INTRODUCTION

‘The clan is a Senegalese evil, which has been with us for long generations, constantly denounced by the party, but always increasing in strength’. This official verdict reflects an unofficial consensus, that ‘clans’ are the effective units of political competition in the Senegalese single-party state: ‘in almost every region, we witness passionate confrontation, occasionally armed struggle, between clans which all claim affiliation to the governing party’. It should be made clear that the ‘clan’ in local Franco-Senegalese parlance has nothing or very little in common with the normal usage of the term among social anthropologists. The modern political clan is not defined by kinship, real or imagined, although kinship relations may exist and may help to reinforce political solidarity within a given clan group: there is no requirement for a common revered ancestor, real or imagined; no clanic name; no shared taboo; no role of exogamy. The clan is a political faction, operating within the institutions of the state and the governing party: it exists above all to promote the interests of its members through political competition, and its first unifying principle is the prospect of the material rewards of political success. Political office and the spoils of office are the very definition of success: loot is the clanic totem.