Malian women shuttle traders in neoliberal Dakar: autonomy, (mis)trust and the need to travel

Gunvor Jonsson, SOAS

Recent infrastructural developments in Senegal have severely impacted on the livelihoods of female bana-banas from Mali, a group of mobile traders operating in the Mali-Dakar corridor: transportation costs have significantly increased, travelling has become a more exhausting experience, and fatal accidents have become more frequent during journeys. Why do the bana-banas continue these arduous journeys? Why is their physical presence required in Dakar, and why do they not rely more extensively on social networks to facilitate their transnational trade? This analysis reveals that the recent infrastructural transformations led to an increasing commercialisation and disarticulation of Malian trade networks in the Senegalese capital; and, due to personal circumstances, the women were often cut off from the support of extended kinship networks. However, unlike general expectations of how networks evolve under conditions of neoliberalism, the bana-banas did not turn to personalised relationships of micro-level trust. This paper discusses the conditions of autonomy, flexibility and limited trust which characterised the bana-banas’ livelihoods and necessitated their continued mobility from Mali. The paper contributes to the growing literature on social networks and trust by exploring how transnational trade does and does not work at this historical moment and in the context of gendered constraints.

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