Language Activism on the Airwaves: Pulaar Radio Broadcasting in the Senegal River Valley

Abstract

Community radio stations in Northern Senegal receive financial support from a range of NGOs and agencies, whose goals the radio stations earnestly attempt to serve. However, community radio broadcasting in Northern Senegal has also become a domain for the practice of language activism on behalf of Pulaar, a language spoken by a significant minority of Senegalese and Mauritanians. The stations devote many of their programs to discussions and talk shows intended to encourage linguistic loyalty and purity among audience members, who reside on both sides of the Senegal–Mauritania border. Drawing on recorded broadcasts, interviews, and participant–observation conducted among radio staff members and listeners, this article examines the connections that the stations have with a decades-old movement to promote Pulaar.