Researcher(s):
Megan Coggeshall
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2011 Completed: May 2012 Go to project site
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In this thesis I study sense of place in the context of migration between Senegal and France for educational purposes. In order to determine the ways in which Senegalese people attach meaning to France and Senegal, and the implications of these meanings, I analyze three Senegalese novels: Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane, The Abandoned Baobab by Ken Bugul, and Patera by Aïssatou Diamanka-Besland. I compare these novels to surveys of current Senegalese students to investigate the themes in how sense of place is expressed by individuals. I explore the tensions between nomothetic and idiographic tendencies of place and the external or internal conceptions of place in order to determine the implications of these tensions for environmental discourse. I argue that the tension between embodying meaning in material and ideal elements of place in these migration narratives is intimately linked to Senegal’s colonial past. Furthermore, historical, social, and political elements interestingly intersect in these real and literary accounts and affect how people indentify with their environments. Based on themes that arise in student narratives, place proves to be a useful tool not only for understanding environmental concern, but also for contextualizing the development of environmental narratives.