Models of the World and Categorial Models: The “Enslavable Barbarian” as a Mobile Classificatory Label

For years we have been writing as if it were enough to read “Niger” or “Senegal” where Arab geographers wrote “Nile” or “Nile of the Blacks,” i.e., as if a simple replacement of names were sufficient, and as if it enabled us to dispense with (a) studying the Arab geographers’ models of the African continent as a whole, and (b) making an effort to understand the categories according to which they structured their knowledge.