Robinson, David. Paths of Accommodation. (Ohio UP, 2000)
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David Robinson’s impressive Paths of Accommodation (2000), the product of fifteen years of research, examines the relationship of Muslim Sufi leaders to the French colonizers in the Senegalo-Mauritania region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His historical analysis weaves together oral history, archival research, and theories from anthropology and sociology to challenge and expand some of the more common scholarly assertions about colonizer-colonized relationships. Instead of positing an implicitly top-down colonial hierarchy in which the colonized are helpless but to submit, Robinson emphasizes the power of local Sufi elites as actors in their own right, actively choosing to “accommodate” the French.
Robinson divides his book into three main sections. First he articulates the framework of his study, summarized above. In the second section, “Bases of Accommodation,” he focuses on “different forms and mediators of knowledge, the discourses in which they are contained, and the audiences and purposes they served” (37). His analysis begins with a historiographical review that comments on trends in the Senegalese academy, in particular a tendency toward colonial history that polemicizes accommodation to the French by framing it exclusively as betrayal. Of note is the lack of prior work on religious history, particularly in “the context of the rapidly changing social order of the turn of the century” (42). The paucity of religious histories is surprising given France’s eventual self-identification as a “Muslim Power,” addressed by Robinson in chapter four, and the rapid disappearance of non-Muslim tribal religions during this period.
In chapter three Robinson presents, analyzes and critiques traditional narratives of French colonial rule in Senegalo-Mauritania. He challenges the view, popularized by discourse history and postcolonial studies, of colonialism as a unified, monolithic discourse. This is followed by a discussion of French self-promotion as a “Muslim Power.” Instead of considering France’s relationship to Islam, starting with Napoleon’s famous Egyptian letters, as merely a manipulative and ingratiating imperial foot in the door, Robinson’s analysis is more nuanced: France sought to position itself as a Muslim Power over and against the Ottomans and the Moroccans, and to gain recognition and acceptance within West Africa as such. The last two chapters of the section focus on the colonized: chapter five addresses the power of local Senegalese civil society to navigate and challenge the inherently inegalitarian realities of empire, and chapter six rounds out the discussion of bases of accommodation by looking at specific networks of trade and kinship in the French-friendly Muslim merchant communities of Saint-Louis.
Robinson’s final section, “Patterns of Accommodation,” is a model of source mining. A collection of biographies of accommodators, it tells a complicated story of negotiations of power. Robinson’s use of the sources is particularly instructive, as he considers both what is said, what is not said, and why.
Paths is clearly groundbreaking work. Not overly weighted toward theories of the metropole or core-periphery dynamics, it is an able rethinking of colonization from the perspective of the colonized. Moreover, Robinson’s ability to weave together theory and “straight” history, and his creative use of source materials, are truly remarkable. Of particular interest is his core contention that local elites chose to cede political control to the French, despite acute consciousness of being part of the dar al-Islam. This counters much of what I have read on Muslim identity formation in the former Ottoman Empire, and thus brings to mind questions about the relationship between modernity, identity, community, and geographic region.
Robinson divides his book into three main sections. First he articulates the framework of his study, summarized above. In the second section, “Bases of Accommodation,” he focuses on “different forms and mediators of knowledge, the discourses in which they are contained, and the audiences and purposes they served” (37). His analysis begins with a historiographical review that comments on trends in the Senegalese academy, in particular a tendency toward colonial history that polemicizes accommodation to the French by framing it exclusively as betrayal. Of note is the lack of prior work on religious history, particularly in “the context of the rapidly changing social order of the turn of the century” (42). The paucity of religious histories is surprising given France’s eventual self-identification as a “Muslim Power,” addressed by Robinson in chapter four, and the rapid disappearance of non-Muslim tribal religions during this period.
In chapter three Robinson presents, analyzes and critiques traditional narratives of French colonial rule in Senegalo-Mauritania. He challenges the view, popularized by discourse history and postcolonial studies, of colonialism as a unified, monolithic discourse. This is followed by a discussion of French self-promotion as a “Muslim Power.” Instead of considering France’s relationship to Islam, starting with Napoleon’s famous Egyptian letters, as merely a manipulative and ingratiating imperial foot in the door, Robinson’s analysis is more nuanced: France sought to position itself as a Muslim Power over and against the Ottomans and the Moroccans, and to gain recognition and acceptance within West Africa as such. The last two chapters of the section focus on the colonized: chapter five addresses the power of local Senegalese civil society to navigate and challenge the inherently inegalitarian realities of empire, and chapter six rounds out the discussion of bases of accommodation by looking at specific networks of trade and kinship in the French-friendly Muslim merchant communities of Saint-Louis.
Robinson’s final section, “Patterns of Accommodation,” is a model of source mining. A collection of biographies of accommodators, it tells a complicated story of negotiations of power. Robinson’s use of the sources is particularly instructive, as he considers both what is said, what is not said, and why.
Paths is clearly groundbreaking work. Not overly weighted toward theories of the metropole or core-periphery dynamics, it is an able rethinking of colonization from the perspective of the colonized. Moreover, Robinson’s ability to weave together theory and “straight” history, and his creative use of source materials, are truly remarkable. Of particular interest is his core contention that local elites chose to cede political control to the French, despite acute consciousness of being part of the dar al-Islam. This counters much of what I have read on Muslim identity formation in the former Ottoman Empire, and thus brings to mind questions about the relationship between modernity, identity, community, and geographic region.
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