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Addressing drought through rural religious communities in Senegal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Laura L. Cochrane
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Abstract

Severe ecological changes across the Sahel have created a difficult environment for agriculture and rural village economies. Rural communities, while small in scale, are creating new ways to transform their degraded environment. Their small size allows them to develop location-specific strategies to manage and improve water, soil and agriculture. This article focuses on two Sufi communities (daaras) in Senegal that integrate environmental work and spirituality. Religious organizations are influential in Senegal, as is the idea that labour is a part of both personal spirituality and shared religious teachings. As agriculture continues to be disrupted because of climate fluctuations, creating a habitable environment relies on applying region-specific agricultural science, and working through local structures. These conceptions of labour, along with the religious structures that support their work, make environmental projects spiritually significant, and also transformative for agriculture in a challenging environment.

Résumé

Résumé

Des changements écologiques profonds dans tout le Sahel ont créé un environnement difficile pour l'agriculture et les économies des villages ruraux. Des communautés rurales, quoique de taille modeste, créent de nouvelles manières de transformer leur environnement dégradé. Leur petite taille leur permet de développer des stratégies localisées pour gérer et améliorer l'eau, les sols et l'agriculture. Cet article s'intéresse à deux communautés soufies (daaras) au Sénégal, qui intègrent travail environnemental et spiritualité. Les organisations religieuses sont influentes au Sénégal, tout comme l'est l'idée que le travail fait partie de la spiritualité individuelle et des enseignements religieux partagés. Alors que les fluctuations climatiques continuent de perturber l'agriculture, la création d'un environnement habitable repose sur l'application de sciences agricoles spécifiques à la région et sur le travail réalisé dans des structures locales. Ces conceptions du travail, avec les structures religieuses qui soutiennent leur travail, rendent les projets environnementaux spirituellement significatifs mais aussi transformatifs pour l'agriculture dans un environnement difficile.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 90 , Issue 2 , February 2020 , pp. 339 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2020

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