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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The taste of a new generation. Exploring the relation between work and consumption in a Malian village
| Panel |
28. Generations of Migrants in West Africa
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| Paper ID | 164 |
| Author(s) |
Polak, Barbara
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | In the Bamana (Bambara) villages of the rural Bèlèdugu region in Mali, patterns of consumption increasingly emerge as a feature of distinction between the young and the old or, more specifically, between young remigrants and the generation of older Bamana peasants who mostly have never left to search for work in the urban centers. While the young return from the city with new needs and try to establish these new preferences in the village everyday life, the old do not show much inclination to learn about or even adopt the new.
My paper wants to explore in what way recent changes of food consumption patterns reflect the younger generation’s experiences of urban wage labour. It compares research data on work and consumption in the context of Bamana family farm economy collected in 1993–1998 with the preliminary results of an ongoing project on remigrants and their impact on village everyday life.
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