BondoukouBEDU and SAKRABUTU FESTIVALS This was written by Karel Arnaut research interests My primary research focus is on masquerades and other public performances in the Bondoukou Region (Côte d'Ivoire). More specifically, I look at Bedu masquerades and end-of Ramadan performances, especially the Sakaraboutou 'carnival', in and around the town of Bondoukou. The two performances originate from two groups who occupy different and to some extent opposite positions. Bedu is owned and organised by the 'pagan'/Christian, Kulango-speaking minority, while Sakaraboutou is the work of the Muslim, Dyula-speaking majority. In confronting the two performances I look at how they are used by both groups to claim space, make place, and assert identity. I start from the observation that through these public performances, both groups give shape to a shared locality with a shared history within which they demarcate their particular spaces and identities. These identities are then further analysed by looking at the dynamics of hegemony within the town of Bondoukou and at mainly gender inequalities within each group. This in turn is reconnected with how both performances confirm and interrogate these inequalities. Parallel to my field research in the Bondoukou region, I have done some field collecting of contemporary Bedu masks for three British public ethnographic collections: the Royal Pavilion (Brighton), the British Museum (London), and the Horniman Museum (London). For the Royal Pavilion I did a small exhibition 'Bedu is my lover' in 1996. I am also glad to announce that the new 'Performance' gallery (open in 2001) will include an installation about Bedu for which I collected the masks and will provide the photographs. I collected four Bedu masks for the 'African Worlds' gallery of the Horniman Museum which opened last year. I also edited a collection of texts about field collecting for the new gallery. Finally, Bedu masks will feature in the new Sainsbury African Galleries of the British Museum. Although it is uncertain that the new Bedu masks I collected will be on permanent display, at least I was given the opportunity to write the text panel that accompanies the splendid late 19th-century Bedu mask. My further research interests include critical museology and European postcolonial popular culture. The European colonial projects were sustained by massive propaganda. In Belgium, these gave rise to the creation of institutions such as, most notably the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, but also to smaller, regional or local, institutions such as the Musée Africain de Namur (MAN). Ethnographic research into the workings and the discourse of the MAN, is meant to tell us how these 'colonial' projects remake themselves in a postcolonial world. list of publications 1. Books 1996 (edited with E. Dell) Bedu is my Lover: Five Stories about Bondoukou and Masquerading. Brighton: The Green Centre for Non-Western Art. 1998 (edited with M. Holsbeke) Offers voor nieuw leven: Grafgiften uit pre-Columbiaans West-Mexico. Antwerpen: Etnografisch Museum [vert: Engels, Frans]. 1998 (with J. Verhoeven, and J. Blommaert) Historical, Socio-Cultural and Phonetic Notes on Bondoukou Kulango (Côte d’Ivoire). Gent: RECALL. 1999 (with) Jan Blommaert & Albert Martens, Van Blok tot Bouwsteen: Een visie voor een nieuw lokaal migrantenbeleid. Berchem: Epo. 2000 (edited) RE-VISIONS: New perspectives on the African collections of the Horniman Museum With preface by Jan Vansina. London & Coimbra: The Horniman Museum and Gardens & Museu Antropológico da Universidade de Coimbra. [For sale at Blackwell's Bookshops]
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