Dr Isaie Dougnon
Crises of Passage: Life Cycle, Careers and Rituals in Malian Public Service
Abstract
This presentation examines why do men and women after long careers think and rethink their own life cycle, its ups and downs, its failures and successes. One of the objectives of this talk is to consider this human need in an anthropological perspective by analyzing the relationships between crises and rites in the context of the beliefs and social relationships that ground them. In Africa, during the twenty years following independence, the State offered an attractive career that progressed from leaving school to retirement. In the mid-1980s, the structural adjustment program compromised this possibility. It also jeopardized the harmonious progress of workers on the career ladder. Since then, many people no longer have a clear idea of their career, whether before or after entering the civil service: when will it start? How will it advance? They are gripped by the fear of working in a system where no prediction is possible; where the career can be dead-end and at the end of life with a meager retirement pension. Civil servants make a moral interpretation of their career’s ups and downs. Which justifies, in their eyes, the recourse to the sacred rites of ancestors or established religions.
Date:Thursday July 3, 12 – 2 pm,Seminar Room 145/146 FZA Building.
Zoom Link: https://uni-bayreuth.zoom.us/j/66815848399?pwd=bFAyQ0Uyb1RNOFdvT09oRVc3MXoyUT09, Meeting ID: 668 1584 8399, Identification code: 897688