From Classification to Inequality: Fulɓe Practices of Human Differentiation toward People of Unfree Descent

In my presentation I examine how Fulɓe communities in the Borgu region of northern Benin create and reproduce social hierarchies between themselves and people of unfree descent (Gannunkeeɓe/Maccuɓe) in a post-slavery context. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I analyse everyday practices of “making difference” through the lens of theories of human differentiation (Hirschauer). The study shows that despite the legal abolition of slavery, its social legacies persist through discourse, behaviour, and institutions. Five key modes of differentiation are identified: (1) stereotyping discourse that categorises and devalues people of slave descent; (2) moral justifications of historical domination through narratives of child fostering; (3) maintenance of hierarchical divisions of labour; (4) symbolic distinctions in bodily practices, material culture, and rituals; and (5) strict marriage rules enforcing endogamy and preventing status transgression. The chapter argues that while theories of cultural differentiation help illuminate these processes, they insufficiently account for material inequalities and power relations. It concludes that a more integrated approach is necessary to fully understand how enduring hierarchies are reproduced in post-slavery societies.

Jeannett Martin is a social and cultural anthropologist specializing in kinship, belonging, childhood, and mobility, with a regional focus on West Africa, particularly Benin and Ghana. Her research is grounded in long-term ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork, complemented by collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches. From 2010 to 2013, she led a DFG-funded project on child fostering in ethnically heterogeneous contexts in northern Benin at the University of Bayreuth. She completed her habilitation in 2018 with a thesis examining the politics of belonging among children in northern Benin. 

She currently heads the DFG-funded project “African traders’ agency on global cloth markets” at the Institute of Anthropology and African Studies (IFEAS), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, continuing work initiated by the late Apl. Prof. Ute Röschenthaler.