Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century

Author:   Judith Scheele (University of Oxford)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
ISBN:  

9781107533813


Pages:   288
Publication Date:   02 July 2015
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century


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Author:   Judith Scheele (University of Oxford)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.30cm , Height: 1.70cm , Length: 23.00cm
Weight:   0.430kg
ISBN:  

9781107533813


ISBN 10:   1107533813
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   02 July 2015
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

1. Founding saints and moneylenders: regional ecologies and oasis settlement; 2. Saints on trucks: Algerian traders and settlement in the biblād al-sūdān; 3. Dates, cocaine, and AK 47s: moral conundrums on the Algero–Malian border; 4. Struggles over encompassment: hierarchy, genealogies, and their contemporary use; 5. Universal law and local containment: assemblies, qudāh and the quest for civilisation; 6. Settlement, mobility, and the daily pitfalls of Saharan cosmopolitanism; Conclusion: Saharan connectivity and the 'swamp of terror'; Glossary; References; Index.

Reviews

'The Sahara is neither a romantic land of luxury-laden camel caravans nor a vast empty darkness hiding the likes of al-Qa'ida. Judith Scheele's Sahara is the most dynamic 'space' in today's Africa, one brought alive by ceaselessly expanding and contracting human networks that invest in 'place' even as mobility defines 'community'. Scheele brings us into al-Khalil, the infamous Malian-Algerian-frontier trans-shipment centre where 'men are men', virtue non-existent and 'family-loyalty' the definition of survival. She introduces us to the multi-national work teams of enormous transport trucks that criss-cross the desert with foodstuffs, cigarettes and cocaine, licit and illicit loads side-by-side, protected by always-present AK-47s. During sixteen months, Scheele ... observed, questioned, interviewed ... [and] accessed family-held Arabic documents ... Scholarship is impressive, arguments convincing; this is the book many who know the Sahara will wish they had written.' E. Ann McDougall, University of Alberta '[This] is an informative book based on tireless multisite research in local and colonial archives and among long-distance entrepreneurs, dispersed families and itinerant communities. Scheele approaches Saharan truck stops and oasis towns as dynamic nodes dependent on constant interchange with other nodes that together form a web of 'Saharan connectivity'. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the region and in carrying out trans-Saharan fieldwork.' Ghislaine Lydon, University of California, Los Angeles


Author Information

Judith Scheele is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. She is a social anthropologist who has conducted extensive fieldwork in North Africa and the Sahel. She is the author of Village Matters: Knowledge, Politics and Community in Kabylia, Algeria (2009).

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