The Kankurang: Issues of Preserving the Authenticity of a Cross-Border Cultural Expression

The Kankurang was proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005 and joined the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008, on the proposal of Senegal and Gambia. It is therefore a cross-border cultural expression straddling Gambia and Senegal for the purposes of classification, but its area of expression is wider. In traditional Mandinka culture, the Kankurang is an initiation ritual that marks the passage from adolescence to adulthood. But the threats weighing today on the Kankurang are significant. Indeed, due to rapid urbanisation and the increasingly rigid crystallisation of political borders inherited from colonisation, the original framework of action of the Kankurang, which is fundamentally rural in nature, is reinventing itself. It is therefore urgent to implement a safeguarding plan to preserve the practice of the Kankurang, which remains an essential component of Mandinka cultural identity.