Bogolan – Traditional, Commodity or Fine Art

Images of wood statues, beaded jewelry, and bogolan represent what Americans view as African culture. Thus African culture in the minds of Americans becomes a glorified homogenized icon. How do you dissect this homogenized icon in an effort to rid Americans of the stereo types of Africa? Africa is a big continent. Even in Mali where I serve as a Peace Corps volunteer there are diverse cultures and people which is reflected in the more than nine local languages and in Dogon country every village speaks a different distinct dialect.

In the Peace Corps we are trained to do development work. The message was to develop skills so that the people we work with can make more money and thus have a better life. Working with artisans a debate is in the forefront of my everyday activities as a Small Enterprise Development volunteer. The debate goes like this; to what standard of development am I aiming for and how much of the indigenous culture will be sacrificed for the development work I do.

The concepts of traditional, authenticity, and contemporary, are tossed around in the fair trade shops that have sprung up all over the western world. These concepts are coined to accompany products that have been produced in mass production to sell to western consumers. The goal is to translate long time traditional practices and motifs into commodities for the soul purpose of business. During a training in Mali that I attended a fair trade organization gave a presentation on 2009 Colors and Designs. Watching the Malian translate phrases into Bambara such as “Winter Colors, Fall Colors, Warm Colors,” was painful. There is no winter or fall here in Mali. As a volunteer put it how do you teach Malians about color when they don’t learn what primary colors are.

Many organizations have sprung up in the past decade that “Help” local international artist to achieve the goal of translating traditional crafts into commodities. People from these different organizations go to a place already producing some local tourist art and works with them in product development and business practices thus bringing in a lot of money and trade that allows the artist to become part of the middle class while hundreds of struggling artists continue producing on a small scale struggling just to feed them selves.

We criticize Africa as undeveloped and at the same time glorifying African traditions. What kind of message are we sending to people of Africa? This phenomenon can be said of Native Americans, and other developing groups of people the world over. In the development process it is important for Africa to define and redefine its own culture and goals both as nations and as individuals. I admire Africans. As much as the western world has tried to colonize, enslave or genocide the people and develop the continent, Africans have remained proud in their indigenous and diverse cultural. Bravos Africa!

Ethnography

Ethnography as defined by the dictionary is the study and systematic recording of human cultures, exactly the thing that my blog has tried to do. Many anthropologist believe that it is important for people to tell their own story.

This project was inspired my daughter Lani BonaDea. I gave my camera to two different Malians to let them tell their own story and this is what they pictured.

Owa's Family













































Awa the mother of my name sake.

Mali - A Recycling Program

We are starting to collect empty water bags that are for sell here in Mali. The need to be washed and then we will make purses or other types of bags out of them. Here are some pictures from our first days.