African Para-Ontologies of Domestic Cleaning

Ecological and Pedagogical Concepts of Repetition in Pre-Colonial Rituals of Care

Abstract

This essay seeks to conceptually investigate a minor literature in domestic cleaning practices within pre-colonial African contexts. It focuses on unpacking and conceptually reframing the complex poetics of sweeping the homely floor and its power as repetitive act of care, that also affirms social status. Whilst there is vernacular and site-reliant specificity in such practices, there is also commonality and ecumenicity; at the same time, the spatial and political characteristics of the housework and specifically cleaning have been extensively theorised in the context of ecofeminism, the ecology and pedagogy of such stemming from pre- and anti-colonial thought remains larval. Sweeping the floor using a broom specifically is – speaking eco-technically – a ritualistic act that implies an architecture of care, discipline and repetition and which has ecological and pedagogical allusions. This paper conceptually and critically examines these allusions focusing specifically on the complexity of the act of sweeping the floor in pre-colonial African homes. We do so by framing a para-ontology of the broom and its performative presence in the embodied act called sweeping, which is sensorial, environmental and ecological therefore posthuman. Starting with Ursula Le Guin’s carrier bag of theory and Hélène Frichot’s dirty theory, this essay is a quest to explore complex domesticities and para-divinities of the broom to conclude -through poetry and oral history- in a hopeful note. The latter reinstates the broom as a pedagogical and ecological asset to be managed carrying pockets of labour that can be revalued and lead to more authentic, equitable and hopeful futures.