Gender, Tradition, and Transformation in Contemporary Senegal: E-Books and News Sources

"Masters of the Sabar" is the first book to examine the music and culture of Wolof griot percussionists, masters of the vibrant sabar drumming tradition. Based on extensive field research in Senegal, this book is a biographical study of several generations of percussionists in a Wolof griot ("g(r)w1/2l") family, exploring and documenting their learning processes, repertories, and performance contextsOCofrom life-cycle ceremonies to sporting events and political meetings. Patricia Tang examines the rich history and changing repertories of sabar drumming, including dance rhythms and "bakks," musical phrases derived from spoken words. She notes the recent shift towards creating new "bakks" which are rhythmically more complex and highlight the virtuosity and musical skill of the percussionist. She also considers the burgeoning popular music genre called "mbalax." The compact disc that accompanies the book includes examples of the standard sabar repertory, as well as "bakks "composed and performed by Lamine Tour(r) and his family drum troupe."

The M#65533;tis of Senegal is a history of politics and society among an influential group of mixed-race people who settled in coastal Africa under French colonialism. Hilary Jones describes how the m#65533;tis carved out a niche as middleman traders for European merchants. As the colonial presence spread, the m#65533;tis entered into politics and began to assert their position as local elites and power brokers against French rule. Many of the descendants of these traders continue to wield influence in contemporary Senegal. Jones's nuanced portrait of m#65533;tis ascendency examines the influence of family connections, marriage negotiations, and inheritance laws from both male and female perspectives.

Scientific databases relating to the environment, natural resources, and public health on the African continent are, for various reasons, difficult to create and manage effectively. Yet the creation of these and other types of databases--and their subsequent use to produce new information and knowledge for decision-makers--is essential to advancing scientific and technical progress in that region and to its sustainable development. The U.S. National Committee for CODATA collaborated with the Senegalese National CODATA Committee to convene a "Workshop on Scientific Data for Decision-Making Toward Sustainable Development: Senegal River Basin Case Study," which was held on 11-15 March 2002, in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop examined multidisciplinary data sources and data handling in the West Africa region, using the Senegal River Basin as a case study, to determine how these data are or can be better used in decision making related to sustainable development.

The use of urban wastewater in agriculture is receiving renewed attention, with the increasing scarcity of fresh water resources in many arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Wastewater is a low-cost alternative to conventional irrigation water, although it may carry health and environmental risks.This book critically reviews experience worldwide of these issues. Emphasis is placed on untreated wastewater use by means of field-based case studies from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. It brings together a range of perspectives including economic, health, agronomic, environmental, institutional, and policy dimensions.

In the wake of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s and health reforms in the 1990s, the majority of sub-Saharan African governments spend less than ten dollars per capita on health annually, and many Africans have limited access to basic medical care. Using a community-level approach, anthropologist Ellen E. Foley analyzes the implementation of global health policies and how they become intertwined with existing social and political inequalities in Senegal. Your Pocket Is What Cures You examines qualitative shifts in health and healing spurred by these reforms, and analyzes the dilemmas they create for health professionals and patients alike. It also explores how cultural frameworks, particularly those stemming from Islam and Wolof ethnomedicine, are central to understanding how people manage vulnerability to ill health. While offering a critique of neoliberal health policies, Your Pocket Is What Cures You remains grounded in ethnography to highlight the struggles of men and women who are precariously balanced on twin precipices of crumbling health systems and economic decline. Their stories demonstrate what happens when market-based health reforms collide with material, political, and social realities in African societies.