”Do what you want!”
Girls and families confronting new educational priorities in a time of crisis, Ouagadougou, 1934
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51185/journals/rhca.2025.0904Keywords:
Burkina Faso, catholic mission, childhood, colonialism, educationAbstract
In August 1934, a year after the dismantling of the Upper-Volta colony (contemporary Burkina Faso), by the colonial administration, Mossi fathers and uncles bring a series of complaints to the administration: missionaries have signed up their daughters to catechism (karengo, in Mooré), “with force” (ne panga). This article reinterprets these cases from the perspective of the history of childhood. The twenty-six cases of “abduction of young girls” reveal how much the financial crisis of 1929 and the suspension of the Upper-Volta colony transformed family dynamics and educational aspirations in the region of Ouagadougou. What were the stakes of catechism (karengo) for different social groups (girls, fathers, fiancés, Mossi nobility) in times of crisis?
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