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ABSTRACT:Individuals claiming Fula ethnicity are indigenous to some twenty African countries. Their diaspora has spread across the globe. Historically, Fula culture has centered on a code of conduct called pulaaku. Pulaaku indicates a way of life aimed in part at preventing shame. Pulaaku reflects shared images of Fula archetypes. Academic literature has presented pulaaku as a fundamental component of being Fula. Yet, contemporary Fula living in modern urban settings, whom Ba Konaré calls "Fulapolitans" (see Selasi 2005) are rarely familiar with a pastoral way of life. This article attempts to delineate the concept of pulaaku in contemporary urban settings, with reference to interviews. The results offer grounds to critique the contemporary understanding and experience of pulaaku among Fulapolitans and to highlight recent situational uses and re-appropriations of the concept.

Abstract:The hunting songs of the majority-Muslim, Odienné region of Northwestern Côte d'Ivoire accomplish more than meets the ear. They conjoin and distinguish Muslim goals and ostensibly non-Muslim hunting practices. The musical repertoire of my host, Dramane Coulibaly, is illustrative. This study examines the role that Dramane's songs played in motivating initiated dozo hunters to kill game during dozo funerals, a primary concern for dozos at these events. Next, it analyzes the structure and content of Dramane's songs in relation to the embodied, emplaced, and material dimensions of dozo funerals, where Dramane's performances served to calm the spirits of the dead so that they would leave the living in peace. Finally, it examines the musical aspects of Dramane's songs in relation to Islam, with the aim of broadening the study of Islam in West Africa and beyond to encompass the texts and performance practices of dozo funerals.Résumé:les chants de chasse de la région à majorité musulmane d'Odienné, au nord-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire, accomplissent plus qu'il n'y parait. Ils joignent et distinguent les objectifs musulmans et les pratiques de chasse apparemment non-musulmanes. Les chansons de mon hôte, Dramane Coulibaly, sont représentatives. Cette étude examine tout d'abord la relation substantielle que les textes de chansons de Dramane établissent entre ses performances et la chasse, une préoccupation centrale des dozos. Ensuite, il analyse la structure et le contenu des chansons de Dramane en relation avec les dimensions symboliques réalisées de mises en scène des funérailles dozo, où ses performances ont servi à calmer les esprits des morts afin qu'ils puissent laisser en paix les vivants. Enfin, il examine les aspects musicaux des chansons de Dramane en relation avec l'islam, dans le but d'élargir l'étude de l'islam en Afrique de l'Ouest et de l'islam en général, pour y inclure l'esthétique sonique et cinétique des performances dozo.Resumo:As canções de caça típicas de Odienné, uma região no noroeste da Costa do Marfim de maioria muçulmana, cumprem mais funções do que o ouvido alcança. Elas articulam e distinguem os objetivos muçulmanos e as práticas de caça aparentemente não muçulmanas. As canções de Dramane Coulibaly, o meu anfitrião, são disso exemplificativas. O presente artigo analisa a relação de causa e efeito que as letras das canções de Dramane estabelecem entre as suas performances e a caça, uma preocupação central para os dozos. Em seguida, analisa-se a estrutura e o conteúdo das canções de Dramane e a sua relação com as dimensões materiais e de concretização dos funerais dozo, onde as suas performances serviam para acalmar os espíritos dos mortos, de modo que estes deixassem os vivos em paz. Por fim, o artigo debruça-se sobre os aspetos musicais que, nas canções de Dramane, se relacionam com o Islão, tendo como objetivo um aprofundamento do estudo do Islão na África ocidental – e do Islão em geral – que inclua a estética sonora e cinética das performances dozo.

Abstract:The hunting songs of the majority-Muslim, Odienné region of Northwestern Côte d’Ivoire accomplish more than meets the ear. They conjoin and distinguish Muslim goals and ostensibly non-Muslim hunting practices. The musical repertoire of my host, Dramane Coulibaly, is illustrative. This study examines the role that Dramane’s songs played in motivating initiated dozohunters to kill game during dozo funerals, a primary concern for dozos at these events. Next, it analyzes the structure and content of Dramane’s songs in relation to the embodied, emplaced, and material dimensions of dozo funerals, where Dramane’s performances served to calm the spirits of the dead so that they would leave the living in peace. Finally, it examines the musical aspects of Dramane’s songs in relation to Islam, with the aim of broadening the study of Islam in West Africa and beyond to encompass the texts and performance practices of dozo funerals.

ABSTRACT:Odienné, the capital of the northwestern Denguélé district of Côte d’Ivoire, has recently undergone an important agricultural transformation. It has entered the global market of cashew production, growing raw cashews for export overseas. This pilot study combines qualitative and quantitative research methods to study agricultural changes in land-use practices, using ethnographic research and spatial analysis of land-use/land-cover (LULC) data to clarify this transformation. The LULC data confirms that agriculture has increased in the region since 1975. Today, local residents report that cashews have become the dominant cash crop in their communities. Preliminary ethnographic research provides a finer understanding of this process by exploring who is contributing to the increase in cashew production and how they are doing so. Such agricultural change, according to local communities, has increased agricultural revenue while creating new challenges for regional ecosystems.

Abstract: Alinesitoué Diatta pioneered forms of ritual practice that codified moral protest against French colonialism in Senegal. Her rise to prominence reflected conditions in which men left their homes as migrant laborers to earn cash to pay colonial taxes. Under the French, women prophets thus replaced their male predecessors. Rather than offer an ethical deontology of protest, Alinesitoué enacted a ritual critique. She forbade the use of non-Jola rice in sacrifices as well as the planting of peanuts as a cash crop, thereby confronting the economic demands of the French who championed the cultivation of peanuts for export. More importantly, she brought rain, equating the French presence with environmental catastrophe: a drought that had been plaguing Jola farmers. She was eventually arrested and exiled, but Robert Baum’s study of her life and work resurrects her critique, revealing ritual as a sophisticated, innovative source for ethical discourse.

This article explores the hunting aesthetics of initiated Jula hunters of Côte d'Ivoire who call themselves dozos. It explains how their hunting aesthetic structures their relationship to Islam and the Ivoirian state. Although many Africans approach Islam in the context of tensions between local ritual traditionsand modernizing Muslim reform, dozos approach Islam the way they approach the forests where they hunt, assimilating to both in order to tame them. They organize their hunting activities around an aesthetic centred on notions of sweetness and fullness; their contraries, difficulty and emptiness; and the process of mimetic transformation (shape-shifting) that mediates between these extremes. With these categories dozos assimilate themselves to and appropriate power from the forest to kill game. They also link themselves to pre-Qur'anic Muslim figures to legitimize themselves asMuslims. More recently, they tried to assimilate to the Ivoirian state to become a parallel police force. Stories of their tutelary spirit, Manimory, and the texts of their hunting songs, incantations, and epics encode diverse ways for dozos to relate to Islam, leaving room for dozos to eschew it as well. Their texts reveal a dynamic sense of history that defies classification in terms of tradition, modernity or postmodernity. RésuméCet article examine l'esthétique de la chasse chez les chasseurs initiés julas de Côte d'Ivoire, qui se donnent le nom de dozos. Il explique comme leur esthétique de chasse structure leur rapport à l'islam et à l' État ivoirien. Alors que de nombreux Africains abordent l'islam dans le contexte de tensions entre traditions rituelles locales et réforme musulmane modernisatrice, les dozos abordent l'islam de la même manière qu'ils abordent les forêts dans lesquelles ils chassent, s'assimilant aux deux pour les maˆıtriser. Ils organisent leurs activités de chasse autour d'une esthétique centrée sur des notions de douceur et de plénitude, des notions contraires de difficulté et de vide, ainsi que sur le processus de transformation mimétique (métamorphose) qui assure la médiation entre ces extrêmes. Avec ces catégories, les dozos s'assimilent à la forêt et s'en approprient les pouvoirs pour tuer le gibier. Ils s'associent également à des figures musulmanes pré-coraniques pour se justifier en tant que musulmans. Plus récemment, ils ont essayé de s'assimiler à l' État ivoirien pour devenir une force de police parallèle. Les récits de leur esprit tutélaire, Manimory, ainsi que les textes de leurs chants de chasse, incantations et récits épiques codifient les différentes manières qu'ont les dozos de se situer par rapport à l'islam et qui leur laissent également latitude pour l'éviter. Leurs textes révèlent un sens dynamique de l'histoire qui défie la classification en termes de tradition, de modernité ou de postmodernité.

AbstractThis article explores the hunting aesthetics of initiated Jula hunters of C?te d'Ivoire who call themselves dozos. It explains how their hunting aesthetic structures their relationship to Islam and the Ivoirian state. Although many Africans approach Islam in the context of tensions between local ritual traditions and modernizing Muslim reform, dozos approach Islam the way they approach the forests where they hunt, assimilating to both in order to tame them. They organize their hunting activities around an aesthetic centred on notions of sweetness and fullness; their contraries, difficulty and emptiness; and the process of mimetic transformation (shape-shifting) that mediates between these extremes. With these categories dozos assimilate themselves to and appropriate power from the forest to kill game. They also link themselves to pre-Qur'anic Muslim figures to legitimize themselves as Muslims. More recently, they tried to assimilate to the Ivoirian state to become a parallel police force. Stories of their tutelary spirit, Manimory, and the texts of their hunting songs, incantations, and epics encode diverse ways for dozos to relate to Islam, leaving room for dozos to eschew it as well. Their texts reveal a dynamic sense of history that defies classification in terms of tradition, modernity or postmodernity.