Contenu du sommaire : Variations

Islamic identities in Dakar. Comparative study of two new-brotherhood movements of young people in the cities The Dahiratoul Moustarchidina Wal Moustarchidaty and the Mouvement Mondial pour l'Unicité de Dieu are two Senegalese Islamic movements intentionally set up in cities in order to stand out in a highly competitive religious field. They are new-brotherhood type movements, inspired by a reformist Islam. They address exclusively young people, offering them new places for contact and socializing in a much-decried urban environment. They are closed communities that nevertheless ostentatiously seek to make their presence felt in cities. In this way they offer the faithful some points of reference thanks to which they can now believe in a new society based on their religious precepts. These are educative movements, with as principal objective the re-Islamization of Senegalese society by means of mass education. Their conversion methods are modern and essentially involve social and citizen-based actions. However, they are involving themselves more and more directly in politics, becoming centres of militant socialization. They are also spaces where young people can make their claims heard and instrumentalize them as a way of contesting society, while often preferring paradoxically to keep their distance from the political causes of their spiritual leaders.

Birth control and social change in small farming families at the pioneer fronts of the eastern Amazon Basin in Brazil A sharp fall in fecundity is occurring among smallholder farming families in a pioneer front area of Latin America. The Authors highlight this trend, then examine the theoretical presumptions (questions on the dynamics of gender relations, in particular within couples) and methodological assumptions (by an approach using a comprehensive method of life-story and family-history focused interviews). That supposes a close investigation of how family groups work by noting changes that take place over several generations and the consequences they have on the spatial dynamics of the colonization front.

On the impartiality of humanitarian aid operators and their beneficiaries' perception of them : the political issues behind international aid in Burundi This article takes as starting point a satisfaction survey conducted in Burundi in 2005 in the displaced persons camps of Muyange and Nyabigina near the Tanzanian border, to examine the perception beneficiaries of international aid have of humanitarian operators. It looks at the impartiality and mode of assessment of operators who are both judge and judged regarding the quality of their services. In countries in deep crisis, international aid intervenes in situations fraught with economic and political tensions. Redistribution of this aid represents a considerable strategic issue for the authorities, offering an opportunity to build up clienteles and power networks, both at national and local levels. However, in Burundi, the beneficiaries of aid are not taken in by the neutrality of the NGOs. In a context where corruption is rife, they emphasize that the embezzlement and misappropriation of incoming humanitarian resources by local notables in fact reinforces social inequalities.

The rules of the game : discourse and representations concerning misappropriation and theft (Bandiagara, Mali) The representations concerning misappropriation of funds and theft in Mali are often examined by placing a distinction on the origin of the money embezzled (respectively public goods, private goods). In the Author's view, a new approach founded on the notion of a bond would be preferable. By taking a side-look at the Malian belote card game and its rules, it is observed that the moral representations bearing a relation to misappropriation practices can only be understood by seeing them in contrast to those that bear on theft.

Success of pineapple production in the Papaloapan Basin (southern Mexico). An agricultural specialization as a basis for regional development ? The Isla region in the south of the Mexican State of Veracruz is the country's principal area of pineapple production. The way technological and institutional changes and variations affected this industry during the XXth Century emphasizes the sector's dynamism, but also its fragility. The sector's strong current dependence on the internal market is responsible for repeated crises of overproduction and sales slump. This cyclic production and price pattern, set in the regional context of unequal access to land resources, generates some very different reactions depending on the category of producer. The periods of crisis marginalized the small producers, but paradoxically allowed the upward mobility and reproduction of a local elite whose economic power is linked to the diversification of activities and resources ; in this way, in spite of its unstable character, the pineapple sector is still the economic driving force for the region.

Itinerant or informal street trading in relation to metropolization : first steps towards modelling The article focuses on itinerant or informal street trading. This is defined by situations of trade exchange characterized by the temporary or insecure occupation of a public thoroughfare. It presents a systemic contextual model of the relations between itinerant transactions and metropolization, taken from the customer's point of view, in the perspective of the intensification of possibilities for mobility, the multiplication of socio-spatial interstices, and of a state of urban existence that is divided up between a great diversity of aspects of metropolitan life.

From the right to housing to an increased insecurity of home-ownership ? The case of Cape Town in South Africa When the democratic regime was set up in South Africa a “right to housing” was inscribed in the new constitution, in the name of rectification of the injustices of the past. Implementation of this law has, in the first instance, taken the form of a policy of access to home-ownership and to domiciliary services intended for the poorer sections of society. This article takes the case of Cape Town, to examine the changes and adjustments that have affected the initial objective, and also the repercussions on the situation of those for whom the law was intended.

Development of Tunis lagoon : a model of planning and sustainable development ? If the subject of waterfronts is well known in the field of refurbishment of sea ports and urban water-sides in the Northern Hemisphere, there are few studies devoted to the countries of the South. This is in spite of the fact that, for the Arab World anyway, the entry on the scene of waterfronts in the era of large urban projects goes back at least to the 1990s (Casablanca, Beirut, Alexandria, Cairo, for example). This article reviews the Tunis lagoon redevelopment, one of the largest urban planning projects put into operation today on the southern side of the Mediterranean. The aim is to define key elements for understanding this. The analysis first deals with a number of challenging steps that were necessary in the concretization of this project (stabilization of the system of actors, negotiation of the ecological input, drawing-up of a viable urban tender). Without being in itself a real model for large cities of the other shore of the Mediterranean, this leading development serves as an ideal case for observing urban planning practices and metropolitan effects concerning land planning and urban identity (new polarizations of the lagoon, accelerated metropolization, symbolic conversion of the waterfront site).

School mathematics text books are not neutral. The gender system in a Pan-African series for primary schools Textbooks are not neutral. This is the case even in mathematics publications which are so abstract in appearance. Like any vector of socialization, they convey social norms, including those regarding the sexes. In order to verify this, the six textbooks of a Pan-African series used for primary teaching in French-speaking Africa were studied. All the characters portrayed were closely examined using a quantitative method applied to notions of gender and representation. Even in succinct texts or simplified illustrations there is a subtle build-up of the gender system that is acceptable, if not laid down by a society, thanks to different indices that depict the identities and roles of the sexes. This proves to be far from the ideal of “equality between the sexes”, advocated by the UNO's Millennium Objectives or UNESCO's Education for All scheme.