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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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