Senegal: Democracy in Crisis? Social movements and the state from the past to the present
With Rosalind Fredericks (NYU), Ibrahima Niang (NYU), Matt Swagler (Connecticut College), Gregory Valdespino (Princeton), and Julia Woods (NYU)
Organized and moderated by Liz Fink (NYU)
Date: November 1, 2023
Time: 6:30-8pm ET
Venue: NYU Africa House, 14A Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003
Senegal has a long tradition of social mobilization as well as democracy, including a history of opposition candidates winning elections and a strong civil society that holds the state accountable. But moves by President Macky Sall to consolidate power and ban opposition, which sparked wide-scale protests that ended in tragic confrontation between protesters and the state in the summer of 2023, put Senegal at an important crossroads. This discussion by scholars of Senegal feature perspectives on the current crisis in the context of Senegal’s robust history of social mobilization as well as Senegal’s democratic legacy. The conversation will consider the trajectory of Senegal’s postcolonial state; gender and Senegalese politics; the memory of colonization and Senegal’s relationship to France; and the place of Senegalese political movements in West African political life.
Rosalind Fredericks is Associate Professor at Gallatin (NYU). She is the author of Garbage Citizenship: Vital Infrastructures of Labor in Dakar, Senegal (Duke University Press, 2018), which was awarded the Toyin Falola Book Award for the best book in African Studies by the Association of Global South Studies. She has edited two books with Mamadou Diouf on citizenship in African Cities: Les arts de la citoyenneté au Sénégal: Espaces contestés et civilités urbaines (Editions Karthala, 2013) and The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities: Infrastructures and Spaces of Belonging (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).
Ibrahima Niang is Global Faculty in Residence in Fall 2023 at Gallatin (NYU). He is a political scientist, writer, poet, and author of Siggilène (Harmattan, 2023), La légende de Ndiouli (Harmattan, 2021), and The Grapes from the baobab (Amalion, 2017).
Matt Swagler is Assistant Professor of African History at Connecticut College. His book manuscript, entitled “Decolonization’s Discontents: Youth Radicalism in Francophone Africa, 1958-1974,” examines how self-proclaimed youth leaders in Senegal and Congo-Brazzaville mobilized young men and women to reject the terms of French decolonization and push for a more extensive vision of independence.
Gregory Valdespino is a Princeton-Mellon Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Fellow at Princeton University. His book manuscript, entitled “Domestic Expectations: The Politics of Dwelling in France and Senegal, 1914-1974,” examines when, where, and why West Africans came to expect domestic support from colonial and postcolonial governments in Senegal and France during the 20th century.
Julia Woods is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint program between the History Department and the Institute of French Studies at New York University. Her research interests are in 20th century material culture, knowledge production, and the social sciences in Senegal.
Co-sponsored by: NYU Institute of French Studies; NYU Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture; and NYU Africa House.