lumière le positionnement multiforme, voire contradictoire, des descendants d’esclaves en Sénégambie post-esclavage.

Type
Slavery Today
Information
Africa , Volume 86 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 405 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2016 

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