Navel of the World: an Intimate History of Muslim West Africa
I am currently completing my first book manuscript. Navel of the World offers a novel account of changing landscapes of slavery and empire in the modern world, from the vantage point of African Muslims. Set in the Sahel, at the crossroads of the Atlantic and Saharan worlds, Navel of the World, charts social and political change in the region through the lens of intimate and family relationships.
Between 1804-1960, the Sahel underwent major, successive shifts stemming from the gradual end of Atlantic slavery, a dynamic trans-Saharan trade in goods and people, a wave of West African Islamic revolutions, and European colonialism. During that time, Sahelian Muslims' circulations and networks of exchange spanned the lands tucked between the Senegal and Niger rivers, but also the expanse between the Caribbean and Red seas. Focusing on individuals who lived in, and circulated through, the Sahel’s storied Inland Delta, Navel of the World explores the way their families and intimate relationships were forged, broken, and remade in the furnace of these deep social and geopolitical reconfigurations.
The research for this book was carried out in Mali, Senegal, France, England, Ireland and Jamaica.