Visiting The Met? All Past Exhibitions. At The Met Fifth Avenue. Exhibition Overview In-Gallery Guide Exhibition Guide Exhibition Objects Exhibition Catalogue Spanning more than 1, years, this richly illustrated volume is the first to present a comprehensive overview of the Sahel's diverse cultural traditions.
Buy Now. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in. Read More on Perspectives In this series , hear from an archaeologist, filmmakers, and others about the history of the Sahel and its cultural significance.
Sahel , derived from the Arabic word meaning shore, also refers to a topographically and culturally diverse trans-continental zone at the southern edge of the Sahara. For many centuries merchants scholars and artists from North Africa and beyond crossed the great desert along a web of trade routes, transporting materials, technical expertise, and visual ideas to the Sahel, invigorating its culture and artistic landscape.
Note: Sudan does not include South Sudan. With annual demographic growth rates ranging from 2. This growth has occurred because of commendable rapid decreases in infant and child mortality but lagging decreases in fertility. With total fertility rates between 4.
These estimates follow the United Nations medium assumption for fertility reduction, yielding values that these countries do not show signs of actually being able to meet. The age structure of the 10 countries of the Sahel will remain predominately young. The number of youth—those younger than 20—will double by Niger will have the highest youth dependency ratio ratio of those younger than 20, or dependents, to those ages 20 to 64, or working age for the next 36 years.
Even in , Niger will have people younger than 20 for every people ages 20 to The demographic dividend that could be gained from a larger workforce when relatively more working adults support relatively fewer dependents appears to be decades away for the majority of the countries of the Sahel.
Increasing temperatures will also be a factor. Climatologists suggest that the temperature of the Sahel will increase by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by and possibly 8 degrees Celsius by Agricultural production will decrease from anywhere between 13 percent in Burkina Faso to almost 50 percent in Sudan.
Race and politics are the focus of the second section. Chapters 7 and 8 introduce the Touareg poet Hawad who rejects all nationalistic, cultural, [End Page ] and religious affiliations. In the next chapter, Lisa McNee's study of the poetry of some Mauritanian women in exile suggests that hybridity in Mauritania, rather than reflecting "a democratic process," serves to hide the social inequities between " bidan" whites and " sudan" blacks.
The final three chapters focus on the African writer's political commitment. The third section reevaluates the European travelogue in the Sahel. Wise's study of European travel writing in chapter 13 suggests that the cultural clash between the European and Sahelian peoples stems from different attitudes about literature, writing, and books.
Chapter 14 examines the issue of slavery in the Sahel from an Islamic rather than a Western perspective. One of the major strengths in this study is Wise's questioning of his position as a Western critic who might be contributing to the "U.
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