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There is a significant community of Lebanese people in Senegal.[1]
Migration history
The first trader from
Ottoman Lebanon arrived in
French Senegal in the 1860s. However, early migration was slow; by 1900, there were only about one hundred Lebanese living in the country, mostly Shiite Muslims from the vicinity of
Tyre. They worked as street vendors in
Dakar,
Saint-Louis and
Rufisque. After
World War I, they began to move into the peanut trade. With the establishment of the
French Mandate of Lebanon, Lebanese immigration expanded sharply.[3] During the
Great Depression and again after
World War II, French traders lobbied the government to
restrict Lebanese immigration; however, the government generally ignored such lobbying.[4]
Interethnic relations
During the colonial period, the Lebanese tended to support independence movements.[4] Their social position outside of the colonial relationship, as neither colonist nor colonised, enabled them to maintain good relations with both Senegalese consumers as well as the large French businessmen.[5] After
Senegal gained independence in 1960, most French small traders left the country; however, indigenous Senegalese people began to compete increasingly with the Lebanese in the peanut sector, and soon after, the whole peanut marketing sector was
nationalised.[4]
In the early 2000s, the Lebanese began to be displaced from their position as a market-dominant minority by the
influx of Chinese traders and the cheap goods they brought from China; as a result, the Lebanese began to shift to a pattern of buying goods from the Chinese and reselling them in remote areas of the country where no Chinese migrants lived.[7]
Boumedouha, Saïd (1990), "Adjustment to West African Realities: The Lebanese in Senegal", Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 60 (4): 538–549,
doi:
10.2307/1160207,
JSTOR1160207,
S2CID145300043
Leichtman, Mara A. (2005), "The legacy of transnational lives: Beyond the first generation of Lebanese in Senegal", Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28 (4): 663–686,
doi:
10.1080/13569320500092794,
S2CID144395215
Boumedouha, Saïd (1992), "Change and Continuity in the Relationship between the Lebanese in Senegal and their Hosts", in Hourani, Albert; Shehadi, Nadim (eds.), The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, I. B. Tauris,
ISBN978-1-85043-303-3
Leichtman, Mara A. (2006), A tale of two Shi'isms: Lebanese migrants and Senegalese converts in Dakar, Ph.D. dissertation,
Rhode Island: Department of Anthropology,
Brown University,
OCLC183678779
Taraf, Souha (1994), L'espace en mouvement: dynamiques migratoires et territorialisation des familles libanaises au Sénégal, Ph.D. dissertation,
Tours: Department of Geography,
François Rabelais University,
OCLC490432951