Muslim Interpreters in Colonial Senegal, 1850–1920
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19th century
A01=Tamba M'bayo
accomodation
African agency
African intermediaries
African Studies
Age Group_Uncategorized
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Author_Tamba M'bayo
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJH
Category=HBTB
Category=HRAX
Category=HRH
Category=NHH
Category=NHTB
Category=QRAX
Category=QRP
colonial education
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
French assimilation
French colonial rule in Senegal
Islam
Knowledge and power
Language_English
Mediation and interpretation
Muslim identity
Muslim interpreters
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
Senegal
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781498510004
- Weight: 358g
- Dimensions: 153 x 221mm
- Publication Date: 12 Apr 2019
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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This book investigates the lives and careers of Muslim African interpreters employed by the French colonial administration in Saint Louis, Senegal, from the 1850s to the early 1920s. It focuses on the lower and middle Senegal River valley in northern Senegal, where the French concentrated most of their activities in West Africa during the nineteenth century. The Muslim interpreters performed multiple roles as mediators, military and expeditionary guides, emissaries, diplomatic hosts, and treaty negotiators. As cultural and political powerbrokers that straddled the colonial divide, they were indispensable for French officials in their relations with African rulers and the local population. As such, a central concern of this book is the paradoxical and often contradictory roles the interpreters played in mediating between the French and Africans. This book argues that the Muslim interpreters exemplified a paradox: while serving the French administration they pursued their own interests and defended those of their local communities. In doing so, the interpreters strove to maintain some degree of autonomy. Moreover, this book contends that the interpreters occupied a vantage position as mediators to influence the construction of colonial discourse and knowledge, because they channeled the flow of information between the French and the African population. Thus, Muslim interpreters had the capacity to shape power relations between the colonizers and the colonized in Senegal.
Tamba M’bayo is assistant professor of history at West Virginia University.
