Writing the Self in Rural Mali

Domestic Archives and Genres of Personal Writing

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2102886
AutoresAissatou Mbodj-Pouye (0000-0002-5191-1408, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen83
Número2
Páginas205-226
Fecha de publicación2013-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAfrica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0001972013000016
OpenAlexW1970545176
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas24

In a comparative perspective, literacy has been closely associated with techniques of the self and with the emergence of modern subjectivities. But what happens when literacy is developed without genres such as diary keeping being widespread? Scrutinizing grassroots practices, this article demonstrates that even people who are not confronted with established forms of self-writing engage with literacy in ways that bear an imprint of their lives and subjectivities. Drawing on an ethnographic study in one village in southern Mali, it sets a socio-historical background where writing practices arise primarily as responses to the pressure of rural management. Yet the local discourses on the value of writing are suffused with notions of privacy. The article focuses on the unstable but shared practice of keeping a notebook for farming as well personal notations. Through a detailed analysis of two notebooks, it advocates for a set of distinctions between the individual, the private and the self that helps disentangle the issue of writing and self. This leads to a contrasted view of the local engagements with literacy. The question of the crystallization of notebook keeping as a genre remains open

Aesthetics · Art · Ethnography · Grassroots · Literacy · Media studies · Pedagogy · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy