Dr. Valerie Nur and Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman on artisanal knowledge in Niger from a mobility perspective

Abstract

Abstract: During this episode Cluster fellow Valerie Nur talks with her fellowship host Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman (Chair of African History at the University of Bayreuth) about her research on the topic of artisanal knowledge and skills from a mobility perspective. Artisans in Niger often offer their services on the road and, in doing so, rely on a broad kinship network during their travels, within which knowledge, practices, and materials are exchanged, modified, and enhanced. By looking beyond single workshops and individual skills, she understands artisanal skill as a shared dynamic practice and places and routes of learning and exchange as hubs of technology and knowledge transfer over long distances. During her research, Nur aims to conceptualize craft as an epistemology of an exclusive professional community.

People & roles

Guest(s): Nur, Valerie; Glasman, Joël

Origins & context

Title: Dr. Valerie Nur and Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman on artisanal knowledge in Niger from a mobility perspective
Language: English
Podcast series: Cluster Conversations
Date: April 19, 2024

Rights & access

Extent: 23 minutes, 16 seconds

Identifiers & sources

has URL: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/1_4-Public-engagement_-engagement1/Podcasts/ClusterConversations/Episode-19/index.html

Further details

Episode number: 19

Full text

[music] Speaker 1: Cluster Conversations, a podcast by Africa Multiple. Speaker 1: Okay, so this is a new episode of our podcast, the Cluster Conversation of the Excellence Cluster Africa Multiple at the University of Bayreuth. My name is Greg Lassmann. I teach history here at the University of Bayreuth. I am a member of the Institute of African Studies and a member of the Cluster of Excellence. And last semester, I had the pleasure to host Dr. Valérie Noueux as a fellow of the cluster Africa Multiple. Thank you for being here with us, Valérie. Speaker 1: You are an anthropologist. You have studied in France, in Switzerland, in Germany, and you have finished a PhD, completed a PhD that has made some noise and received several prizes among which the Frobenius Prize. Is that true? What was the title of the PhD? What was it about? Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you for inviting me to the podcast. Yeah, my PhD was on craftspeople among Tuareg in Niger and the title was Craft as a Social Practice. Speaker 1: And how did you come to this topic? How did you come to study craft in Niger? Speaker 2: It started actually with a seminar on Tuareg where I had to present—I had to choose a topic—and I thought okay, Tuareg are nomads, so I have chosen the topic on artisans because I thought this should be something very small and easy to manage because they are mainly pastoralists. So when I started to prepare my presentation, I found that Tuareg artisans are not just doing technical practices, but all the literature was about the supernatural powers and magic attributed to them. So especially literature from the nineties—they treat the special social status they have and the magic and how their status is connected to that. And this was somehow exciting and later I went to Mali—it was for an internship. However, accidentally, I met an artisan and I only knew all these magic and supernatural things I read in the literature and I was surprised he was sitting in his workshop and he… Read the full text about 3,217 words