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Growing Up in the West African City: Contestation and Identity Negotiation in le Mouvement Y’en a Marre
Fuller, Jamie
Fuller, Jamie
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Abstract
The formation of Y’en a marre occurred amidst political turmoil in Senegal, during a time when the president appeared in many respects to be making a grab for power that baldly disrespected the dictates of the constitution. Drawing on lifelong experiences in political activism, the members of Y’en a marre deployed a multi-pronged strategy that spoke deeply to the cultural roots of pre-independence Senegal, while at the same time directing a future-oriented ideology of positive change both within individuals and the country at large. The goal of this paper is to explore the means by which these strategies launched Y’en a marre into the international spotlight, transforming them from incensed slum-dwellers to the stewards of youth identity in contemporary Senegal. The political ambivalence of both the regime under President Abdoulaye Wade as well as the organization itself played a key role in negotiating the emergence of a political project harkening a “new type of Senegalese,” that embodied the ideals of democracy in burgeoning nation. Of particular concern are the cultural roots of specific expressions of identity in spaces of mimicry and transformation characteristic of colonial contact. The movement emerged in a socio-economic context of marginalization among young voters. Facing high levels of unemployment and underemployment, the urban youth of Dakar struggle to achieve their dreams within a vast terrain of inequality. The response that Y’en a marre constructed in order to challenge the economic failures of the postcolonial state would eventually absorb a large swath of the urban population in a project to reconstruct Senegalese identity. In order to explore this issue, this paper will begin with an overview of Senegalese political history as it is relevant to the development of the organization; it will then analyze the emergence of Y’en a marre in terms of the power relations composing their discourse of themselves viewed through their music and personal proclamations, as well as in view of the changing means by which they were understood by others. The identity project of the new type of Senegalese is considered in these terms, by analyzing the role of ambivalent subjectivities in the relative success of yernmarriste activism, the result of which produced an imaginary youth identity simultaneously filled with constructive and dangerous possibilities.
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2016-01-01
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Generation, Political Science, Senegal, Social Movements, Sub-Saharan Africa, Urbanization