ABSTRACT
In 1960, when Mali gained independence, Modibo Keita, the country’s first president, declared that socialism would be the foundation of its nation building. Military parades and popular processions were an opportunity to stage the lifeblood of the nation, of which militant youth were the “vanguard” as the “spearhead” of the revolution. Of equal concern to the state, the female body came to embody the site of production and reproduction of new male citizens for the emergent socialist society. Draped in boubous bearing the images of Keita and Malian national products—mangoes, peanuts—wearing braided hairstyles nicknamed “Year 1960,” “Nation,” or “Negritude,” and scarves with the words “Hello My President,” the bodies of women of marrying age and motherhood were vessels for the diffusion of socialist propaganda.
