The city and its regulations

When silence is “yeelen” (light): Exploring the corporeality of the mind in a nocturnal solo zikr practice (Odienné, Ivory Coast)

“…From 2014 to 2019, I had carried an ethnographic project called “Odienné by Night”. 1 In the course of sixteen months of fieldwork, I deepened an earlier observation: the urban night of a provincial town of the West African savannah does not reduce to a realm of secrecy, boldness and fear in which shameful, forbidden or malevolent activities flourish (see Chappatte 2014, 2018a). 2 Before any attempt to investigate the urban night as a “counter-hegemonic” time (Schnepel and Ben-Ari 2005, 160), the expression of a “dominated culture”(Galinier et al.…”

“…urban night of a provincial town of the West African savannah does not reduce to a realm of secrecy, boldness and fear in which shameful, forbidden or malevolent activities flourish (see Chappatte 2014Chappatte , 2018a). 2 Before any attempt to investigate the urban night as a "counterhegemonic" time (Schnepel and Ben-Ari 2005, 160), the expression of a "dominated culture" (Galinier et al 2010, 828), 3 or the space-time for "an alternative life" (Tinat 2005, 243), I asked myself: to what types of corporeal experience does the urban night invite?…”