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Recharting Atlantic encounters. Object trajectories and histories of value in the Siin (Senegal) and Senegambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2010

François G. Richard
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Abstract

The Atlantic era marks a turbulent period in the history of Senegambia, defined by dramatic reconfigurations in local socio-economic conditions. These ‘global encounters’ have often been equated with the subjection of African societies to the whims of an expanding capitalist economy. While the long-term effects of the Atlantic economy cannot be denied, conventional histories have often prioritized macro-trends and generalized process, thus glossing the complex mosaic of experiences that constituted the African Atlantic. By contrast, a closer look at how different categories of objects were consumed and circulated over time may provide more nuanced assessments of the impact of global forces on coastal societies. This article examines how these material entanglements took place in the Siin (Senegal), by following the social trajectories of several classes of objects in space and time, and charting their enmeshment in regimes of value, patterns of action, forms of power and historical experience. Combining these empirical insights with a broader theoretical reflection, the paper attempts to draw out the implications of rethinking the historical space of the African Atlantic through a more intimate engagement with the historicities, contingencies and materialities that fashioned African historical experiences. While this shift in conceptual priorities inevitably creates new silences, I suggest that it also re-establishes Africans as cultural and historical subjects, firmly grounded in world history, and that this perspective can provide a point of departure for the production of alternative historical imaginations and subjectivities.

Keywords

African Atlanticproblem-spacematerialityhistoricityvalueSenegambia
Type
Discussion Article
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , June 2010 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

Notes

1 The full speech (in French) can be read at the website of the Elysée: http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/interventions/2007/juillet/allocution_a_l_universite_de_dakar.79184.html and at http://www.ldh-toulon.net/spip.php?article2173. Elsewhere, Fassin (2007) has critiqued Nicolas Sarkozy for his ‘rhetorics of confusion’ – the art of arguing one thing and its obverse at the same time – a narrative mode which certainly transpires in the Dakar allocution. Diouf (in Ndoye 2007), Mbembe (2007), and Thioub (2007) have analysed some of the contradictions, empty generalizations, inaccuracies and historical shortcuts that litter the speech.

2 David Scott (2004; also 1999) sees ‘problem-spaces’ as discursive configurations that envelop historical inquiry, and shape the mode and conduct of thinking, the kinds of questions and answers one pursues, and the imaginations and political projects enabled by these inquiries. Problem-spaces are themselves situated in particular political and historical fields, to whose conditions they respond.

3 Research to date suggests that Siin's supposedly ‘strong’ monarchy may have been caught in a far more dynamic relationship with its subordinate provinces. From the 16th century onwards, the Siin kingdom appears to have oscillated between phases of greater centralization and political dispersion, in response to shifts in ambient economic and social forces. A more complete account of the history of political power and its cultural logics in Siin can be found in Richard (2007, chapter 10; n.d.).

4 For a more elaborate treatment of the research design and methodology, and description of the survey and excavation results, see Richard (2007, chapter 7, 580, 583, 727–46).

5 Note that the production and consumption of indigenous alcohol remains poorly documented even into recent periods, making it difficult to understand the history of entanglement between imported liquor and local beverages. We may also wonder whether local alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages remained valued over imported ones for certain activities, functions and contexts, and for how long. Until recently, soum-soum, a liquor made of the pulp of cashew apples, was still produced in Siin, but whether it is a long-standing distilling tradition or a response to Atlantic imports is difficult to ascertain clearly.

6 We should, however, note that a persistent problem in bottle analysis is the phenomenon of reuse, which applies to glass containers of all kinds. For instance, one cannot infer with absolute certainty that an imported gin bottle found archaeologically would have necessarily contained gin, and it is likely that empty bottles would have been put to other tasks. In the absence of residue analysis, archaeological contexts, associated artefacts and historical texts can help to strengthen our interpretations of bottle usage.

7 If alcool de traite was a consistent fixture of the 19th-century political economic landscape in Siin, glass assemblages are not reducible to hard liquor only. Peppermint alcohol, mineral water and cosmetic and pharmaceutical bottles offer additional clues to the circulation of glass objects within local practices of consumption (Richard 2007, 608–9).