IUAES2015 panel session #5 [Room 222]
16 July 2015, 11.00 – 12.30 hrs.
Delphine MANETTA
Canthel, Paris Descartes University
contact: delphine.manetta@gmail.com
Abstract
The study of the November 2012 electoral campaign in certain jáa villages of South-West Burkina Faso allows to examine the use of money from two different perspectives. Dematerialized when it takes the form of gifts in kind, it can be studied through the candidates’ expenditures over the course of the campaign. It is also revealed to be a powerful tangible object, supporting ritual practices of “discharging”. An inventory of the multiple “situations” (Max Gluckman) in which gifts are given in the course of the electoral campaign allows to situate these donations in the relational framework. Money is the matrix of the chief’s political prestige (e.g. Mauss 1914, 1923-1924) and it becomes apparent that gifts and counter-gifts are governed less by the spirit (hau) contained in the object than by the debt logic (e.g. Marie 1997, 2012), and by the political vote-catching. However, beyond the multiplicity of donation situations revealing the relationships that candidates wish to establish, transgression and witchcraft appear as inherent characteristics of power. To focus exclusively on ostentatious spendings would be to reduce electoral power to the prestige which is gained from the distribution of gifts. But what villagers are really saying when they tell us that their elected officials “eat money,” is that they manipulate a money-object whose value is not measured only in CFA Franc. In this respect, money must be considered as an object which supports “discharging” rituals that involve the sacrifice or consumption of certain products to eliminate the danger it contains. The money-object has an intrinsic power which is attached to its mobility. It is comparable to the gold which is extracted from local clandestine mines. This study underlines the death-dealing character of money and invites a re-examination of the articulation of power, violence and money. It looks at electoral power in the economical and geographical context of the country’s since the 1990’s.