The primary goal of this project is to study social and communication processes in the Sahel, by providing Sahelian universities and communities with tools for improving capacities for dialogue and for communicating grassroots perspectives, values and needs.
To reach our primary goal, the Sahel on Sahel project shall develop competences in Collaborative Visual Anthropology at the Universite des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako, Mali and Abdou Moumouni University Niamey, Niger, produce relevant knowledge on the current situation in the Sahel, and contribute to cross-cultural dialogue and peace processes in the Sahel. This implies that the local populations will be equipped with the means to save, secure and distribute their audio-visual stories. This also implies technical capacity, equipment and institutionalization.
Competence in Collaborative Visual Anthropology will be used to establish visual dialogue with Sahelian societies through the applied, “Sahel par lui même,” initiative - organizing reflexive film-training courses to teach individuals selected by their communities to make films about their collective lives. We will establish a Centre of Digital Archives, Learning and Dissemination, to process the films and ancillary materials to facilitate continuous dialogue on local issues in the Sahel.
These efforts are made in collaboration with partners at University of Maroua and Ngaoundéré, in Cameroon.
The following sub-goals have been identified: 1. Develop innovative teaching, research, and dissemination practices, based on the "regards croiés" methodology using audiovisual and digital technologies sahring perspectives 2 Create applicable knowledge about changing livelihood strategies in the Sahel Living together, coming apart: mobility, belonging and uncertainty/hope. Communicative barriers and cross-cultural dialogue: the study of why information is not sahred and what might be done
THE SAHEL ON SAHEL projects main assumption is that among the many “crisis” in the Sahel we focus on the “Crisis of communication” and lack of cross-cultural dialogue, characterized by people’s lack of skills in participating and expressing themselves in elite languages used, followed by the withdrawal from important fields of political debate and decision making, is the profound and underlaying cause of the many troubles in SAHEL.
We want to describe and analyse these social fields of communication, between men and women, literate and illiterate, rural and urban areas, mobile and sedentary, civil society and politicians, religious groups and we thrive at bridging these fields through visual dialogues. We will study these various communicative challenges and the outcome of the project’s dissemination, asking what can be gained with inclusive collaborative visual anthropological projects?
Our research themes will permit us to elucidate and explore different aspects of cause, effect, and—most importantly—opportunities for amendment and adjustment. In both pre-conflict or post-conflict settings what forms of resilience, favouring community cohesion, sustainable livelihood systems, and restoration of societal equilibrium might provide opportunities for improving human well-being in the Sahel and beyond?
Our work is in three different countries of the Sahel. In their socio-cultural and ecological composition these different nations exhibit similarities as well as striking differences. This scope of field makes allowance for highly instructive comparison and contrast of findings produced by the research.
Our analytical approach focuses dynamics of identity construction in a Sahel strongly influenced by globalization and migration.
