Colonialité du savoir et État postcolonial au Sénégal : continuités, tensions et reconfigurations

Abstract

This article analyses the contemporary dynamics of the coloniality of knowledge in Senegal through a reflection on the relationship between colonial legacy and the configuration of the postcolonial state, taking the case of the Family Code as its anchor point. Drawing on the contributions of postcolonial and decolonial studies, it examines how epistemic structures inherited from the colonial period continue to shape — through this legal framework in particular — the processes by which law and knowledge are produced, legitimized and institutionalized. Far from reducing decolonization to a closed historical moment, the study shows that it constitutes an unfinished process, traversed by tensions between administrative continuities, imported legal frameworks and claims to local reappropriation (Mbembé, 2000; Sarr, 2020).