Paper short abstract:

In this paper I try to show how the appropriation of senegalese youth of ICTs is concomitant with an appropriation of the body that emphasizes its erotic dimensions, bringing sexuality into the public debate, as a questionment of the ideological rethoric of tradition in Senegal.

Paper long abstract:

Senegalese youth has a negative status and is accused of being prone to a scandalous sexualized behaviour. This negative status surpasses simple contextual meanings. This status is consequence of a long-standing historical questioning of social values in Senegal. At the heart of this negative status of youth is the «body», in more than one dimension, through its sexuality, through patterns of consumption, through its mediatisation. What I will consider in this paper is the appropriation by senegalese youth of their bodies, and especially of its erotic dimensions. I will try to explore how this appropriation is also materialized through and with ITCs, which represent for this youth a new «technicity of relationality» and a mirror where their self-reflection can be scrutinized and fashioned (façonné). The irruption of youth sexuality in the public sphere has brought concerns to a society on which open talk on sexuality is a taboo. Society insistantly denounces its malaise with many of the practices of the body claimed by youth as their modern identity, without seemingly being able to counter them, neither materially nor ideologically, stressing a visible social tension between generations. These practices are clearly antagonistic to a rethoric of a legitimate «tradition» (coosan), embedded in religious islamic ethos, and presented by my interlocutors as : a) an expectation on the regulation of behaviours; b) a substitute for problematic parenting; c) a pilar against individualization; d) the fixation of values against western influence ; but also for some, especially to youth, as e) a constraint.