You have full access to this open access chapter. Drawing on 20 years of anthropological research in Dakar, this study aims at bringing to light some ways of being-in-town that organize towards desires for being-in-the-world. It relies on a simple and yet substantial premise: a very large number of urban Senegalese youths express a strong willingness to move North, or West, while only a small minority is able to achieve such an expectation.
The questioning focuses on those who actually stay, but whose modes of sticking here are deeply influenced by their longings for a larger world. Empirically, these issues are addressed from the standpoint of the contrasted uses of urban temporalities, the nocturnal one in particular. The Dakar-by-night is thus engaged as a scene revealing the cosmopolitical dynamics that inhabit, cross or impregnate the metropolis.
You have full access to this open access chapter, Download chapter PDF. This study aims to bring to light some ways of being-in-town that organize desires for being-in-the-world. Drawing on 20 years of anthropological fieldwork in Dakar, it relies on a simple yet substantial premise: a very large number of urban Senegalese youths express a strong desire to move North, or West, while only a small minority will be able to do so.
My questioning focuses on those who stay but whose modes of sticking around are deeply influenced by their longing for a larger world Fouquet This can seem counterintuitive as the individual potential for mobility has long been positioned as the most important criterion in defining admittedly in its elitist version the cosmopolitan condition. Under such conditions, this contrasting understanding of cosmopolitanism can only be a constructive one, strongly rooted in an empirical framework in this case, the urban temporalities of young Senegalese women.
Indeed, my main ethnographical scene is Dakar by night, which I address both as a tangible, infrastructural entity and as a moral region where some kind of subjective external projection, cultural renegotiation and, on the whole, a change of scenery at home seem accessible or at least possible.
