The evolution of women's commerce in the Dakar–Bamako corridor

The phenomenon of female shuttle traders in the Mali–Senegal corridor is not a product of recent liberalization but dates back nearly a century. In fact, unlike other instances of shuttle trade, the bana-banas’ participation in commerce in this corridor declined during the era of structural adjustment, as the following analysis reveals (cf. Bredeloup Reference Bredeloup2012; Haugen Reference Haugen2013; Peraldi Reference Peraldi2005). During 2013 I conducted anthropological fieldwork among Malians in Dakar using a mix of French and Bamanankan to carry out conversations, interviews and participant observation. Like the general Malian population, most of my informants were Muslim and part of the Mande populations of West Africa who share related languages and cultural heritage. I undertook extensive periods of participant observation among the bana-banas from Mali, and also with the female traders working at the new Malian markets that had emerged after the market at the Dakar terminus was demolished. However, I decided not to travel with the bana-banas, since my fieldwork coincided with the war in Mali. Six days after my arrival in the Senegalese capital, on 11 January 2013, French and African troops launched a military intervention to halt rebels advancing on the capital from the north and occupying territory along the way. The bana-banas I met, however, were largely unfazed by the security alerts issued by the media and authorities during the conflict in Mali, and they continued their journeys to Dakar unabated. The Malian conflict was concentrated in the north of the country, not the southern and western parts, including Kayes and Bamako, from which most of these women hailed. As my informants liked to point out, the distance between Dakar and Bamako (see Figure 1) is shorter than the distance between Bamako and Kidal, the stronghold of the rebels in northern Mali. Given the absence of research about the women traders at home in Mali, the picture presented in this article might be incomplete and some of my conclusions provisional.

Figure 1 Map of the Dakar–Niger railway. Map © James A. Jones, 2017. Used with permission.

West African women first became ‘railway merchants’Footnote ² as early as the 1890s, taking advantage of their husbands’ access to railway passes to travel to town to buy better food than the railway supplied.Footnote ³ In the 1920s and 1930s, the wives of railway employees began engaging in long-distance trade (Jones Reference Jones2002: 5; Lambert Reference Lambert, Grégoire, Labazée and Amselle1993a: 42). Railway trade was progressively feminized during the postcolonial socialist regime in Mali when several women were promoted in business by their husbands or a civil servant relative with connections to power; some educated women also used the opportunity of being close to the ruling elite to access business (Lambert Reference Lambert, Grégoire, Labazée and Amselle1993a: 44). The trade grew considerably during the droughts of the 1970s, when families were forced to diversify their income-generating strategies and women increasingly used the train to conduct trade (ibid.).

Different measures implemented during the period of liberalization, initiated as part of structural adjustment programmes in the early 1980s, deterred the small railway traders, to the advantage of dominant male and female traders who possessed large sums of capital (Jones Reference Jones2007: 107; Lambert Reference Lambert, Grégoire, Labazée and Amselle1993a: 45–6). When Mali joined the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and adopted the CFA currency in 1984, prices doubled, which led to a decline in female traders on the train: since Senegal and Mali now had the same currency, raw products from Mali became less competitive in Dakar and numerous female traders had to change to other circuits that were more favourable than the Dakar–Bamako one (Lambert Reference Lambert, Grégoire, Labazée and Amselle1993a: 45; cf. Jones Reference Jones2007: 107).

Under pressure from the World Bank, the Malian and Senegalese governments privatized the Dakar–Niger railway network in 2003. The railway had been in decline for decades as the two countries had largely stopped investing in it and equipment had become obsolete (Lesourd and Ninot Reference Lesourd, Ninot, Chaléard, Chanson-Jabeur and Béranger2006: 108). After a tender, a twenty-five-year concession was won by a Franco-Canadian consortium under the name Transrail (Jones Reference Jones2007: 108). This consortium closed down most of the railway system, with devastating consequences for the traders and other people making their living from the railway line (Beaudet Reference Beaudet2006; Munié Reference Munié2007). The new owners invested minimally in railway equipment (wagons and tracks), dismissed more than 600 railway workers and closed two-thirds of all stations (Beaudet Reference Beaudet2006; Jones Reference Jones2007: 108; Munié Reference Munié2007). This contributed to the impoverishment of rural areas adjacent to the line, where, for over a century, life had been organized around the stations, as villagers had traded their produce with travellers and railway workers’ families (Beaudet Reference Beaudet2006; Magassa Reference Magassa2018).Footnote ⁴ Although the concession was won in exchange for an operating agreement to ensure passenger services, Transrail did not consider this profitable and after privatization the service began to decline (Munié Reference Munié2007). The last passenger train in Senegal reportedly ran in 2009 (cf. Coulibaly Reference Coulibaly2009; Martineau Reference Martineau2013).Footnote ⁵

In 2003, the gradual decline of the Dakar–Niger railway and the improvement of the roads linking Mali and Senegal prompted one pioneering female bana-bana from Mali to establish the first bus route for passengers travelling between Bamako and Dakar. She went on to start up her own bus company in 2006, and other companies servicing the route emerged over the next three years. Certain buses became known unofficially as the ‘bana-bana buses’; rather than competing with the mainstream buses in terms of passenger comforts, such as air-conditioning or legroom, they obtained loyal and regular customers among the bana-banas by catering specifically to their transport needs.Footnote ⁶

The aisle inside the buses used by the bana-banas was normally so packed with luggage that passengers could not move but were crammed into their seats during the nearly two days of travel. A female bana-bana describing her bus journey complained, ‘Your feet are so swollen you'd think you had elephantiasis. Even your entire body, it hurts, because you don't move.’ The few stops on the route were mostly at checkpoints and border posts, where the travellers would be harassed by corrupt officials. This exhausting experience deterred many bana-banas from continuing to travel on this route and many gave up their journeys to Dakar when the passenger train stopped running. While some bana-banas stopped their transnational trade altogether and ‘retired’ in Mali, others pursued alternative destinations such as Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire or Guinea Conakry. Some bana-banas decided to settle permanently in Dakar and trade from a market stall or a shop.Footnote ⁷

Although the former passenger train had had frequent and sometimes fatal accidents, the number of casualties did not decline after the transition to buses. This reflects a general problem in most of Africa, where road accidents are a major source of fatalities and injuries (Lamont Reference Lamont2012).Footnote ⁸ One of the worst accidents during my fieldwork involved one of the bana-bana buses: about half of the passengers died, including the driver and his two apprentices, after the bus crashed into a stationary truck. Apparently, the driver had objected to departing that day because he was too tired, but his boss in Mali had insisted over the phone. Communal transport in Senegal has become increasingly privatized over the past decades and hence is largely driven by commercial interests and fierce competition, instead of the provision of a public service meeting the needs of the general population (Choplin and Lombard Reference Choplin and Lombard2010; Lesourd and Ninot Reference Lesourd, Ninot, Chaléard, Chanson-Jabeur and Béranger2006). The economy of speed on Senegal's national highways thus reflects the wider shift in the political economy of the region, towards privatization and liberalization of the state (cf. Diop Reference Diop2013).

The bana-banas knew that there were certain risks involved in travelling, but the journeys were essential to their livelihoods and there was little they could do to change the conditions of travel, apart from putting their fate in the hands of God. This did not mean that they were oblivious to the risks of travel; on the contrary, the women often mentioned the possibility of death whenever we discussed their journeys. One morning when the bana-bana NanaFootnote ⁹ was preparing to leave and was sitting surrounded by all her luggage, I asked what she normally packed for the journey to Dakar. She replied that she always brought two sheets, explaining: ‘If a man travels from Bamako to Dakar and he dies on the way, they will ask people to look through his luggage to see if there is any sheet, to wrap the body before the burial. What will you do if you didn't bring a sheet?!’

Before the Malian market in Dakar was bulldozed, it was relatively easy for a bana-bana to bring a load of goods on the train, install herself at the terminus and sell them and then use the profits to purchase items from the nearby markets in the city centre to bring back for sale in Mali. This option was now no longer available, and, moreover, demand for Malian goods in Dakar had declined after the market disappeared and the traders dispersed. Hence, the majority of the Malian bana-banas now came to Dakar to buy, not to sell.Footnote ¹⁰ The goods purchased by bana-banas in Dakar were generally industrially manufactured and imported products. Mali is landlocked and depends greatly on maritime traffic for its international trade, primarily through the port city of Dakar.Footnote ¹¹ Dakar offered the bana-banas a wide range of commodities, at a relatively low price. In addition to imported goods, the women purchased mass-produced consumables supplied by Dakar's factories. Dakar is also known for its fashion, and tailored and ready-made garments were another prized commodity in which Malian bana-banas often traded. ‘Small’ bana-banas (referred to as ‘petites bana-banas’)Footnote ¹² would usually buy clothes, shoes, jewellery and cosmetics; processed and tinned food; cooking utensils; and household implements. Those with greater trade capital would purchase larger volumes of wholesale commodities, for example dried fish, bicycles, rice, gas, cement or salt.Footnote ¹³ Small bana-banas would commonly carry out between one and three trading trips a month, and the number of Malian bana-banas in Dakar increased around Tabaski (Eid al-Adha) and Ramadan, when there was a high demand for food and clothes for these religious celebrations.Footnote ¹⁴

It is difficult to estimate the extent to which neoliberalism has resulted in small-scale trade between Mali and Senegal shifting into the hands of an elite of large-scale traders. There are clear indications that large-scale trade between Mali and Senegal is increasing, particularly imports to Mali from Senegal (see Table 1). It is worth noting that, in parallel with the trade conducted by bana-banas, ‘virtual’ trade was being carried out between Dakar and Bamako: some Malian women trading in import and export did not need to go to Dakar, but instead conducted their entire business from Mali. These were women who could afford to order several truckloads of goods, pay for brokers and intermediaries to organize the purchase and transport of goods, and transfer money for their orders via the bank. If, for any reason, they needed to go to Dakar, they would take the plane. Engaging in such ‘virtual’ trade by relying extensively on ICT and on employees and intermediaries in Dakar, instead of travelling back and forth, required significant social and financial capital, which female bana-banas did not possess.Footnote ¹⁵

Table 1 Evolution of the traffic of goods from 2008 to 2012, to and from Mali.

Figures obtained in March 2013 from Entrepôts Maliens au Sénégal (EMASE) in Dakar. Note: The totals are as provided by EMASE but those for 2011 and 2012 do not accurately reflect the import/export figures listed.

Since the demise of the Dakar–Niger passenger train, it has become more expensive and cumbersome for small-scale shuttle traders to transport goods to and from Dakar: compared with the more spacious train, the buses on which the bana-banas travelled had relatively little room for luggage, and trade commodities therefore often had to be transported separately by truck, constituting a significant additional cost. Moreover, if the bana-bana was not vigilant, the people handling the goods during the loading and unloading of trucks would simply throw them into the truck or onto the ground, which meant that packaging and goods could easily be broken. The women's goods were sometimes damaged if they were loaded together with other kinds of items. For example, Fatou wanted to buy a large amount of rice but worried that lots of other things would be loaded into the same truck; this could easily tear the rice bags, causing them to spill. To avoid such problems, bana-banas had to be present to oversee the loading of their goods and some even accompanied the truck driver back to Mali. To reduce transport costs, some bana-banas colluded with truck drivers to illegally overload trucks after they had been filled with their formally allowed cargo. These bana-banas would then travel in the truck, taking care of negotiations with and bribes to officials. This arrangement was one of the more troublesome aspects of the bana-banas’ trade, one that gave the women a negative reputation among business people and officials dealing in the more formally regulated sectors of the economy.

The increasing precarity and decline of the bana-banas’ commerce was also linked to recent spatial and infrastructural transformations of the trading landscape in Dakar. In the days when the passenger train was still running in Senegal, the bana-banas had collaborated and interacted closely with the market traders at the Dakar terminus: they used to supply the market traders with goods and also sold their own goods at the market, and many bana-banas used the market space as a temporary home during their stays in Dakar. After the passenger train was replaced with transport by road, the bana-banas were no longer propelled into the same social and commercial space as the Malian market traders. They arrived on buses in a different part of the city, and they no longer socialized or slept at the terminus during their stays in Dakar. The neoliberal policies that closed down most of the railway system thus contributed to an increasing disembeddedness of female bana-banas from ethnic and kinship-based trade networks in Dakar (cf. Granovetter Reference Granovetter1985; Portes and Sensenbrenner Reference Portes and Sensenbrenner1993). Relatively few bana-banas acted as suppliers to the traders at the new, scattered Malian markets that had recently emerged in the vicinity of the old terminus. Truck drivers transporting the bana-banas’ goods were reluctant to continue all the way into the congested city centre of Dakar, where the new Malian markets were located, preferring instead to unload in the northern suburbs. Due to competition over the limited market space and the high cost of renting stalls, very few bana-banas were able to retail their own goods at the new Malian markets and were instead obliged to sell them through the market traders. This tied the bana-banas into unattractive credit relations: they would obtain the revenue for their goods only after market traders had sold them, and these payments were usually returned slowly and in small portions after much persistence and impatient waiting by the bana-banas.

Several scholars have noted that, under conditions of contemporary globalization and neoliberalism – such as those described above – ‘traditional’ trade networks based on ethnicity, kinship or religion are increasingly giving way to more rational and instrumental networks, coupled with greater reliance on ICT (cf. Fafchamps Reference Fafchamps1996; Humphrey and Schmitz Reference Humphrey and Schmitz1998; MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga Reference MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga2000; Molony Reference Molony2009; Overå Reference Overå2006). Through the long-term process of nurturing relationships with regular trading partners, who may become friends, a relation of trust tends to emerge (cf. Haugen Reference Haugen2013: 29; Humphrey and Schmitz Reference Humphrey and Schmitz1998: 38–9). Trust thus increasingly develops through first-hand experience of exchange and repeated transactions over a period of time: that is, a more personalized form of trust in friends and colleagues (cf. Overå Reference Overå2006: 1304; Yükseker Reference Yükseker2004; Zucker Reference Zucker1985). However, this pattern of transformation of networks and trust did not appear to apply in a straightforward manner to the Malian bana-banas, as the following section of this article clarifies. Instead of increasingly relying on personal contacts – including relationships with other bana-banas – these women continued their frequent, and both costly and risky, journeys to Dakar, where they conducted their businesses in a relatively autonomous fashion.

Patriarchal constraints and the marginalization of mobile women traders

Oumou had collaborated with bana-banas for decades and had herself travelled back and forth on the passenger train with her mother before the former Malian market had been demolished. When I discussed with Oumou why the bana-banas travelled frequently instead of relying on intermediaries in Dakar, she told me:

Like most people pursuing an economic livelihood in West Africa, the bana-banas could not rely to any great extent on the legal system or other official regulatory mechanisms to enforce contracts (cf. Fafchamps Reference Fafchamps1996; Humphrey and Schmitz Reference Humphrey and Schmitz1998). Tracking down a fraudulent intermediary and redressing any grievance through legal means was cumbersome and costly. In such environments, traders might instead rely on trustworthiness, judged by the characteristics of sellers and intermediaries, such as their family background, ethnicity or religious adherence (Humphrey and Schmitz Reference Humphrey and Schmitz1998; Overå Reference Overå2006; Zucker Reference Zucker1985). Reliance on such ‘characteristics-based trust’ has been common among West African men involved in long-distance trade. Studies have emphasized the significance of social networks and ethnic and religious identity in constituting successful trading networks and institutions in this region (Amselle Reference Amselle1977; Cohen Reference Cohen1969; Diouf Reference Diouf2000; Ebin Reference Ebin1992; Grégoire and Labazée Reference Grégoire and Labazée1993; Warms Reference Warms1992; Reference Warms1994). However, as the previous section pointed out, the female bana-banas were cut off from these kinds of networks in certain ways.

When examining traders’ ability to form dependable personal relationships and to trust others, it is important to note that the rules and regulations that apply to male traders do not necessarily apply in the same way to women traders, who may be subject to different social and moral constraints (Clark Reference Clark1994; Reference Clark2003; cf. Meagher Reference Meagher2005: 231). It is therefore necessary to consider the structures of power in which women operate and that restrict the kinds of tactics and strategies women can use. Agnès Lambert's research conducted on the railway in the 1980s shows that, in the past, kinship ties to railway employees, officials and other railway traders facilitated entry into the railway trade, and female railway merchants actively encouraged future generations to follow in their footsteps, bringing along their daughters on the train to show them how to trade (Lambert Reference Lambert, Grégoire, Labazée and Amselle1993a; Reference Lambert and Blanc-Pamard1993b; Reference Lambert1998; Lambert de Frondeville Reference Lambert de Frondeville1987; Poitou et al. Reference Poitou, Lambert de Frondeville, Toulabor, Bisilliat, Pinton and Lecarme1992). In contrast, as noted earlier, many of the contemporary bana-banas travelling to Dakar had entered the shuttle trade at a mature age due to the lack of financial support from spouses and relatives.

Living in isolation from extended families, divorced and widowed bana-banas had more freedom to travel compared with other Malian women, who were more directly caught up in local patriarchal arrangements and whose mobility was more strictly controlled and limited (cf. Findley and Diallo Reference Findley and Diallo1993; Freeman Reference Freeman and Aguilar2007; Guilmoto Reference Guilmoto1997; Lesclingand Reference Lesclingand2004; Rodet Reference Rodet2009). However, being a female bana-bana carried a social stigma: among many Malians I met it was generally not considered appropriate for a woman of reproductive age to be unmarried and ‘roaming about’. While long-distance trade and travel tend to be construed as prestigious for Malian men, leading to social mobility and status, this is not necessarily the case for mature Malian women (cf. Dougnon Reference Dougnon, Leedy and Kane2013; Jónsson Reference Jónsson, Graw and Schielke2012; Whitehouse Reference Whitehouse2012). Indeed, many Malians thought that the female bana-banas were prostitutes. The association of female travel with promiscuous sexual behaviour is a long-standing one, as reflected in the early literature on female migration in West Africa (Pittin Reference Pittin1984; Sudarkasa Reference Sudarkasa1977). Today, female migrants’ sexuality continues to attract considerable public and political attention, for example in relation to human trafficking and the spread of HIV/AIDS (cf. Carling Reference Carling2005; UNAIDS 2008). However, concerns with mobile women's promiscuity or sexual vulnerability sometimes mask a deeper anxiety about women's autonomy and mobility posing a threat to the socio-economic structure and ideal of patriarchal families and communities (Porter Reference Porter2011; cf. Guilmoto Reference Guilmoto1997; Hertrich and Lesclingand Reference Hertrich, Lesclingand, Hertrich and Keïta2003; Lesclingand Reference Lesclingand2004; Ouedraogo Reference Ouedraogo, Baker and Akin1995; Sauvain-Dugerdil Reference Sauvain-Dugerdil2011).

In the face of such societal marginalization and stigma surrounding their mobile livelihoods, it might be expected that the bana-banas would form bonds of solidarity and trust among themselves. Indeed, bana-banas often travelled and worked in pairs, but, apart from this, relationships with other bana-banas in Dakar were rarely long-lasting or deeply felt; they largely lost relevance once these women were back at home in Mali. Some of the bana-banas had established a grin outside the office of a Malian bus company. The grin is a form of socializing widespread in West Africa, involving an informal group of peers who assemble, often on a daily basis, in a regular location, usually to engage in chatting, making tea, listening to music and playing cards (cf. Bondaz Reference Bondaz2013; Brenner Reference Brenner1994; Masquelier Reference Masquelier2013). Chatting (baro) and socializing in the grin helped the women cope with the occasional loneliness and hardships of their highly autonomous and mobile lifestyles. The bana-banas I met were highly assertive and independent women – their livelihoods required such an attitude. They had to be able to negotiate hard and to manage if a deal fell through, if their goods were stolen, or if they were cheated; they had to be able to endure being away from their children and to travel, work and live on their own. However, relations among the bana-banas were at times disloyal. It was striking how much malicious gossiping took place among the women in the grin, behind the backs of other bana-banas who also frequented the grin on a regular basis. For example, bana-banas would secretly chastise their female colleagues for failing in their relations with their close kin, disrespecting age hierarchies, attempting to seduce married men, or behaving in an arrogant manner. The female bana-banas’ own frustrations over their social marginalization and inability to fulfil powerful idealized notions of womanhood – especially in terms of female propriety and moral conduct, but also in the sense of a gender role ideally defined by motherhood and marriage – thus appeared to be projected onto their fellow female traders (cf. Hoffman Reference Hoffman2002; Schulz Reference Schulz2008). Economic competition among the female bana-banas under increasingly adverse conditions, as outlined in the previous section, most likely also factored into this bickering.

Instead of relying on personalized relationships of trust in Dakar, many of the bana-banas turned to commercial solutions, reflecting Charles Piot's wider observations of neoliberal West Africa being characterized by a ‘turning away from relational dependency and the gift to a preoccupation with autonomy and the money/commodity form’ (Piot Reference Piot2010: 9). Coinciding with the end of the passenger train service and the demolition of the Malian market in 2009, small Malian enterprises servicing the bana-banas began appearing in Dakar, combining provision of accommodation, transport of goods and brokering services. Bana-banas who were new to Dakar would easily find accommodation in shared flats via this system, and there was normally a truck parked outside the flats to transport the bana-banas’ goods back to Mali. This proliferation of private enterprises catering to the needs of bana-banas implied a shift towards a commercialization of Malian trading networks in Dakar, as monetary exchange was gradually replacing solidarity, patronage and gift-giving relations among Malians trading in Dakar (cf. Agier Reference Agier1983: 107; Cohen Reference Cohen1965; David Reference David1980: 172–8; Hill Reference Hill1966: 350). The bana-banas’ accommodation in privately rented flats reflected their desire for social distance and a degree of autonomy. Their ephemeral emplacement in these flats and in the grin was largely a choice that suited their lifestyles, allowing them to perform and develop alternative kinds of domesticity and gender roles that reflected their identities as single mothers, family breadwinners and independent traders.

The tricks of the trade: flexibility, mobility and the limits of trust

Being at the tail end of global commodity chains, the Malian bana-banas frequently depended on links with strangers who import goods to Dakar, including Lebanese and Chinese traders. The bana-banas importing goods to Mali from Dakar thus bypassed networks of bounded solidarity and enforceable trust based on kinship and on regional and cultural ties, reaching beyond these to establish links with other groups (cf. MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga Reference MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga2000; Molony Reference Molony2009: 289; Peraldi Reference Peraldi2005). This enabled them to access a wide range of goods and respond to changing supply and demand. However, it also meant that the bana-banas could not expect a cooperative attitude from the sellers in Dakar, who had little incentive to engage in long-term relations with these mobile traders whom they knew would change goods at a whim and whom they could not easily hold accountable (cf. Grabowski Reference Grabowski1997: 390). This final part of the analysis challenges assumptions that the bana-banas’ business necessarily depended on trust, pointing instead to their reliance on flexibility and disembeddedness.

At the heart of a bana-bana’s profession was the need to be flexible and to be able to respond to price fluctuations and adapt to changing supply and demand in the transnational market. Coming to Dakar and browsing shops and chatting with other bana-banas helped the women stay up to date with the latest offers and new products. The women also used the opportunity to see if they could chance upon a good offer; if they did, they might decide to invest in it. The bana-banas would walk around the entire city centre by foot to compare prices in different shops and markets and learn about changing supply and demand for goods in Dakar. Many of the Malian bana-banas would browse and shop in the same maze of streets near the Sandaga market in the city centre, and they often bumped into each other. They would share insights and compare purchases at the end of a long working day, when they returned to their place of accommodation, or socialized at the grin. A skilled bana-bana would use such information to quickly respond to new opportunities and changes in the transnational market. Fatou was usually prepared to invest in a good bargain if she came across one. She once purchased several cooking pots and utensils after walking past them when she was out leisurely strolling the streets of Dakar. She proudly told me of the bargain, commenting: ‘The bana-banas buy everything!’ – implying that such flexibility was central to the bana-bana profession and was what made bana-banas successful. Bana-banas generally retained minimal allegiance to any seller in Dakar, which allowed them to change goods and suppliers quickly (cf. Grabowski Reference Grabowski1997). Intense bargaining was necessary every time: even if a bana-bana had been coming to Dakar for decades and tended to browse the same shops, there was little expectation of loyalty – rational calculations of profit determined what and from whom the bana-banas bought. Most bana-banas constantly changed goods and suppliers, depending on, for example, agricultural seasons, religious occasions and the availability of new products.

The general rule in Dakar was that you could always get an item cheaper than the first price that was quoted to you. To sidestep these initial negotiations, and quickly get a seller to reveal the lowest price for which an item would be sold, the bana-banas usually began negotiations by asking sellers for their ‘last price’, literally asking ‘las price’ or ‘las, las’ – presumably an expression derived from English. This strategy of asking for the last price first and then testing how much further down they could negotiate that price resembles what Geertz referred to as the ‘intensity’ of bargaining in the Moroccan bazaar: that is, ‘the exploration in depth of an offer already received’ (Geertz Reference Geertz1978: 31). Geertz argued that such ‘intensive search’ – bargaining in depth with one person – is due to the high heterogeneity of products, as when buying a used car rather than a new car (considered a homogeneous product) (ibid.: 31). Indeed, apart from the price, there were several other aspects to be assessed and negotiated when bana-banas were making a purchase (cf. ibid.: 31–2): the women had to consider the quality, weight, colour and size of items they wanted to buy, which meant they had to both see and feel the goods, and sometimes taste them or try them on. Moreover, negotiating involved the whole body, the senses, emotions and contingent events, and therefore had to be carried out in person (cf. Nohria and Eccles Reference Nohria, Eccles, Preece, McLoughlin and Dawson2000 [1992]). I sometimes noticed how calm and friendly bana-banas would instantly change character when entering a shop or a scene of negotiation, suddenly appearing intimidating, demanding and assertive. The possibilities of emotional manipulation, and the intimidation brought about by the women's physical presence, were tactics that were frequently used by the female traders in their commercial negotiations. Polanyi's (Reference Polanyi1966) idea of tacit versus codified knowledge is useful for understanding the bana-banas’ need for physical proximity during the browsing and bargaining process: codified knowledge refers to written sources and can easily be communicated and transferred over distance; tacit knowledge, in contrast, can be acquired only through observation, practice and learning and thus requires physical proximity and face-to-face interaction (Torre Reference Torre2008: 873; cf. Elyachar Reference Elyachar2012).

While their social autonomy vis-à-vis kin and ethnic networks in some ways precluded access to trustworthy intermediaries and trading partners in Dakar, in other ways it also facilitated the bana-banas’ flexible trading strategies, as they were not socially committed or economically tied to such actors (cf. Walther Reference Walther2015: 605). The bana-banas were strangers – independent, socially marginal, and only temporarily engaged in physical proximity with economic actors in Dakar – and this came with certain economic advantages (cf. Shack and Skinner Reference Shack and Skinner1979; Simmel Reference Simmel and Wolff1950 [1908]; Skinner Reference Skinner1963). Being autonomous and mobile meant that bana-banas avoided the negative social capital and ‘identity economics’ associated with trading in highly structured and permanent networks (Meagher Reference Meagher2010: Portes and Landolt Reference Portes and Landolt1996). The women's mobile livelihoods as bana-banas stemmed in part from their alienation from ethnic and kinship networks and the forms of social control that accompanied such relations. The bana-banas were often women who had slipped out of the patriarchal family structure and whose experiences of abandonment and positions of self-reliance were at odds with socially accepted forms of femininity. In this light, the flexibility and autonomy that characterized the bana-banas’ businesses did not merely represent particular trade strategies; they were dispositions that these women had acquired on the basis of their lived experiences.

Mobile women navigating neoliberal terrains

Ironically, liberalization, regional integration, infrastructural development and speed did not accelerate but rather deterred trade and travel for small-scale shuttle traders operating in the Mali–Senegal corridor. Trading as a bana-bana has become an increasingly risky and costly endeavour and fewer women are now involved in this mobile livelihood. Recent infrastructural transformations have resulted in the bana-banas’ growing alienation from the kinds of networks that might otherwise have allowed them to ‘outsource’ parts of their long-distance trade transactions. The growing deficit in trust has meant that those bana-banas who continued trading in this corridor needed to travel frequently in order to carry out and oversee most parts of the trade transaction themselves. Meanwhile, the bana-banas’ limited reliance on trusted trade partners and middlemen was not merely due to recent transformations of infrastructure and networks; it was also due to the particular nature of this trade. The tacit knowledge involved in this volatile form of trade helps explain why these women's physical presence was required in Dakar.

Not only was the wider infrastructural landscape underpinning the bana-banas’ mobile trade undergoing transformation in a context of economic liberalization; the commercial terrain that these women navigated as traders was also characterized by constant flux, as potential goods and their quality were ever changing and uncertain. At the same time, the bana-banas were navigating a changing social terrain that, under conditions of neoliberalism, was increasingly characterized by the fragmentation of networks and a shift from dependence on patronage and kin relations to growing self-reliance for women. In this light, the flexibility, intensive searching and tough negotiation strategies of the bana-banas were not merely professional business practices required to carry out this form of trade. They reflected the kinds of dispositions – attitudes, embodied demeanours and states of mind – that these autonomous women had acquired through the challenging forms of social navigation that characterized their lives, as they were tactically moving within an uncertain and changing wider environment (cf. Cooper and Pratten Reference Cooper and Pratten2015; Vigh Reference Vigh2006; Reference Vigh2009).

While long-distance male traders have successfully activated kinship, ethnic and religious networks to facilitate their economic activities, the example of the Malian bana-banas highlights the need to consider the conditions of socially marginal and autonomous female traders engaged in mobile livelihoods, who need to travel long distances. Establishing institutional frameworks to regulate and facilitate small-scale economic transactions may reduce some of the need for mobility for bana-banas and other people whose economic livelihoods depend on travel. But regardless of technological and structural change, human mobility will persist, and there is clearly a need to improve conditions under which people currently travel in the West African region.