Ousmane Traore

Visiting Assistant Professor

My classes are focused on the trans-Atlantic and the trans-Saharan worlds of slavery and on Modern African history, more generally. All of my classes seek primarily to historicize nation building in Africa during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. 

My Slavery class brings together the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic worlds of slavery under the same lens to understand the enslavement of Africans in America and in the Lands of Islam. These two slave markets will be examined in reference to their common historical bond to Islam, and I attempt to illuminate the multiple roles that Islam has played in the history of slavery, whether in West Africa, the Americas, or the Islamic Mediterranean. This class depicts the history of slavery in Africa and the trans-Atlantic slave trade from a new vantage point. It focuses on historical processes that helped to determine the African political and social structures from the pre-Islamic, West African societies to the African states built during the Atlantic slave trade. Both trans-Atlantic and trans-Saharan worlds of slavery are analyzed in relation to disciplines such as African diplomacy, negotiation and military history, and the African corpus of the Human and Social Sciences. This new disciplinary approach allows nation and state building in West Africa to be scrutinized within a framework of trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic worlds of slavery.

The survey class on pre-colonial history covers several centuries of early African nation building as it took place in Ancient Egypt, the cradle of civilizations. Within the pre-colonial period, the class highlights important themes such as African populations’ migrations from the Nile Valley and the Sahara, state-building processes from Egypt to Ghana, the African Middle Ages, and the formation of the African nation between the 4th to the 14th centuries.

The Modern survey class I teach (1884 through the present) deals with the colonial and post-colonial periods and highlights such issues as underdevelopment, development, foreign aid, democracy, famines, drought, warfare, and genocide. We explore neo-colonialism and Western involvement in Africa, looking specifically at the Cold War’s consequences in the region and the persistence of the Western presence through imperialistic configurations such as that of Francafrique. The course highlights the fail of the Ethnic-State and the ineffectiveness of ethnic politicization as a policy legacy inherited from the African independences of the 1960s.

This year I will also teach a new theme related to the new “Uprising Wind for Change” that is blowing from the Maghreb to sub-Saharan Africa. The course historicizes the overthrowing of African strong men and traces the construction of a strong civil society in Africa. It focuses on the new demand for democracy launched by African youth against dictatorial regimes. The major geographic areas of the continent will be studied within a broader chronological and thematic framework.

Research:

Since the beginning of my graduate studies in History at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal, I have focused my research primarily on Africa’s incredibly long, complex, and diverse history. My diplomas cover various historical fields and periods: Egyptology, Archaeology, and Modern and Contemporary African History. I focused on the Atlantic slave trade. My masters thesis, “Les relations entre la France et le Sénégal à travers la lecture de la Série B du Ministère de la Marine, 1715-1888,” consisted of a survey of the French and Senegalese National Archives and in particular the correspondences of the “B and C Series” of the Ministère Français de la Marine et de la Guerre. In my dissertation, (Maneuvering Space, Negotiations and Decision-Making of African Rulers in International, Trans-Atlantic Relations, and in the Evolution of Modern Capitalism in West Africa, ca.1500-ca.1800, University of Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV, June 26th, 2009), I make use of new perspectives and levels of analysis. Specifically, I emphasize the strong ties between diplomatic representation, affection as a new diplomatic criterion, negotiation, manoeuvering space, decision-making, militarization, ethnic state-building, and the European presence in Senegambia.

My research shows that diplomacy and negotiation were at the core of the relations between Europeans and Wolof states during the eighteenth century. The multidimensional relation of these ethnic states to the Atlantic economy in Senegambia offers a different perspective on the slave trade and provides a framework for a new scientific discipline concerned with the history of processes of diplomacy and militarization in Africa.

My approach to oral tradition focuses on village traditions recorded in collective memory via folklore, tales, popular songs, proverbs, court documents from both colonial and Islamic courts, petitions to colonial authorities, and personal correspondence. Based on surveys and interviews, I am interested in thinking about how to access the voices of African slaves, those enslaved, the slavers, the slave-users, and those left behind.

In summary, my education includes degrees and certificates in History, Egyptology, and Art history.  My master’s degree, from the University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal, focused on the archaeology of Nubia and the Sudan. In 2009, I received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Paris-Sorbonne-Paris, France with a dissertation on the “Maneuvering Space and Decision-Making of African Rulers in Trans-Atlantic Relations in the 18^th Century in the Era of Senegambia, 1715-1848.”

Selected publications include “State Control and Regulation of Commerce on the Waterways and Coast of Senegambia, c. 1500-1800,” Navigating African Maritime History, International Journal of Maritime History, Memorial University of Newfoundland Press, num. 46, December, 2009, “Noble and Slave Views of the Past in Senegal’s Futa Toro,” Bitter Legacy: African Slavery Past and Present, Markus Wiener Publisher Princeton (Forthcoming, May 2011).

My books currently in progress deal with the trans-Atlantic and trans-Saharan worlds of slavery:

-Lat-Sukaabé Faal, Andre Brue et NGooné Jeey: Femme, Diplomatie et Traite négrière. (Paris-Sorbonne Press)

-Traite négrière en Sénégambie: Espaces de Diplomatie et Lieux de Négociations, 1694-1720. (Paris-Sorbonne Press)

Life Experiences:

I was born in Senegal. After University study at Cheikh Anta Diop University (Dakar), I lived in France where I went to graduate schools (University Charles Degaulle de Lille and Paris- Sorbonne). I currently serve as a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in History at Lewis & Clark College.

I have also previously been interested in youth movements, youth education, and immigration. Thus, I worked as a volunteer with community based organizations teaching newcomers, known as “Primo-Arrivants” (new immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa and Maghreb), French language skills. I taught African History, Egyptology, and French literacy in the suburbs’ high schools. Besides my academic activities, I also worked for the International Centre of Communication of Roubaix, a suburb of Lille in Northern France where there is a significant settled immigrant population. There I headed projects of cooperation between teenagers (immigrants’ descendants) from France, Senegal and Guinea Conakry. I was also an instructor for old and young persons who were coming from the suburbs to learn to use and access new ICTs. These experiences led to further activities related to the field of immigration, including working at the Town Hall (Mairie) of Mantes-la-Jolie in the Parisian suburbs of Mantes-La-Jolie. I was employed as a history teacher in a project developed by the French Minister of Social cohesion named “Réussite Educative.” This intervention consisted of preventing “school failure,” which has been shown to be more frequent among the teenagers from the suburbs and immigrant families from the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa. My goals there were to help students develop their skills in writing and analytical thinking and to encourage them to acquire a broad base of knowledge to help them in exploring and understanding the world beyond their own. It was an interesting experience that led me to a position as Director of the Cap & Vie Association, as we led a new project financed by the European Commission. Cap & Vie was selected by the French Minister of Social Cohesion to use the funds awarded by the European Commission to develop a program designed to reduce social inequalities and school disruption in Europe. I managed the project for two years to help the youngsters and teenagers from the French suburbs to further their education and increase their eligibility for employment. As Director, my role was to execute this program by managing and developing relationships with a wide network of businesses, including more than 120 French farmers around France and each of its Provinces. I was also in charge of a database of 300 immigrant families located in the seven main cities that constitute Le Mantois. Using my network with area businesses and farmers, I assisted teenagers from the suburbs to gain access to employment. I coordinated this program with my transnational counterparts from other European associations undertaking this same program in Austria, Slovakia and Germany.

Academic Credentials

B.A.	1997	Licence d’Historire
M.A.	1997	Mâtrise d’Egyptologie
Ph.D.	2009	University of Paris Sorbonne