The Future of Mande Studies: Views from the Literary

The literary domain represents a key source for a discussion on the future of Mande studies. A substantial corpus of oral and written narratives has long engaged with transformations of the Mande territories, providing contrasting interpretations of Mande experiences and raising questions about the significance of the concept of Mande itself and its identification and meanings.

Analyzing Mande realities through literary works can be a complex exercise partly due to competing interpretations of the narratives. Texts such as those of Seydou Badian Kouyaté (Sous l’orage, 1954), Camara Laye (L’enfant noir, 1953), Fily Dabo Sissoko (La savane rouge, 1962), Massa Makan Diabaté (Comme une piqûre de guêpe, 1980), and Moussa Konaté (Fils du chaos, 1986) have been interpreted by some as powerful and unique explorations of Mande modernity and as evidence of its unique forms of cosmopolitanism (Keita 1995). Others interpret these narratives as either exemplifying the loss of cultural landmarks underlining the erosion of specific Mande ways of life or, in the case of readings of Konaté, the necessary emancipation from the constraints that Mande traditional values impose on the individual (Nissim 1993).

In addition, discordant interpretations of Mande’s evolutions are also due to the generic categorization that tends to oppose readings of written production to those of oral production. Oral literature is regarded as the embodiment of “Mandeness,” to use Amselle’s term (Amselle 1998, 56), since Mande realities and values are central to the features, narrative conventions, contents, ideologies, and purposes of the oral production (Belcher 1999, 64). Contrary to oral literature, and certainly due to the themes, sociology, and reception of the texts, written production is often perceived skeptically as being “Mande” and more equivocal in its engagement with Mande experiences. While engagement with Mande undoubtedly differs between oral and written literatures, the contrast may be overestimated since both genres share similar features and concerns about Mande and its future (Kane 1982, 62; Keita 1995). For instance, in the Entretiens avec Balla Kanté, Jan Jansen and Mountaga Diarra point to a long list of changes affecting Mande territories such as “l’inclusion dans l’ensemble mondial, la soumission aux pouvoirs extérieurs, la monétarisation de la vie quotidienne, l’introduction du salariat et des nouvelles technologies, l’abandon des anciennes coutumes et des formes d’association et d’organisation sociale, l’introduction d’une nouvelle morale sexuelle, les changements climatologiques” (2006, 9). Jansen’s reflection on the vicissitudes of the “inclusion” of Mande societies into “l’ordre mondial” can be easily applied to the written production.

Consider canonical works such as Camara Laye’s L’enfant noir, Seydou Badian’s Sous l’orage, Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les soleils des indépendances (1968), Massa Makan Diabaté’s Comme une piqûre de guêpe, Moussa Konaté’s Fils du chaos, or Mandé Alpha Diarra’s Sahel sanglante sécheresse (1981). These texts exemplify what Christopher Miller has called “Mande subjectivities” and emphasize “what is specific to the Mande” (Miller 1990, 167). Indeed, in their narratives Badian, Camara Laye, Diabaté, and Diarra probe unique ways of life, identify distinct historical trajectories and itineraries, and create bodies of knowledge and experiences defined by Mande values and customs.

At the same time, and without exception, all these narratives acknowledge the irreversible transformations of Mande realities, accounting for the metamorphoses of territories and societies and debating at length about the emergence of new political ideas, orders, and sensibilities (Badian, Kourouma, and Konaté). Some of these cultural transformations followed from the introduction of colonial education (Badian, Laye), relations between Mande and its neighbors and its changing demographics (Diabaté), increased mobility from rural to urban areas and across national borders (Badian, Kourouma, Konaté, and Diarra), and the expansion of Islam and new forms of religiosity (Laye, Diabaté, and Konaté).

Most importantly, these writings point to the dilution of Mande ways of life. From Badian to Diarra, the narratives tell us about familial and social tensions stemming from the diffusion and adoption of outside values that inevitably alter Mande political and cultural institutions. Whether in colonial or decolonial contexts, the narratives speculate about...