Chapter 5. Mediating a complex cultural matrix

Abstract

The complex cultural matrix within which Muslim interpreters mediated between French colonizers and colonized Africans offers a window through which we see how both unequal relations of power and cultural capital shaped the intercessions of indigenous intermediaries in colonial Senegal. Despite their subordinate position in the French colonial administration, the interpreters held sway over information/knowledge conveyed to their kinfolk, which could influence perceptions about the dynamics of power relations between the French authorities and Africans. Drawing on the mediations of Muslim interpreters in colonial Senegal from 1850 to 1920, this chapter engages broader issues about the provenance of sources, retrieving indigenous voices in historical reconstruction, and producing knowledge and counternarratives in African history.