Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T05:17:11.102Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Shirts of the Donso Hunters: materiality and power between concealment and visual display

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2019

Lorenzo Ferrarini Open the ORCID record for Lorenzo Ferrarini [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This article looks at the characteristic shirts of the donso, or initiated Mande hunters. Often described in the literature as visual displays of the wearer’s power, in the context of contemporary Burkina Faso these shirts are instead an example of how hunters deal with representations of power through an aesthetics of concealment (Ferme 2001). An excess of display is conversely connected with the politics of state-recognized hunters’ associations. Issues of ecological change, local conceptions of power, and contemporary struggles with state authority intersect in the practices and discourses on hunters’ shirts.

Résumé:

Cet article se penche sur les chemises caractéristiques des donso ou chasseurs initiés du Mandé. Souvent décrites dans la littérature comme des visualisations de la puissance du porteur, dans le contexte contemporain burkinabé ces chemises sont plutôt un exemple de la façon dont les chasseurs traitent les représentations du pouvoir par une esthétique de la dissimulation (Ferme 2001). Un excès d’affichage est inversement lié à la politique des associations de chasseurs reconnues par l’État. Les enjeux de changements écologiques, les conceptions locales du pouvoir et les luttes contemporaines avec l’autorité de l’État se recoupent dans les pratiques et les discours sur les chemises des chasseurs.

Keywords

Burkina FasoClothingDonsoyaHuntingMaterialityPowerSecrecyVisibility
Type
FORUM: The Power of Performance—the Performance of Power
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 76 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allman, Jean Marie, ed. 2004. Fashioning Africa: Power and the Politics of Dress. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Alpers, Svetlana. 1991. “The Museum as a Way of Seeing.” In Exhibiting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, edited by Karp, I. and Lavine, S. D.. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press (25–32).Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511819582CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1983. The Fashion System. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Bassett, Thomas J. 2003. “Dangerous Pursuits: Hunter Associations (Donzo Ton) and National Politics in Cote d’Ivoire.” Africa 73:1–30.10.3366/afr.2003.73.1.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassett, Thomas J. 2005. “Card-Carrying Hunters, Rural Poverty, and Wildlife Decline in Northern Cote d’Ivoire.” Geographical Journal 171:24–35.10.1111/j.1475-4959.2005.00147.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellman, Beryl L. 1981. “The Paradox of Secrecy.” Human Studies 4:1–24.10.1007/BF02127445CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, Charles S. 1972. “Heroic Songs of the Mande Hunters.” In African folklore, edited by Dorson, R. M.. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (274–94).Google Scholar
Bledsoe, Caroline H., and Robey, Kenneth M.. 1986. “Arabic Literacy and Secrecy among the Mende of Sierra-Leone.” Man 21:202–26.10.2307/2803157CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bravmann, René A. 1983. African Islam. Washington DC, London: Smithsonian Institution Press; Ethnographica.Google Scholar
Brett-Smith, Sarah C. 1983. “The Poisonous Child.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 6:47–64.Google Scholar
Brett-Smith, Sarah C. 2001. “When Is an Object Finished? The Creation of the Invisible among the Bamana of Mali.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 39:102–36.Google Scholar
Brett-Smith, Sarah C. 2014. The Silence of Women: Bamana Mud Cloths. Milan: 5 Continents.Google Scholar
Cashion, Gerald A. 1984. “Hunters of the Mande: A Behavioral Code and Worldview Derived from the Study of Their Folklore.” PhD Thesis, Indiana University, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Charry, Eric. 2000. Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cissé, Youssouf. 1994. La confrérie des chasseurs Malinké et Bambara: mythes, rites et récits initiatiques. Ivry, Paris: Editions Nouvelles du Sud; Association ARSAN.Google Scholar
Colleyn, Jean-Paul. 2004. “L’alliance, le dieu, l’objet.” L’Homme 170:61–77.Google Scholar
Cox, Rupert A. 2002. The Zen Arts: An Anthropological Study of the Culture of Aesthetics Form in Japan. London: Routledge Curzon.Google Scholar
Donne, J. B. 1973. “Bogolanfini: A Mud-Painted Cloth from Mali.” Man 8 (1):104–7.10.2307/2800615CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eden, Sally and Bear, Christopher. 2011. “Reading the River through ‘watercraft’: Environmental Engagement through Knowledge and Practice in Freshwater Angling.” Cultural Geographies 18 (3):297–314.10.1177/1474474010384913CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Elizabeth, Gosden, Chris, and Phillips, Ruth B.. 2006. “Introduction.” In Sensible Objects: Colonialism, Museums and Material Culture, edited by Edwards, E., Gosden, C., and Phillips, R. B.. Oxford; New York: Berg (1–31).Google Scholar
Entwistle, Joanne. 2000. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge; Malden, Mass.: Polity Press; Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ferme, Mariane C. 2001. The underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley; London: University of California Press.10.1525/california/9780520225428.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferme, Mariane C., and Hoffman, Danny. 2004. “Hunter Militias and the International Human Rights Discourse in Sierra Leone and beyond.” Africa Today 50:73–95.10.1353/at.2004.0043CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrarini, Lorenzo. 2014. “Ways of Knowing Donsoya: Environment, Embodiment and Perception among the Hunters of Burkina Faso.” PhD Thesis, University of Manchester, Manchester. Retrieved January 5, 2016 (https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:227214).Google Scholar
Ferrarini, Lorenzo. 2016. “The Dankun Network: The Donso Hunters of Burkina Faso between Ecological Change and New Associations.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 34 (1):80–96.10.1080/02589001.2016.1190529CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Förster, Till. 2012. “Imagining the Nation: Independence Ceremonies under Rebel Domination in Northern Côte d’Ivoire.” African Arts 45 (3):42–55.10.1162/AFAR_a_00010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Kathleen R., and Ingold, Tim. 1993. Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Judith L. 1995. “The Female Aesthetic Community.” In The traffic in culture: refiguring art and anthropology, edited by Marcus, G. E. and Myers, F. R.. Berkeley: University of California Press (310–29).Google Scholar
Grasseni, Cristina. 2007. Skilled Visions: Between Apprenticeship and Standards. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Hagberg, Sten. 1998. Between Peace and Justice: Dispute Settlement between Karaboro Agriculturalists and Fulbe Agro-Pastoralists in Burkina Faso. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Hagberg, Sten. 2004. “Political Decentralization and Traditional Leadership in the Benkadi Hunters’ Association in Western Burkina Faso.” Africa Today 50:51–70.10.1353/at.2004.0047CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagberg, Sten. 2006. “‘It Was Satan That Took the People’: The Making of Public Authority in Burkina Faso.” Development and Change 37:779–97.10.1111/j.1467-7660.2006.00501.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Karen Tranberg, and Soyini Madison, D, eds. 2013. African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.10.2752/9781474280068CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haraway, Donna J. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Mark, ed. 2007. Ways of Knowing: Anthropological Approaches to Crafting Experience and Knowledge. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Hellweg, Joseph. 2009. “Hunters, Ritual, and Freedom: Dozo Sacrifice as a Technology of the Self in the Benkadi Movement of Cote d’Ivoire.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15:36–56.10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.01529.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellweg, Joseph. 2011. Hunting the Ethical State: The Benkadi Movement of Cote d’Ivoire. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226326559.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henare, Amiria J. M., Holbraad, Martin, and Wastell, Sari, eds. 2007. Thinking through Things. London: UCL.10.4324/9780203088791CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imperato, Pascal James, and Shamir, Marli. 1970. “Bokolanfini: Mud Cloth of the Bamana of Mali.” African Arts 3 (4):32–80.10.2307/3345905CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim. 2007. “Materials against Materiality.” Archaeological Dialogues 1 (14):1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Michael. 1983. “Knowledge of the Body.” Man 18:327–45.10.2307/2801438CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansen, Jan. 2000. “The Mande Magical Mystery Tour—the Mission Griaule in Kangaba (Mali).” Mande Studies 2:97–114.Google Scholar
Jansen, Jan. 2008. “From Guild to Rotary: Hunters’ Associations and Mali’s Search for a Civil Society.” International Review of Social History 53:249–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keane, Webb. 2005. “Signs Are Not the Garb of Meaning: On the Social Analysis of Material Things.” In Materiality, edited by Miller, D.. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press (182–205).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kedzierska, Agnieszka. 2006. “De la violence et de la maîtrise: habitus et idéologie cynégétiques mandingues.” Thèse de doctorat, INALCO, Paris.Google Scholar
Kedzierska-Manzon, Agnès. 2013. “Humans and Things: Mande ‘Fetishes’ as Subjects.” Anthropological Quarterly 86 (4):1119–51.10.1353/anq.2013.0054CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohn, Eduardo. 2007. “How Dogs Dream: Amazonian Natures and the Politics of Transspecies Engagement.” American Ethnologist 34 (1):3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krmpotich, Cara, Fontein, Joost, and Harries, John. 2010. “The Substance of Bones: The Emotive Materiality and Affective Presence of Human Remains.” Journal of Material Culture 15 (4):371–84.10.1177/1359183510382965CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Küchler, Susanne, and Miller, Daniel, eds. 2005. Clothing as Material Culture. Oxford; New York: Berg.10.2752/9780857854056CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leach, Melissa. 2000. “New Shapes to Shift: War, Parks and the Hunting Person in Modern West Africa.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6:577–95.10.1111/1467-9655.00034CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leach, Melissa. 2004. “Introduction to Special Issue: Security, Socioecology, Polity: Mande Hunters, Civil Society, and Nation-States in Contemporary West Africa.” Africa Today 50:vii–xvi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lurie, Alison. 1981. The Language of Clothes. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Marchand, Trevor. 2009. The Masons of Djenné. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
McNaughton, Patrick R. 1979. Secret Sculptures of Komo : Art and Power in Bamana (Bambara) Initiation Associations. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar
McNaughton, Patrick R. 1982a. “Language, Art, Secrecy and Power: The Semantics of Dalilu.” Anthropological Linguistics 24 (4):487–505.Google Scholar
McNaughton, Patrick R. 1982b. “The Shirts That Mande Hunters Wear.” African Arts 15:54–58 & 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNaughton, Patrick R. 1987. “Nyamakalaw - the Mande Bards and Blacksmiths.” Word & Image 3:271–88.10.1080/02666286.1987.10435385CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNaughton, Patrick R. 1988. The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, B., and Verrips, J.. 2008. “Aesthetics.” P. xv, 240 p. in Key words in religion, media and culture, edited by Morgan, D.. New York; London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Miller, Daniel, ed. 2005. Materiality. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 1988. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mommersteeg, Geert. 1990. “Allah’s Words as Amulet.” Etnofoor 3 (1):63–76.Google Scholar
Murphy, William P. 1998. “The Sublime Dance of Mende Politics: An African Aesthetic of Charismatic Power.” American Ethnologist 25 (4):563–82.10.1525/ae.1998.25.4.563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadasdy, Paul. 2007. “The Gift in the Animal: The Ontology of Hunting and Human-Animal Sociality.” American Ethnologist 34:25–43.10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1932. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. edited by Hartshorne, C. and Weiss, P.. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Piot, C. D. 1993. “Secrecy, Ambiguity, and the Everyday in Kabre Culture.” American Anthropologist 95:353–70.10.1525/aa.1993.95.2.02a00050CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Royer, Patrick. 1996. “In Pursuit of Tradition: Local Cults and Religious Conversion among the Sambla of Burkina Faso.” University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Tilley, Christopher. 2004. The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Traoré, Karim. 2000. Le jeu et le sérieux: essai d’anthropologie littéraire sur la poésie épique des chasseurs du Mande (Afrique de l’Ouest). Köln: R. Köppe.Google Scholar
Traoré, Karim. 2004. “The Intellectuals and the Hunters: Reflections on the conference ‘La Rencontre Des Chasseurs de I’Afrique de I’Ouest.’” Africa Today 50:97–111.10.1353/at.2004.0055CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wacquant, Loïc. 2015. “For a Sociology of Flesh and Blood.” Qualitative Sociology 38 (1):1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, Gail, and Haber, Honi Fern, eds. 1999. Perspectives on Embodiment the Intersections of Nature and Culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Woodward, Sophie. 2007. Why Women Wear What They Wear. New York: Berg.10.2752/9781847883483CrossRefGoogle Scholar