Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses how the professional and social activities of Europeans and North Americans living in Senegal reveal local conceptions of their whiteness, despite different backgrounds and skin colors. How does it shape their everyday life and contemporary "senegality" and "africaness"?

Paper long abstract:

As a tourist destination in Sub-Saharan Africa, Senegal has attracted European migrations on its seashores for a very long time, as well as it has shaped different types of professional expatriation before and after its Independence for European and more recently for North American citizens. These foreign residents in Senegal come mainly from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Italy and the United States. They invest in restaurants, small hotels, holiday renting, travel agencies, or they work in international aid, multinational companies, institutional cooperation and elite private schools in Dakar. The minimum documentation they need to circulate is part of their privileges in North-South migrations.

Based on an anthropological fieldwork, this paper analyses how the activities and social practices of Europeans and North Americans living and working in Senegal reveal local perceptions of their whiteness, despite different backgrounds, skin colors and sociological profiles. How does the articulation of class and race shape their everyday life ?

Whiteness is a concept used in social sciences as an "unmarked marker" within Western societies. But the data collected demonstrate its visibility in an African postcolonial country, by producing racialized confrontation and/or social distinction. This paper will explore whether these foreign residents can negotiate this whiteness reinforced by their standards of living and how they cope with tensions, misunderstanding and disillusionment with Senegalese neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues and employees. The paper will also question their contribution to this local perception of their whiteness and how it also reveals contemporary definitions of "senegality" and "africaness".