Dogon Muslims, “Pagan” Saints, and Other Seeming Oxymorons in West Africa

Dogon Muslims and “pagan” saints are key figures emblematic of the dramatic social transformations Mali has witnessed since the mid-20th century. They are also often alleged to be oxymorons, that is, contradictions in terms that cannot or should not exist. Anthropology long held up the Dogon as quintessential “traditional” Africans who practiced
“traditional” religion. Indeed, “the Dogon” were immortalized—perhaps most famously— by French anthropologist Marcel Griaule and his informant Ogotommeli, almost turning
their “traditionalism” and “animism” into dogma with the very idea of a Dogon Muslim as an oxymoron. This project is as much a critique of anthropology that required the Dogon to
be “traditional,” as it is of scholarship that refuses to contemplate religious transformations among the Dogon and their neighbors who have overwhelmingly embraced Islam or (to a
lesser extent) Christianity, made such religions their own, and the complexity of their religious traditions. This historical anthropological study is the first to elucidate the mass Islamization of the Dogon and the fluidity of their religious practices over time. It will also build analytical tools for understanding the connection between changing modalities of religious expression, different modes of belonging, and emergent social imaginaries in this setting and more generally.