Genealogical Transactions: Historicities of Slavery and the Making of Family Genealogies in Fouta-Djallon (Guinea)

This article seeks to reflect on the legacy of slave hierarchies in the Fouta-Djallon region (Guinea), through the lens of genealogical rivalries between presumed descendants of enslaved people and descendants of free people. On a theoretical level, it employs a post-slavery framework to understand the dominance of Fulani “great families” not as a reproduction of the past, but as its reinvention and renegotiation in the present. Investigating one’s ancestors, crafting a genealogy, and staging it in the social space are means for local elites to acquire legitimization and assimilation around the former Fulani aristocracy. These genealogical transactions also serve to classify and exclude subaltern groups who cannot claim any free ancestry — even a constructed one — and who turn instead to claims of autochthony as an alternative source of genealogical prestige to that of the Fulani elite.