ABSTRACT
The ambition of the themes that follow is to dismantle, complicate, and reconstruct the Zongo phenomenon – to demonstrate how it has evolved over time on spatial and social terms at multiple scales of inquiry. This chapter focuses on the Zongo's more historical, social, and spatial dimensions, it's crucial to first address its cultural origins as a colonial religious invention because its British beginnings have contemporary consequences. Despite the socialist agenda installed after independence in 1957 banning the formation of groups based on religion or ethnicity, the nation-state still sponsored the Zongo's spiritual segregation, but under a political and social guise. Closely linked to the settlements' historical and geographical contingency is that of the Zongo's socio-spatial complexity. Besides the north-south axis, however, a Zongo settlement's prosperity is also linked to the size of the city: most often, the larger the city, the larger the Zongo settlement.
