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Specialist Knowledge Practices of Craftsmen and Clerics in Senegal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Roy Dilley
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Abstract

This article examines the specialized knowledge practices of two sets of culturally recognized ‘experts’ in Senegal: Islamic clerics and craftsmen. Their respective bodies of knowledge are often regarded as being in opposition, and in some respects antithetical, to one another. The aim of this article is to examine this claim by means of an investigation of how knowledge is conceived by each party. The analysis attempts to expose local epistemologies, which are deduced from an investigation of ‘expert’ knowledge practices and indigenous claims to knowledge. The social processes of knowledge acquisition and transmission are also examined with reference to the idea of initiatory learning. It is in these areas that commonalities between the bodies of knowledge and sets of knowledge practices are to be found. Yet, despite parallels between the epistemologies of both bodies of expertise and between their respective modes of knowledge transmission, the social consequences of ‘expertise’ are different in each case. The hierarchical relations of power that inform the articulation of the dominant clerics with marginalized craftsmen groups serve to profile ‘expertise’ in different ways, each one implying its own sense of authority and social range of legitimacy.

Cet article examine les pratiques de connaissance spécialisées de deux groupes d’« experts » culturellement reconnus au Sénégal: les religieux musulmans et les artisans. Leurs corps de connaissances respectifs sont souvent considérés comme mutuellement opposés, voire antithétiques à certains égards. Cet article a pour but d'examiner cette assertion en étudiant la manière dont cette connaissance est conçue par chacune des parties. L'analyse tente d'exposer des épistémologies locales déduites d'une étude des pratiques de connaissance « experte » et des revendications indigènes à la connaissance. Les processus sociaux de l'acquisition et de la transmission de la connaissance sont également examinés en référence à l'idée d'apprentissage initiatique. C'est dans ces domaines que l'on trouve des éléments communs aux corps de connaissances et aux groupes de pratiques de connaissance. Pourtant, malgré des parallèles entre les épistémologies des deux corps d'expertise et entre les modes respectifs de transmission de la connaissance, les conséquences sociales de cette « expertise » sont différentes dans chacun des cas. Les relations hiérarchiques de pouvoir qui informent l'articulation des religieux dominants avec des groupes d'artisans marginalisés servent à décrire l’« expertise » de différentes manières, chacune impliquant son propre sens de l'autorité et de l’éventail social de légitimité.

Type
Research-Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 79 , Issue 1: Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge , February 2009 , pp. 53 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2009

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