Citation:
Date Presented:
February 6Abstract:
My thesis is the narrative of how "eco-villages" came to be practiced as a national development strategy in Senegal. In my work I am looking at how eco-villages began as a "counter" to many of the problems of modernity as viewed by activists in a number of northern countries: eco-villages being a response of positive politics to perceived ecological destruction, fragmented societies, and crises in cultural meaning. While at first these seem removed from the concerns of a Senegalese society without many of the pathologies of "modernity," eco-villages turn out to be doing the same work in Senegal as they are doing in the North--unlocking people's sense of ambivalence about the worlds that are passing away (past), one that is greeted both with potential and uncertainty (present), and that seeks integration with possibilities for a better life (future). Eco-villages are, thus, not best understood as things to build, but as structures used to dream in a new world and set of relationships between these temporal worlds. In Senegal, I explore this through people's engagements with modernity's understandings of development, time, and money.