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Julien Bonhomme
Alumnus of the École normale supérieure (1995), agrégé
in philosophy (1998), I received a PhD in anthropology from
the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 2003 and a Habilitation degree
from Paris-Descartes University in 2020.
I have been assistant professor in
anthropology at the University of Lyon-2 (between 2006 and 2008), deputy director of the
research and teaching department of the quai Branly
museum in Paris (bewteen 2008 and 2012), and
assistant professor
at the École normale supérieure
(between 2012 and 2022). I
am currently directeur d'études at the École des
Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales,
researcher at the Laboratoire d'anthropologie sociale
(which I also co-directed from 2020 to 2024).
I study the powers of speech in society from an ethnographic
approach focusing on verbal exchanges and, more broadly,
communicative events. The analysis of verbal interactions and
their embedding in broader sociohistorical contexts aims to shed
light on how social relations are produced and reproduced through
these exchanges. My research focuses on religious speech as well
as on writing practices, the transnational circulation of rumors,
the production and reception of news, or digital communication. By
varying the scales of analysis and combining ethnographic and
historical methods, my work links the detailed study of contexts
of communication to that of wider sociohistorical dynamics:
colonization, urban modernity, the globalization of media and
communication technologies. Based on fieldwork in Gabon and
Senegal, as well as archival work on colonial Africa, my research
combines four related topics:
1. Ritual. Words, artifacts
and images. The first topic deals with ritual speech,
most notably in religious contexts. By looking at different kinds
of speech (divination, oaths, curses, magical incantations,
panegyric, etc.) and ritual specialists (diviner, prophet,
marabout, griot, etc.), I examine how the claim to exercise power
through speech or to speak the truth is socially constructed and
legitimated. I also study the articulation of speech with other
expressive mediums, such as music, dance, images and artefacts. By
focusing on images and objects, I have been led to examine the
ways in which the figure of the European has been integrated into
the symbolic world of local populations since the 19th century.
This work is part of a wider reflection on the colonial situation
in order to understand how it was conceived and experienced by
colonized subjects.
2. Prophetic movements.
Religion, writing and power. Based on a research in
administrative and missionary archives, the second topic focuses
on the use of writing in African prophetic movements. Manifesting
the charismatic authority of the prophet, these writings are
inspired by both the religions of the Book and the bureaucratic
model of the official document. They refer to an ideology of
writing, whose origin is rooted in the colonial situation: as an
instrument of power as much as of knowledge, writing is closely
associated with the two pillars of the colonial order, the State
and the Mission. It is because Europeans have extensively used
writing to establish their domination that the colonized subjects
have appropriated these signs of power in order to oppose them.
Taking up again the Weberian analyses on charisma and bureaucracy,
I examine how the written word participates in the construction of
authority at the crossroads of political and religious spheres.
3. Witchcraft. From family
gossip to transnational rumors. The third topic deals
with witchcraft and the social dynamics of accusations. I study
the circulation of witchcraft gossip by showing that it is an
indirect communication strategy that allows to avoid frontal
conflict in a group of inter-acquaintances such as the family or
the neighborhood. In addition, I study a series of occult rumors
that have circulated on a wider scale, sometimes across the entire
African continent. I analyze how these rumors are spread by word
of mouth, but also through the media and the internet. I examine
how they lead to public accusations, violence and lynching. Far
from being trivial news, these rumors are exemplary cases that can
help us to shed light on African societies from an original
perspective. As an extension of this work on the production,
circulation and reception of rumors, I am also interested in fake
news, conspiracy theories and online scams.
4. Senegalese wrestling.
Building fame. The last topic deals with Senegalese
wrestling, a true national passion in the country. I trace back
the history of the transformation of village wrestling tournaments
into a sport-cum-spectacle during the colonial era. My
ethnographic fieldwork follows the entire chain of actors and
institutions involved in wrestling: the wrestlers and the écuries
(“stables”) where they train in the popular neighborhoods of Dakar
and its suburbs; the official committee charged by the State with
supervising and regulating the practice of wrestling; the
promoters, firms and politicians who organize, fund or sponsor the
fights; the media who ensure their publicity; the griots who sing
the praises of the champions; and the marabouts who take care of
their “mystical preparation”. In particular, I study the
collective mobilization around the wrestlers and the hopes of
success that they embody. No wrestler can succeed without the
support of his family, his neighborhood and his village of origin.
In order to do so, he must perform a reputational work to
cultivate his reputation. By placing “popularity”, the cardinal
value of wrestling, at the center of my study, I propose a broader
reflection on the social dynamics of fame and celebrity beyond the
field of sports.

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