Sanctified suffering and the common good: Translocal health care provisioning in smalltown Senegal

Benjamin R. Burgen and Meredith G. Marten

Economic Anthropology, 2024, vol. 11, issue 2, 177-186

Abstract: Senegal has long relied on local communities to expand health services and improve health outcomes for citizens and is internationally lauded for its effectiveness in promoting good health and facilitating local trust. Here we examine how community health care emerges in Keur Toma, a rural Wolof town in the Senegal River Valley that relies on a global network of labor migrants to fuel its remittance‐based economy. Largely through its hometown association and the migrant men abroad who fund it, Keur Toma has built and sustained the local health infrastructure and staffing essential to achieving health care accessibility, providing consistent investment and critical stop‐gap funding when government assistance falters. Following Robbins's call for investigating “an anthropology of the good,” we highlight the deeply rooted sense of care and obligation to kin and community that fosters the translocal ties that make Keur Toma's health care possible in the state's absence. We highlight what Ngom calls “sanctified suffering”—which valorizes personal fortitude and the ability to endure hardships for family and community, shaped by traditions of solidarity, mutual aid, and Islamic morality—and its role in migrants' hometown commitments to building stronger communities.

Date: 2024
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