A city that keeps a country going

In praise of Dakar

Bibliographic Data

ID2178394
AuthorsDonal Cruise O’brien (corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume44
Issue1
Pages5-14
Publication date2008-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449850701820558
OpenAlexW2122147749
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited21

In part an academic reminiscence looking back at a lifetime of research into Muslim communities in and around the city of Dakar, this article situates the city within the contexts of Senegal and Africa while focusing on a seldom‐mentioned paradox: that Senegal's emergent sense of unified nationhood is to a large extent predicated on the near‐absence of written texts in the country's most widely spoken language, urban or "Dakar" Wolof. I discuss some cultural and political implications of this absence and, in the face of discourses representing the city as a space that is either exceptional or problematic, praise the productivities and freedoms of Dakar as both integral and indispensable to the modern nation

Art · Face (sociological concept · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Politics · Praise · Reminiscence · Social science · Sociology · African Studies and Geopolitics · Gender Studies · History · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · Philosophy · Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria

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