Field research on taxation and accountability in Senegal
Research Assistant
Research assistant on a PhD at Aarhus University asking whether, how and when taxation shapes the way Senegalese society holds the state accountable. I opened doors, set up and led interviews across very different worlds, and translated them from Wolof and French into English.
The challenge
Get people to talk openly about how they hold the state accountable, in their own words and their own language.
Results
- Seven themes investigated, with the societal and state actors of each case mapped
- Interviews set up and conducted across universities, housing, fisheries, health and civil society, including key figures such as Ousmane Sonko
- Interviews translated from Wolof and French into English, and local data analysed in all three languages
- The research became a PhD thesis published by Aarhus University in 2019
The question
For decades, taxation has been expected to make states more accountable: citizens pay, so they ask what their money is used for. The thesis tested that idea in Senegal, with fieldwork, interviews and a survey of informal economic actors in Dakar. Its finding: taxation plays only a limited role, and accountability runs mostly through networks and elections.
What I did
1. Scouting the cases. From a shortlist of some thirty public cases drawn from audit and anti-corruption reports and the press, I took on seven themes: the closure of the Yavuz Selim schools, the Port of Dakar (concessions and a transporters’ strike), the university and the COUD affair, the commune of Sébikotane, electricity supply with SENELEC, social housing with the SNHLM, and mining licences. For each one: what really happened, what came of it, and who was involved, on the side of society and on the side of the state, mostly through the French-language online press and social media.
2. Opening the doors. Mapping who to talk to, then calling, explaining the research and setting up the meetings, often within days: student associations, residents’ associations, the fishing industry, health professionals, civil society and women’s organizations.
3. The interviews. Leading them and translating them from Wolof and French into English, then reporting back topic by topic, so the research could adjust week after week, in line with the project’s theoretical framework.
Read the thesis
What stayed
The art of the assist: what keeps going without me.
- A PhD thesis, published by Aarhus University in 2019
- Interviews translated into English, usable by other researchers
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