Diriyanké – wzór „prawdziwie” afrykańskiego piękna versus signares, disquettes i jongoma
Diriyanké – a model of “true” African beauty versus signares, disquettes and jongom

The intersubjectivity of cultural patterns in Senegalese society

Author(s): Ryszard Vorbrich
Subject(s): Anthropology, Cultural history, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, 19th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Senegal; female beauty; diriyanké; signares; disquettes; jongoma; mbootaay
Summary/Abstract: The aim of this study is to show how the conceptualization of female beauty can be an example of intersubjective interpersonal relationships preserved by social practices. It analyzes and compares four models of Senegalese beauty: diriyanké, signares, disquettes and jongoma. The sources of the article come from my fieldwork research conducted intermittently in Dakar and Saint-Louis in 2017–2020. The fieldwork observations, interviews and surveys made it possible to recreate the public discourse on the discussed issues. In the course of the analysis, I point to the genesis of different cultural patterns of female beauty in Senegal. I discuss the ways of women’s self-creation, influencing their social perception (the myth of “seductive power”) and creating the stereotypes and distinctions that separate them. From an anthropological perspective, the category of female beauty appears here as a phantasm of the mind, as a set of qualities dependent on subjective evaluation but located in a broader social and cultural context.

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