Gender, STATUT AND ethnicisation OF MAURITANIA ; GENRE, STATUT ET ETHNICISATION DES ḤARĀṬĪN DE MAURITANIE

Abstract

In the maure society of Mauritania, the statutory category of the former slaves or their descendants, made up of former slaves or their descendants, is made up of a plurality of statutes, largely using its vocabulary from the chromatic lexic. I propose a new explanation of the term 'maure society', which is applicable to the other Saharan companies in the Maghreb where it is used. Furthermore, the fact that there is a specific term for women slaves in classic Arabic as in Bosniasāniyya underlines the importance of the gender difference within this social category. Recently, there has been a ethnicisation movement in Mauritania in which some of the political parties linked to them claim that they should no longer be recognised as a statutory category within the maure society but as a 'ethnicity' in its own right or that they be affiliated to the ethno-racial category of 'Negro-Africans'. ; International audience In Mauritania's Moorish society, the statutory category of ḥarāṭīn, composed of former slaves or their descendants, is far from homogeneous; it includes a plurality of statuses that borrow their descriptive vocabulary largely from a chromatic lexicon. I propose a new explanation of the term ḥarṭāni in Moorish society that is also applicable to other Saharan societies in the Maghreb where this term is used. Moreover, the fact that, as in ḥassāniyya, there is a specific term for slave women in classical Arabic underlines the importance of gender differences within this social category. Recently, there has been a significant movement of ethnicization of the ḥarāṭīn in Mauritania. Some ḥarāṭīn political parties even claim that they should no longer be recognized as a statutory category within Moorish society but rather as an « ethnic category » in and of itself-or at least, an ethnicity related to Mauritania's « Negro-African » race. ; In the maure society of Mauritania, the statutory category of the former slaves or their descendants, made up of former slaves or their descendants, is made up of a plurality ...