Democracy in practice: local elections, voting and "transparency" at work in rural Mali

In this communication, I analyse a concrete process of a local election in rural Mali since the day of the vote until the announcement of the results. It gives us interesting insights about the ordinary perception of local élections, voting and "transparency". As Perrot & al. (2016) notices it, objects are at the centre of symbolic and material transaction during elections and studying them may help trace changing forms of control, exchanges, subjugation and disobedience which erupt during electoral situations. According them, the electoral situations are at the same time routine and always exceptional. If we study the voting materiality, we could observe that election are more than just a facade or a farce. Voting in Youwarou, a quite isolated area, means that you need to move, you need to find a mean of transport, a place where to sleep. So it means that you have to leave your herd in the bush under the surveillance of young people (les ‘petits’). You have to leave your fishing activities for a while. It costs you to vote in a very precarious context. It cost you in time, money, energy, resources. In this communication, I propose to examine « transparency » as a practical norm which refers to empirical contents (Olivier de Sardan, 2008), far away from its normative and legal understanding.