Editor’s First Word

A journal editor’s deepest satisfaction with a guest-edited volume derives from learning about the theme of the several essays. By that token, the present issue of Mande Studies brings this editor double satisfaction. Working with the two guest editors, Johanna Siméant and Barbara Hoffman, has been like participating in two graduate seminars, one in political science, about recent events in Mali, and the other in the anthropology of the family. The reader may note, as I have, that the two sections overlap, with authors in one group of essays citing works by authors in the other dossier.

The scholarship is impressive, as is the fact that the essays are based upon recent, even ongoing fieldwork. The essays represent a truly international group of scholars – with French scholarship, albeit here published in English, richly represented. Mande Studies, of course, publishes in English, French, and Portuguese. One may regret the ever-growing predominance of English as the ‘lingua franca’ (pun intended) of international scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences. One may also regret the role of statistical ratings systems for everything from scholarly journals to universities. But the reality of the linguistic hegemony is reflected in the choice of these authors to publish in English.

This journal will continue to encourage submissions in all three languages; we also continue to encourage innovative themes both for individual submissions and for proposals for special issues. Younger scholars will continue to find a welcome in Mande Studies for as long as this older scholar serves as Editor. Our aim is not to respond to the parameters of an anonymous rating system, but simply to provide a venue for innovative thinking, meticulous scholarship, and multidisciplinary approaches to the richly varied world of the Mande heartland and diaspora. This volume, with its two special dossiers, takes a firm step in that direction.