Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara
Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century

This book describes life on the contemporary border between Algeria and Mali, exploring current developments in a broad historical and socioeconomic context.

Judith Scheele (Author)

9781107533813, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 July 2015

288 pages, 10 b/w illus. 5 maps
23 x 15.3 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

'[This] is an informative book based on tireless multisite research in local and colonial archives and among long-distance entrepreneurs, dispersed families and itinerant communities. Scheele approaches Saharan truck stops and oasis towns as dynamic nodes dependent on constant interchange with other nodes that together form a web of 'Saharan connectivity'. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the region and in carrying out trans-Saharan fieldwork.' Ghislaine Lydon, University of California, Los Angeles

Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara describes life on and around the contemporary border between Algeria and Mali, exploring current developments in a broad historical and socioeconomic context. Basing her findings on long-term fieldwork with trading families, truckers, smugglers and scholars, Judith Scheele investigates the history of contemporary patterns of mobility from the late nineteenth century to the present. Through a careful analysis of family ties and local economic records, this book shows how long-standing mobility and interdependence have shaped not only local economies, but also notions of social hierarchy, morality and political legitimacy, creating patterns that endure today and that need to be taken into account in any empirically-grounded study of the region.

1. Founding saints and moneylenders: regional ecologies and oasis settlement
2. Saints on trucks: Algerian traders and settlement in the bibl?d al-s?d?n
3. Dates, cocaine, and AK 47s: moral conundrums on the Algero–Malian border
4. Struggles over encompassment: hierarchy, genealogies, and their contemporary use
5. Universal law and local containment: assemblies, qud?h and the quest for civilisation
6. Settlement, mobility, and the daily pitfalls of Saharan cosmopolitanism
Conclusion: Saharan connectivity and the 'swamp of terror'
Glossary
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], African history [HBJH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]