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Paper short abstract:

Starting from a ongoing research to complete a PhD in Anthropology, this paper proposes to analyze the way in which colonial documents (historical and literary) have contributed to the national and identity construction of post-colonial Mauritania, with special emphasis in the touristic arena where a marketable image is to be constructed.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper we will try to explore the way through which travel narratives and reports on colonial reconnaissance and mapping have contributed in an unequivocal way to the identity and national construction in post independence Mauritania context. More specifically, our research will focus on the way those national and identity representations, present in pre colonial and colonial literature, are being used by the recent touristic industry in the country to promote Mauritania among potential European tourists.

For that purpose we will use an analytic corpus composed by travel narratives produced between 1789 and 1888, and reports of colonial reconnaissance/mapping missions written between 1890 and 1934 (official date for the "complete" pacification of Mauritania). These texts are rich in descriptions on autochthonous population and also about the country, where considerations related with the temperament and nature of the "Moors", as well as with the geographical adversities combined with the fascination provoked by the exoticism of the local landscapes, will shape the self-representations that this populations will produce about themselves and about their own country in a post independence scenario.

In what the tourism is concerned, we are interested in understanding in which ways the pre colonial and colonial historiography was used to reify images and stereotypes about "Moorish" populations, transforming their initial hostility into a "proverbial" hospitality. At the same time, we are interested also in understanding how was the positive transformation of Mauritanian geography operated through the social construction of the desert as an authentic, pacifying and quasi religious landscape.