Papers by Madina Thiam
Journal of African History, 2023
In 1965, William Allen Brown (1934–2007) landed in Mali, a young socialist republic and former Fr... more In 1965, William Allen Brown (1934–2007) landed in Mali, a young socialist republic and former French colony that had become independent just five years prior. Brown was a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and had come to conduct fieldwork for his dissertation on the Caliphate of Ḥamdullāhi, a nineteenth century theocratic state that had once stood in Mali's Mopti region.
What was it like to conduct fieldwork in mid-1960s Mali? Specifically, what could have been the experience of an African-American graduate student attuned to ongoing political struggles across the Black world? Which scholarly influences shaped Brown's approach to dissertation research? And, which broader debates were occurring in Brown's academic fields — African Studies, African history, and Black Studies — as he was crafting his dissertation? This essay provides preliminary thoughts on these questions through an exploration of the political and intellectual worlds that Brown inhabited during the years 1957–69, on both sides of the Atlantic.
CODESRIA BULLETIN, 2020
La crise au Mali est aussi une crise du Sahel.
C’est une crise intrinsèquement liée à un processu... more La crise au Mali est aussi une crise du Sahel.
C’est une crise intrinsèquement liée à un processus
plus large de dislocation qui a englouti
la région du nord-ouest de l’Afrique depuis 2011. Il
s’agit d’une dislocation qui est d’une part orchestrée,
et d’autre part le résultat inévitable de régimes
de gouvernance profondément défaillants. Le gouvernement
français a armé le Conseil national de transition
de Libye à la suite de l’assassinat de Mouammar
Kadhafi, dans lequel la France a joué un rôle décisif.
La recrudescence du militantisme armé et des attaques
terroristes qui s’en sont suivies ont affaibli une situation
sécuritaire déjà précaire, notamment au Burkina
Faso, au Niger et au Mali. En outre, une intervention
multilatérale complexe a créé des structures de gouvernance
qui se chevauchent. En fait, depuis que le
Sahel est devenu un front dans la guerre contre le terrorisme,
on a assisté à une prolifération d’initiatives
sécuritaires aux objectifs politiques différents, et parfois
antagonistes ; ces initiatives ont inévitablement
créé les conditions d’une insécurité accrue.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History , 2020
Over centuries, a variety of decentralized societies and centralized states have formed in territ... more Over centuries, a variety of decentralized societies and centralized states have formed in territories across the western Sahel and southwest Sahara, and along the Niger and Senegal river valleys. Women have played central yet often unacknowledged roles in building these communities. By the late 11th century, some were rulers, as tombstones from the Gao region seem to suggest. A travelogue describing the Mali empire, and a chronicle from Songhay, tell stories of women who plotted political dissent or staged rebellions in the 14th–16th centuries. By and large, everyday women’s reproductive and productive labor sustained their families, and structured life in agricultural, pastoral, fishing, or trading communities. In the 1700s in Segu, women brewed mead, cultivated crops, dyed textiles, and participated in the building of fortifications. In Masina in the 1800s, girls attended qurʾanic school, and a woman was the custodian of the caliph’s library. Women also suffered great violence stemming from conflicts, forced displacement, and slavery. By the end of the 19th century, they made up a considerable portion (at times the majority) of enslaved individuals in the region. After the European conquest and creation of the French Soudan colony, the French administration imposed an export-oriented wage economy, in which women worked to supply crops and sustain infrastructure projects. From the regions of Kayes, Kita, and Nioro, many migrated to groundnut- or gold-producing regions of Senegambia. While women’s labor and migrations were seldom accounted for in administrative records, their attempts to leave unhappy marriages or escape enslavement do appear in court records. However, colonial domination was gendered: the administration ultimately shunned women’s emancipation efforts, seeking to channel its rule by reinforcing patriarchal authority in communities. In 1960, the Republic of Mali achieved independence. Under the democratic and military governments that followed, women built pan-African and transnational alliances. In 1991 and beyond, they fought to achieve more rights, and greater political power and representation. Their labor and migrations have continued to sustain a large portion of the economy. Post-2011, they have been both active participants in, and victims of, the conflicts that have engulfed the country, suffering displacement, loss of livelihood, and sexual violence, for which many have yet to receive justice.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2020
The Republic of Mali comprises a very diverse population spread over a vast territory composed of... more The Republic of Mali comprises a very diverse population spread over a vast territory composed of a large part of the southern Sahara, the Sahel, and the savannah. One of the world’s great rivers, the Niger, runs through much of the national territory, reaching its northern apex near Timbuktu. For over a millennium, this territory has allowed empires and kingdoms to flourish alongside decentralized societies. These include the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhay, as well as any number of smaller states, trading diasporas, and nomadic and semi-nomadic communities. The territory of Mali has long been a hub in African commercial and intellectual circuits, notably those linking the societies of the Maghreb (or North Africa) to those bordering the Atlantic. In the 19th century, as elsewhere in Muslim Africa, new and explicitly Islamic states emerged in western and central Mali. They did not endure more than a few decades, as the territory was colonized by France in the late 19th century. The Republic of Mali claimed its independence in 1960 and rapidly developed greater autonomy from French neo-colonialism than did most of its neighbors. Mali has maintained an out-sized diplomatic and cultural role on the African continent and beyond under a socialist government from 1960 to 1968, military government through 1991, and a vibrant democracy in the decades since. However, since 2011, the country has been increasingly beset by violent conflicts between nonstate actors, the national government, and foreign forces including the French. Thus, in historical perspective, Mali’s geographic position and its environment have proven conducive to the production of expansive, diverse, and mutually dependent communities that have produced radically distinct and often fragile states.
Sahara, mondes connectés, edited by Sophie Caratini, Charles Grémont, Céline Lesourd and Olivier Schinz, 75-79. Paris: Gallimard, 2019
Reviews by Madina Thiam
Ufahamu: a Journal of African Studies, 2018
Research Africa Reviews Vol. 2 No. 2, 2018
Public Engagement by Madina Thiam
Africa is a Country, 2015
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Papers by Madina Thiam
What was it like to conduct fieldwork in mid-1960s Mali? Specifically, what could have been the experience of an African-American graduate student attuned to ongoing political struggles across the Black world? Which scholarly influences shaped Brown's approach to dissertation research? And, which broader debates were occurring in Brown's academic fields — African Studies, African history, and Black Studies — as he was crafting his dissertation? This essay provides preliminary thoughts on these questions through an exploration of the political and intellectual worlds that Brown inhabited during the years 1957–69, on both sides of the Atlantic.
C’est une crise intrinsèquement liée à un processus
plus large de dislocation qui a englouti
la région du nord-ouest de l’Afrique depuis 2011. Il
s’agit d’une dislocation qui est d’une part orchestrée,
et d’autre part le résultat inévitable de régimes
de gouvernance profondément défaillants. Le gouvernement
français a armé le Conseil national de transition
de Libye à la suite de l’assassinat de Mouammar
Kadhafi, dans lequel la France a joué un rôle décisif.
La recrudescence du militantisme armé et des attaques
terroristes qui s’en sont suivies ont affaibli une situation
sécuritaire déjà précaire, notamment au Burkina
Faso, au Niger et au Mali. En outre, une intervention
multilatérale complexe a créé des structures de gouvernance
qui se chevauchent. En fait, depuis que le
Sahel est devenu un front dans la guerre contre le terrorisme,
on a assisté à une prolifération d’initiatives
sécuritaires aux objectifs politiques différents, et parfois
antagonistes ; ces initiatives ont inévitablement
créé les conditions d’une insécurité accrue.
Reviews by Madina Thiam
Public Engagement by Madina Thiam
What was it like to conduct fieldwork in mid-1960s Mali? Specifically, what could have been the experience of an African-American graduate student attuned to ongoing political struggles across the Black world? Which scholarly influences shaped Brown's approach to dissertation research? And, which broader debates were occurring in Brown's academic fields — African Studies, African history, and Black Studies — as he was crafting his dissertation? This essay provides preliminary thoughts on these questions through an exploration of the political and intellectual worlds that Brown inhabited during the years 1957–69, on both sides of the Atlantic.
C’est une crise intrinsèquement liée à un processus
plus large de dislocation qui a englouti
la région du nord-ouest de l’Afrique depuis 2011. Il
s’agit d’une dislocation qui est d’une part orchestrée,
et d’autre part le résultat inévitable de régimes
de gouvernance profondément défaillants. Le gouvernement
français a armé le Conseil national de transition
de Libye à la suite de l’assassinat de Mouammar
Kadhafi, dans lequel la France a joué un rôle décisif.
La recrudescence du militantisme armé et des attaques
terroristes qui s’en sont suivies ont affaibli une situation
sécuritaire déjà précaire, notamment au Burkina
Faso, au Niger et au Mali. En outre, une intervention
multilatérale complexe a créé des structures de gouvernance
qui se chevauchent. En fait, depuis que le
Sahel est devenu un front dans la guerre contre le terrorisme,
on a assisté à une prolifération d’initiatives
sécuritaires aux objectifs politiques différents, et parfois
antagonistes ; ces initiatives ont inévitablement
créé les conditions d’une insécurité accrue.