Charline Kopf

• Kopf, Charline (2026). Rust and Reparations: Memory, Labor, and the Politics of Repair in Senegal’s Railway Workshop. Cultural anthropology. ISSN 0886-7356. 41(2). doi: 10.14506/ca41.2.11. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This essay examines the multivalences of repair in Senegalese railway workshops, where workers maintain and modify aging wagons from suburban and former transnational rail services, originally imported from France, and later from India and Pakistan. I trace three interrelated dimensions of repair. First, I show how repair operates as both replacement and improvisation, challenging the assumption that maintenance necessarily counteracts decay; instead, it can accelerate deterioration. Second, I analyze repair as reappropriation, focusing on workers’ “tropicalization” of foreign technologies to fit local conditions. Finally, I explore how the inevitability of failure, stemming from the machines’ inherent faults, demands creative mending and continuous perseverance. These practices generate not only new objects assembled from scrap but also narratives of West African railway workers whose engineering contributions have long been marginalized in colonial and postcolonial histories. Material patching thus becomes an act of reparation, asserting technical authorship and forging alternative histories of infrastructure, labor, and expertise.    Tënk Xët wii dafay jàngat anam yu bari yi ñuy defaraate ci atelier yu këru liggéeyukaayu saxaar yi ci Senegal. Foofu la liggéeykat yi di defaraate ba noppi di soppi wagon yu màgget yi bawoo ci sarwiisu banlieue yi ak resó transnasional yu njëkk ya te jóge France, ginnaaw ga Inde ak Pakistan. Maa ngi raññee ñetti mbir yu jëm ci defaraat gi. Li njëkk mooy, damay wone naka la defaraat gi di deme ci wuutu gi itam ci góorgóorlu gi, ak di diiŋat xalaat biy wax ni defaraat dafay xeex yàqu-yàqu; ci geneen wàll gi, mën na gaawloo yàqu gi. Ñaareel ba damay jàngat defaraat gi ni looy moomalaat sa bopp, may bàyyi xel ci «tropicalisation» xaralay bitim réew yi ciy liggéeykat yi di def ngir méngale leen ak anam yi dëkk bi di doxe. Fi may jeexalee mooy, maa ngi jàngat ni masin yi mënul ñàkka yàqoo, te bokk ci ay njuumte yu nekk ci masin yi te loolu dafay laaj xeeti defaraat yu yees ak bañ a xàddi. Jëf yooyu duñu yam ci defar ay mbir yu yees yuñ defaree ak ay jumtukaay yuñ jëfandikoo ba noppi, waaye dañuy nettali itam li liggéeykati raay yi ci Afrique sowwu jant sos, ñoom ñi ñu daanulwoon bàyyi xel ci seen liggéey ci wàllu xarala ci taarix bi fi tubaab yi nekkee ak ginnaaw gi ñu fi jóge. Kon defaraat ay yëf nekk na mbir muy defaraat boo ko xoolee ci wàllu politik, di fësal kiliftéef ci wàllu xarala ak di móol yeneeni jaar-jaari infrastructure, liggéey ak xarañtéef.

• Kopf, Charline (2025). Working in Absurd Times: Speculations and Uncertain Futures among Mali's Railway Workers. Social Anthropology. ISSN 0964-0282. 33(4), s. 76–76. doi: 10.3167/saas.2025.330405. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract How do people make life meaningful amid institutions that have ceased to function? This article examines how railway workers in Mali navigate the paradox of working for a company the state declared had never legally existed. Amid halted trains, irregular wages and opaque governance, workers experienced a profound sense of absurdity shaped by the decaying infrastructure of the Dakar-Bamako railway and broken promises of renovation. Such uncertain grounds fuelled speculative practices, ranging from conspiratorial narratives to horse betting and the repurposing of old skills, through which workers responded to precarious circumstances. These practices critiqued hollow government assurances while foregrounding temporal entanglements, as uncertain futures spilled into the present and the colonial past resurfaced. Framing speculation as a means of forging solidarity and reclaiming agency, the article shows how workers rendered disorienting conditions liveable through gambling, gossip and reinvention. Résumé Dans des circonstances où les institutions ne fonctionnent plus, comment rendre la vie constructive ? Cet article examine comment les travailleurs du système ferroviaire au Mali navigue le paradoxe de travailler pour une entreprise qui, d'après l’État, n'a jamais existé légalement. Au milieu des trains à l'arrêt, des salaires irréguliers, et la gouvernance opaque, les travailleurs ont vécu un sens profond d'absurdité qui a été façonné par l'infrastructure obsolète du chemin de fer Dakar-Bamako et des promesses rompues de rénovation. Ces conditions instables ont aggravé des pratiques spéculatives, allant des narratives entendues au pari sur des chevaux et le recyclage des vieilles compétences, par lesquelles les travailleurs ont répondu aux circonstances précaires. Ces pratiques ont critiqué les promesses vides du gouvernement, et en même temps elles ont mis en avant les imbroglios temporels, tandis que les avenirs incertains sont devenus le présent et le passé colonial est remonté à la surface. En encadrant la spéculation comme une façon de forger la solidarité et de reconquérir l'agentivité, l'article montre comment les travailleurs ont transformé des conditions confuses en conditions vivables au travers les jeux d'argent, les commérages, et la réinvention.

• Alexander, Catherine; Kopf, Charline & Wig, Ståle (2025). Introduction: Thinking with Absurdity. Social Anthropology. ISSN 0964-0282. 33(4), s. 1–20. doi: 10.3167/saas.2025.330402. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2024). Anxious Atmospheres: Living in the Shadows of Coal. Roadsides . ISSN 2624-9081. doi: 10.26034/roadsides-202401203. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Wig, Ståle; Kopf, Charline & Alexander, Catherine (2024). Anthropology and Absurdity: Introduction. Allegra Lab. ISSN 2343-0168. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2024). Of Rails And Rubbish: Critique And The Absurdity Of Cleaning Days. Allegra Lab. ISSN 2343-0168. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline & Phelan, Sarah-Jane (2024). The work of being stuck: Caring masculinities in Mali and Burkina Faso. Journal of material culture. ISSN 1359-1835. 29(4), s. 497–502. doi: 10.1177/13591835241299962. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article draws on comparative ethnography undertaken in a Malian train station where trains no longer circulate, and a market in Burkina Faso where the flow of customers has ebbed away. In doing so, we explore how workers deal with protracted economic and security crises that have eroded their working lives and thrown the meaning of their labour into question. In both sites, the primarily male workers perpetuated their routines, not only to sustain their workplaces but also to maintain both a sense of a meaningful working life and their masculine identity as breadwinners. They thereby aim to preserve the hope that trains and customers might one day return, restoring their work lives to their previous productive states. We focus on how workers engage in various rhythms of care to ‘stay put’ amidst an uncertain present, and an even more precarious future. Through acts of mutual support – assisting fellow workers, giving intergenerational advice, offering emotional support through religious care and food-sharing, and tending to the material conditions of their workplaces – they create a network of care grounded in both social and physical infrastructure. By analysing the ways in which workers care for each other and their space of work, this article sheds light on the ways masculine affective caring underpins their struggle to ‘stay put’ and continue deriving value from labour, even when this may appear difficult or impossible from the outside. In doing so, this dual case study illuminates ambiguous relationships between work and meaning, crisis and normalcy, and masculinity and care.

• Kopf, Charline (2023). Performing (In)securities in West Africa: Territorial meshing and local participation in cross-border security. Anthropologie & développement. ISSN 2276-2019. s. 125–144. doi: 10.4000/anthropodev.2239. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2020). « Le TER nous met à terre. » Senegal on the rails of emergence ? Critique Internationale. ISSN 1290-7839. 4(89), s. 115–139. doi: 10.3917/crii.089.0118. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The Express Regional Train (TER) of Senegal has become a site for the debate about the promise of émergence and its limitations, both materially and discursively. By analysing the gap between the visions of emergence promoted by the leaders and the contrasting reality of the TER construction on the ground, the paper examines the effects of émergence on politics, in terms of decision-making and state-citizen relations. First, I argue that the politics of émergence are characterised by a centralisation of state intervention and a continuation of neo-liberal rationale and policies. The multitude of actors involved in the project leads to a lack of coordination that disadvantages the poorest who find themselves physically and metaphorically caught between mega-infrastructures that are supposed to anticipate a bright future. Second, I engage with the ensuing criticism on émergence, which take both nuanced and visible forms. Even if the disapproval directed towards the infrastructure is part of the dynamic constitution of statehood, the criticisms question more generally the notion of public good and inclusive growth as presented in the Plan Sénégal Emergent (PSE).

• Kopf, Charline (2020). The dynamics of toxic dust. Anthropology Today. ISSN 0268-540X. 36(6), s. 17–20. doi: 10.1111/1467-8322.12619. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  By examining railway workers' narratives of poussière (dust) and their practices of repair work in the train depot at Rufisque, Senegal, the article reveals how the workers' understanding of dust encapsulates a toxic mixture, not only of pollution and sand but also asbestos lodged in the coaches. Attendant to the corporeal and intimate stories of the workers and the histories of the trains imported from India, the article sheds light on how workers handle their daily encounters with the granular materiality of the toxic dust as it seeps into the bodies of machines and workers, conditioning their past and future. In the context of institutional as well as industrial negligence, despite an awareness of the dangers, the workers continue their unsafe practices in toxic environments for fear of losing their jobs. The article argues that disentangling the nostalgic, future and toxic aspects of the railway, helps to demonstrate how an otherwise fleeting, invisible toxicant ‐ unequally distributed and travelling across geographies ‐ remains stuck in the organisms of both men and machines.

• Kopf, Charline (2018). Dakar’s Museum of Black Civilisations: Towards a New Imaginary of a Post-ethnographic Museum. Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review.. ISSN 1224-6271. s. 37–55. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How are postcolonial identities curated in non-Western art institutions? How do the latter engage with the question of the restitution of colonial looted artefacts during this turning point where Western museums seem increasingly willing to address claims of repatriation? Focusing on the unfolding debates on restitution and heritage around the new Museum of Black Civilisations (MCN) in Senegal, the article investigates how curatorial approaches aimed at challenging Eurocentrism address questions of identity, authenticity and discourses on the Other. It finds that, contrary to decolonial museum exhibitions in the West, the MCN avoids engaging in claims of restitution as this would reproduce Europe’s key role in defining “authentic” and “traditional” African art. At the same time, this paper shows that the underlying logic aimed to subvert exoticising representations and reconfigure Self-Other relations can uphold an internal dichotomy of cultures that risks lapsing into the same essentialism that is criticised. This is furthermore complicated by the tension between an imaginary of pan-African Black Civilisations and the criticism directed towards the management of artefacts in postcolonial states where nation-building is an ongoing process. In teasing out the challenges of formulating a reconfigured postcolonial future without drawing on culturalist discourses and reinforcing a dichotomy between modernity and tradition, this article adds a radically different perspective to the literature on heritage and museums in relation to colonialism and is also of relevance to those looking at curatorial practices, identity politics and international relations.

• Kopf, Charline & Bowling, Ben (2017). Transnational policing in Europe and its local effects. European Police Science and Research Bulletin. ISSN 1831-1857. s. 47–57. doi: 10.2825/13491. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The aim of this paper is to develop an agenda for comparative research on the forms, functions and effects of transnational policing in various European countries and its impact on domestic policework. This work seeks to explore the similarities and differences in the extent of communication, cooperation and collaboration among police agencies across the continent. The tasks of investigating crime, enforcing law and maintaining order – which have historically been based almost exclusively within local communities – now stretch far beyond national boundaries. There is evidence from various national contexts that many police officers spend their time working with colleagues abroad. But there have been, as yet, very few comparative studies of the forms and functions of transnational policing in different countries. The limited evidence available suggests that there are wide variations in transnational policing practices across the continent. Transnational policing is driven by political and economic changes, the growth in international travel, information communication technology and migration, and developments in the nature of crime and security threats. The pattern of policework is shaped by the organizational architecture of local, national and global policing systems and specific practices such as posting liaison officers overseas. The key aim is to examine and explain the differences in degree of cooperation with police in other countries and the forms that it takes in specific places.

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• Kopf, Charline; Geissler, Paul Wenzel; Mbodj-Pouye, Aissatou & Meinert, Lotte (2026). Repair across Africa. Mending, Making and Material Care. Intellect Ltd.. ISBN 9781835952566. 324 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Examines repair as a dynamic social, material, cultural, and economic practice. Spanning diverse African contexts, it explores how mending connects labour, urban lives, and historical memories, revealing the artisanal skills and relational dynamics that underpin everyday acts of material care and transformation.

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• Kopf, Charline; Geissler, Paul Wenzel; Mbodj-Pouye, Aissatou & Meinert, Lotte (2026). Living Repair: Mending and Material Care in Contemporary Africa. I Kopf, Charline; Geissler, Paul Wenzel; Mbodj-Pouye, Aissatou & Meinert, Lotte (Red.), Repair across Africa. Mending, Making and Material Care. Intellect Ltd.. ISSN 9781835952566. s. vi–xxii. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Examines repair as a dynamic social, material, cultural, and economic practice. Spanning diverse African contexts, it explores how mending connects labour, urban lives, and historical memories, revealing the artisanal skills and relational dynamics that underpin everyday acts of material care and transformation.

• Kopf, Charline (2025). Fragments of the Ocean: Fishing Nets, Pirogues, and the Coastal Politics of Persistence in Senegal. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2025). Tracer l’histoire dans la poussière : Particules, pollution et mobilisations à Bargny. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2025). Afterplaces and Aerologies: Thinking with Dust and Infrastructures. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2025). Governing Dust: Legibility, Toxicity, and Resistance in Senegal. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2024). Breathless environments: Tracing Dust, Air, and Industrial History in Bargny, Senegal. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kopf, Charline (2024). Atmospheres of contention: particles and protests in coastal Senegal. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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