This essay draws on archival and archaeological sources to examine historical matters of power in the Siin province (Senegal) and their inscription in village landscapes. It focuses specifically on the entanglements of the longue durée binding Siin’s Serer peasantry and the ‘colonial state’. Building on the work of Michel Foucault, the article suggests that historical archaeology is in a prime position to study the construction of colonial rule in African settings, and to shed light on the workings, logics, and ambiguities of state power on imperial margins. Going beyond arguments of domination and resistance, it seeks to examine the intended and unexpected effects of colonial government, how it transformed the lifeworlds of rural Africans while creating conditions for the emergence of new modes of social action.
AbelinP (1979) Domaine National et Développement au Sénégal [National domain and development in Senegal]. Bulletin de l’IFAN, Série B41(3): 508–538.
2.
ANS 1G26/104: Rousseau R, ‘Notes sur l’Habitat Rural au Sénégal (en 1928)’ [Notes on rural habitat in Senegal].
3.
ANS 2G33/70: Reynier M, ‘Cercle du Sine-Saloum (Kaolack) – Subdivision du Sine (Fatick): Rapport Politique Annuel (1933)’ [Circle of Sine-Saloum (Kaolack) – Subdivision of Sine (Fatick): Annual political report (1933)].
4.
ANS 4B51 (No. 69): Galet, ‘Lettre au Chef de Poste de Joal (26 May 1877)’ [Letter to the chief of the Joal military post].
5.
ANS 13G52: ‘Chefs Indigènes. Bulletins Individuels de Notes. Sine-Saloum (Fin XIXe Siècle)’ [Indigenous chiefs. Individual grade forms. Sine-Saloum (end of 19th century)].
6.
ANS 13G314a: Commandant de Poste de Joal, ‘Lettre au Commandant Supérieur à Gorée (8 February 1868)’ [Letter to the Superior Commander in Gorée].
7.
ANS 13G314b: Genèbre, ‘Rapport sur la Situation Politique et Commerciale du Cercle du Sine-Saloum (17 January 1889)’ [Report on the political and commercial situation of the Circle of Sine-Saloum].
8.
ANS 13G314c: Rabourdin, ‘Rapport Politique sur le Cercle du Sine-Saloum (10 May 1888)’ [Political report on the Circle of Sine-Saloum].
9.
ANS 13G318: Canard, Cdt, ‘Lettre à Mr. Clermont (8 December 1877)’ [Letter to Mr Clermont].
10.
ANS 13G322: Noirot E, ‘Lettre au Directeur des Affaires Politiques (24 June 1892)’ [Letter to the Director of Political Affairs].
11.
ANS 13G325: Noirot E, ‘Lettre au Directeur des Affaires Politiques (8 November 1895)’ [Letter to the Director of Political Affairs].
12.
AujasL (1929) La Région du Sine-Saloum: Le Port de Kaolack [The Sine-Saloum region: The Kaolack port]. Bulletin du Comité d’Études Historiques et Scientifiques de l’A.O.F12: 92–132.
13.
AujasL (1931) Les Sérères du Sénegal (Moeurs et Coutumes de Droit Privé) [The Sérères of Senegal (private law morals and customs)]. Bulletin du Comité d’Études Historiques et Scientifiques de l’A.O.F14: 293–333.
14.
Becker C, Martin V and Ndène A (1991) Traditions Villageoises du Sine. Arrondissements de Diakhao, Fimela, Niakhar, et Tatagin [Village traditions of Sine: Arrondissements of Diakhao, Fimela, Niakhar, et Tatagin]. Unpublished manuscript, Dakar.
15.
Bérenger-FéraudL-J-B (1879) Les Peuplades de la Sénégambie [The tribes of Senegal], Paris: Ernest Leroux.
16.
BerryS (1992) Hegemony on a shoestring: Indirect rule and access to agricultural land. Africa62(3): 327–355.
17.
BiehlJGoodBKleinmanA (2007) Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations, Berkeley: University of California Press.
18.
BilkeMHastrupFSørensenT (2010) An Anthropology of Absence, New York: Springer.
BourgeauJ (1933) Note sur la Coutume des Sérères du Sine et du Saloum [Notes on the customs of the Sérères of Sine and Saloum]. Bulletin du Comité d’Études Historiques et Scientifiques de l’A.O.F16: 1–65.
21.
ButlerJ (1997) The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
22.
CasellaEC (2007) The Archaeology of Institutional Confinement, Gainsville: University of Florida Press.
23.
ComaroffJL (1998) Reflections on the colonial state, in South Africa and elsewhere: Factions, fragments, facts, and fictions. Social Identities4(3): 321–361.
24.
ComaroffJLComaroffJ (1997) Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African FrontierVol. 2Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
25.
ConklinAL (1997) A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of the Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
26.
CooperF (1994) Conflict and connection: Rethinking colonial African history. American Historical Review99: 1516–1545.
27.
CooperF (2005) Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History, Berkeley: University of California Press.
28.
CooperFStolerAL (1997) Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley: University of California Press.
29.
CroucherSWeissL (2011) The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial Contexts, New York: Springer.
30.
DavidP (1980) Les Navétanes [The navétanes], Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Africaines.
31.
DawdyS (2008) Building the Devil’s Empire: French Colonial New Orleans, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
32.
De CunzoL(2006) Exploring the institution: Reform, confinement, social change. In: HallMSillimanS (eds) Historical Archaeology, New York: Blackwell, pp. 167–189.
33.
DelleJ (1997) An Archaeology of Social Space: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, New York: Plenum Press.
34.
DioufM (1998) The French colonial policy of assimilation and the civility of the Originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A nineteenth century globalization project. Development and Change29: 671–696.
35.
DuboisJ-P (1975) Les Serer et la Question des Terres Neuves au Sénégal [The Serer and the question of the New Lands in Senegal]. Cahiers ORSTOM, Série Sciences Humaines12(1): 81–120.
36.
FergusonJGuptaA (2002) Spatializing states: Toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality. American Ethnologist29(4): 981–1002.
37.
FoucaultM (1994) Power. Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984 In: FaubionJD (ed.).Vol. 3New York: The New Press.
38.
FoucaultM (2007) Security, Territory, Population. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
39.
FoucaultM (2010) The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
40.
FouquetJ (1958) La Traite des Arachides dans le Pays de Kaolack [The peanut trade in the Kaolack country], Saint-Louis: Centre-IFAN-Sénégal.
41.
GalvanDC (2004) The State Must Be Our Master of Fire: How Peasants Craft Culturally Sustainable Development, Berkeley: University of California Press.
42.
GalvanDC (2007) The social reproduction of community-based development: Syncretism and sustainability in a Senegalese farmers’ association. Journal of Modern African Studies45(1): 61–88.
43.
GellarS (1976) Structural Change and Colonial Dependency in Senegal, 1885–1945, London: Sage.
44.
GellarS (2005) Democracy in Senegal: Tocquevillian Analytics in Africa, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
45.
Guigou B (1992) Les Changements du Système Familial et Matrimonial: Les Sérères du Sine (Sénégal) [Changes in familial and matrimonial systems: The Sérères of Sine (Senegal)]. PhD dissertation, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France.
46.
GuyC (1908) Le Sine-Saloum. La Géographie18: 297–314.
47.
HallM (2000) Archaeology and the Modern World: Colonial Transcripts in South Africa and the Chesapeake, New York: Routledge.
48.
HansenTBStepputatF (2006) Sovereignty revisited. Annual Review of Anthropology35: 295–315.
49.
HauserM (2008) An Archaeology of Black Markets: Local Ceramics and Economies in Eighteenth-century Jamaica, Gainsville: University of Florida Press.
50.
KleinMA (1968) Islam and Imperialism in Senegal: The Sine-Saloum, 1847–1914, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
51.
KleinMA(1979) Colonial rule and structural change. In: Cruise O’BrienR (ed.) The Political Economy of Underdevelopment: Dependence in Senegal, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 65–99.
52.
LeoneM (2005) An Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis, Berkeley: University of California Press.
53.
LericollaisA (1999) Paysans Sereer: Dynamiques Agraires et Mobilités au Sénégal [Sereer peasants: Agrarian dynamics and mobility in Senegal], Paris: Éditions de l’IRD.
54.
LiebmannM(2008) Introduction: The intersections of archaeology and postcolonial studies. In: LiebmannMRizviU (eds) Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 1–20.
55.
MannG (2009) What was the Indigénat? The ‘Empire of Law’ in French West Africa. Journal of African History50: 331–353.
56.
MarseilleJ (1984) Empire Colonial et Capitalisme Français: Histoire d’un Divorce [Colonial empire and French capitalism: History of a divorce], Paris: Albin Michel.
57.
MartinVBeckerCMbodjM (1980) Trois Documents d’Ernest Noirot sur l’Histoire des Royaumes du Siin et du Saloum [Three documents by Ernest Noirot on the history of the kingdoms of Siin and Saloum]. Bulletin de l’IFAN, Série B42(1): 37–85.
58.
MatthewsCLeoneMJordanK (2002) The political economy of archaeological cultures: Marxism and American historical archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology2(1): 109–134.
59.
MbembeA (2001) On the Postcolony, Berkeley: University of California Press.
60.
Mbodj M (1978) Un Exemple d’Économie Coloniale: Le Sine-Saloum et l’Arachide, 1887–1940 [An example of colonial economy: Sine-Saloum and peanuts, 1887–1940]. 2 Volumes. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Université Paris VII.
61.
MeskellL (1999) Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class, Etcetera in Ancient Egypt, Oxford: Blackwell.
62.
MitchellT (1988) Colonising Egypt, Berkeley: University of California Press.
63.
MooreD (2005) Suffering for Territory: Race Place and Power in Zimbabwe, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
64.
MwangiW (2001) Of coins and conquest: The East African Currency Board, the rupee crisis, and the problem of colonialism in the East African Protectorate. Comparative Studies in Society and History43(4): 763–787.
65.
PélissierP (1966) Paysans du Sénégal: Les Civilisations Agraires to Cayor à la Casamance [Senegalese peasants: Agrarian civilizations from Cayor to Casamance], Saint-Irieix: Imprimerie Fabrègue.
66.
Pinet-Lapradeé (1865) Notice sur les Sérères, Peuplade Répandue sur la Partie des Côtes Occidentales d’Afrique Comprise entre le Cap Vert et la Rivière de Saloum [Notice on the Sérères, a tribe located on the part of Africa's western coast between the Cap Vert peninsula and the Saloum River]. Annuaire du Sénégal et Dépendances1865: 121–179.
67.
PiotC (1999) Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
68.
ReinwaldB (1997) ‘Though the earth does not lie’: Agriculture transitions in Siin (Senegal) during colonial rule. Paideuma43: 143–169.
69.
Richard FG (2007) From Cosaan to Colony: Exploring Archaeological Landscape Formations and Socio-Political Complexity in the Siin (Senegal) AD 500–1900. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University, USA.
70.
RichardFG (2010) Re-charting Atlantic encounters: Object trajectories and histories of value in the Siin (Senegal) and Senegambia. Archaeological Dialogues17(1): 1–27.
71.
RichardFG(2011) ‘In [them] we will find very desirable tributaries for our commerce’: Cash crops, commodities, and subjectivities in Siin (Senegal) during the colonial era. In: CroucherSWeissL (eds) The Archaeology of Capitalism in Colonial Contexts, New York: Springer, pp. 193–218.
72.
RichardFG(2012) Political transformations and cultural landscapes in Senegambia during the Atlantic Era: An alternative view from the Siin (Senegal)? In: MonroeJCOgundiranA (eds) Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 78–114.
73.
RoitmanJ (2005) Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
74.
RoseNMillerP (1992) Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology43(2): 173–205.
75.
ScottD (1999) Refashioning Futures, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
76.
ScottJC (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
77.
SearingJF (2002) ‘No kings, no lords, no slaves’: Ethnicity and religion among the Sereer-Safèn of Western Bawol, 1700–1914. Journal of African History43: 407–429.
78.
SillimanSW (2005) Cultural contact or colonialism? Challenges in the archaeology of Native North America. American Antiquity70(1): 55–74.
79.
SillimanSW (2009) Change, continuity, practice, and memory: Native American persistence in colonial New England. American Antiquity72(4): 211–230.
80.
SmithAT (2003) The Political Landscape, Berkeley: University of California Press.
81.
SmithAT (2004) The end of the essential archaeological subject. Archaeological Dialogues11(1): 1–20.
82.
StahlAB (2002) Colonial entanglements and the practices of taste: An alternative to logocentric approaches. American Anthropologist104(3): 827–845.
83.
TarlowS (2000) Emotion in archaeology. Current Anthropology41(5): 713–746.
84.
TrincazP-X (1979) Transformations Sociales dans les Zones Nouvelles d’Implantation Rurales: Les Serer dans les Terres Neuves du Sénégal [Social transformations in new areas of rural settlement: The Serer in the New Lands of Senegal]. Cahiers ORSTOM, Série Sciences Humaines16(1–2): 19–36.
85.
TrouillotM-R (2003) Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
86.
VossB (2008) The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco, Berkeley: University of California Press.
87.
WeissB (2004) Producing African Futures: Ritual and Reproduction in a Neoliberal Age, Leiden: Brill.
88.
WrightG (1991) The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
