Ritualizing and domesticating space: 'kañeleng' women coping with childlessness in the Gambia

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Periodical article

Title:	Ritualizing and domesticating space: 'kañeleng' women coping with childlessness in the Gambia
Author:	Saho, Bala
Year:	2012
Periodical:	Mande Studies
Volume:	14
Pages:	99-125
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Gambia
Subjects:	infertility women initiation rituals women's organizations
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/44080973
Abstract:	This study examines how kañeleng (or childless) women in the Gambia cope with the challenges of childlessness and come to appropriate, domesticate, and own particular spaces. The emphasis is on traditional processes and mechanisms such as visiting a marabout or a shrine or going through a ritual that initiates the women to kañeleng associations. A kañeleng is a woman who cannot bear children or whose children die at an early age. Compared with visiting a hospital or clinic, the traditional approaches are not only more affordable, but the rituals also produce a strong sense of cultural empowerment by giving the women a chance to reconstruct their identities and lives. The rites confirm not only the pragmatic utility of the rituals in transforming the aspirant from a childless woman to a fertile woman, but also elevate the status of the specific landscape on which 'the rite of passage' is conducted to attain sacred status or confirm the sacrality of the place. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]