A National Struggle: Senegalese wrestling and Casamançais separatism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4000/cea.6629Abstract
This paper examines the history of Senegalese wrestling to show how and why separatists from Senegal’s southern Casamance region used distinctions between Senegalese “traditional” wrestling and Casamançais “pure” wrestling to stake a claim to territorial separatism based on claims of cultural separatism. This study of Senegalese wrestling history demonstrates that little about this traditional form of the sport is “traditional.” Rather, the form practiced in Senegalese stadiums today results from changes to earlier forms of the sport practiced in the precolonial era. I argue that although some separatists tried to form these cultural distinctions into a “discourse of grievance” against the Senegalese state, many ordinary Casamançais refused to link their communal cultural identity to the division and violence of separatism.
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I also declare that this article is original, that it has not been published in any other way, and that I exclusively assign the publication rights to the journal Cadernos de Estudos Africanos. Reproduction of the article, in whole or in part, in other publications or on other media is subject to the prior authorization of the publisher Centro de Estudos Internacionais do Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.
