Contact: Vincent.Favier(at)zmo.de
Vincent Favier is a REMOBOKO Junior Research Fellow and a doctoral candidate at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. He holds an MA in African Studies (2015) from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and a BA in German Studies (2010) from Université Paris-III La Sorbonne Nouvelle. He shot his first ethnographic film entitled “Dunia ya Wagogo” (the World of the Wagogo) in 2015 in Tanzania.
The topic of his doctoral project is “Preaching and Teaching: Religiosity, Knowledge and Performance at the Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, Niger”. This project focuses on religiosity and its manifestations among students and lecturers on the university campus of Niamey, Niger. It investigates how students and lecturers learn, teach, and communicate, in other words, how they interact at university while they live, experience and practice their religion every day. It also explores how certain lecturers and preachers perform their social role, respectively as academic and moral actors of this institution of higher education. This project will shed light on the ways Nigerien students engage with academic and religious life as they seek new avenues to succeed economically and socially in an adverse context. The concept of “Good Life” may be fruitful to grasp their strategies, hopes and dreams to become the future elites of the nation.
This project seeks to contribute to the anthropology of religion in contemporary West-Africa, focusing especially on Salafi and Pentecostal groups. These denominations are rather used to qualify broader religious trends that one would find on the campuses. The study approaches religious manifestations through the rubrics of “social performances”, “rhetoric” and “performativity” in order to interrogate the physical, visible, and audible means through which religion establishes itself on university campus. It also investigates how knowledge is appropriated, considered, passed on, utilized or contested in different settings from seminars to informal discussions. Which spaces does religion occupy or seek to pervade? How do religious practices shape campus life? Does religiosity affect academic practice and eventually reform or challenge the university?
To know more about Vincent and his project, watch the video below:
Blog Posts
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Ƙaramin Sani Kukumi Nèe / Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing
Film screening On March 15th, 2023, Vincent Favier was invited by Dr. Lorenzo Ferrarini to screen a rough cut of his film at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester, UK. Entitled “Ƙaramin Sani Kukumi Nèe / Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing”, the film portrays life on campus at the Université Abdou…
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“Praise the Lord!”: Bible Study at the University of Ibadan
Nothing seems to disturb the quietness of the University of Ibadan’s campus in the late afternoon. It is the end of classes and students are slowly making their way to the main gate or hang around the halls of residence. While some are playing football and tennis, others are chatting in small groups, checking on…
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“‘L’accueil des nouveaux bacheliers’: Students discover the academic environment”
On October 31st, 2022, Vincent Favier presented a thesis chapter entitled “‘L’accueil des nouveaux bacheliers’: Students discover the academic environment” during the workshop “Religions on Campus: Coexisting Traditions, Reformulating the Secular and Life Projects” that took place at LASDEL, Niamey, Niger.
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Sunday Dancing Club at MFM
By Vincent Favier People who come there on Sunday morning spend most of the time singing and dancing, but it is neither a nightclub nor a radio station. It is a church. Starting at 8 AM, the service could be an exciting afterhour for the Christians who spent their night in one of the few…
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REMOBOKO at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
In this workshop, explicitly designed for doctoral candidates and postdocs, the Remoboko research team will present its work, and discuss the methodological difficulties associated with researching a sensitive topic from an ethnographic perspective. Finally, members of the team discuss the challenges of completing their PhDs within a research project. Presentations “The innocent spy who came…
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Journées de commémoration du mouvement historique du 9 février 1990
Par Vincent Favier Une certaine agitation règne sur la cité universitaire en ce matin du 09 février 2021. Nombreux sont les étudiants qui portent un T-shirt blanc floqué du logo de l’Union des Scolaires Nigériens (USN), et une inscription au dos : « 31ème anniversaire de la commémoration du mouvement historique du 09 février 1990 ». Trente et un ans…
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“Comparison as a mode of knowledge production in academic contexts: interpreting history through the lens of religious narratives”
On November 17th, 2021, Vincent Favier presented a paper entitled “Comparison as a mode of knowledge production in academic contexts: interpreting history through the lens of religious narratives” during the workshop “Religion in higher educational institutions in Africa and beyond: (Re)Conversion, Power, and Authority from a comparative perspective” that took place at ZMO, Berlin, Germany.
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L’association chrétienne “Campus Pour Christ” accueille les nouveaux bacheliers
Par Bello Adamou Mahamadou & Vincent Favier Réunir les étudiants au-delà des dénominations de leurs églises, les accompagner à vivre leur foi et diffuser « le vrai message » du christianisme auprès de ses cibles tels sont, entre autres, les objectifs que s’est fixé le Campus Pour Christ (CPC) sur le campus de l’Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, au Niger,…
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“Allah liberates people from fire at each fast-breaking, each night”: Ramadan at the Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey
By Vincent Favier A banner scrolls at the bottom of the TV screen during the news on Télé Sahel, Niger’s national channel: the thinnest moon crescent has been sighted in Zinder and Maradi, two major southern cities close to the Nigerian border and considered as cradles of Islam in Niger. The holy month of Ramadan is…
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On the Tarmac, Waiting for Take-off
By Adéjọkẹ́ Rafiat Adétòrò & Vincent Favier It is unclear why and when people started naming this unspectacular place at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, like this. The tarmac is a flat, large, tree-lined and well asphalted parking space, that officially belongs to the adjoining Chapel of the Resurrection, traditionally dominated by Anglican and Methodist denominations.…