{"id":4480,"date":"2026-10-06T21:30:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T21:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/?p=4480"},"modified":"2026-10-06T21:30:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T21:30:52","slug":"recentring-marginality-silis-abilities-in-la-petite-vendeuse-de-soleil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/recentring-marginality-silis-abilities-in-la-petite-vendeuse-de-soleil\/","title":{"rendered":"Recentring marginality: Sili\u2019s abilities in La petite vendeuse de soleil"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span lang=\"ES-TRAD\">SENDRA, E. (2025). Recentring marginality: Sili\u2019s abilities in La petite vendeuse de soleil. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><i><span lang=\"EN-US\">Journal of African Cinemas<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-US\">, 17(1-2), 91-108<\/span><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This article offers a close analysis of the leading role of Sili in <span class=\"jp-italic\">La petite vendeuse de soleil<\/span> (1999), in order to examine the central place of marginality in Djibril Diop Mamb\u00e9ty\u2019s cinema, and its legacy in contemporary Senegalese film productions. The study was inspired by the production in 2022 of a documentary film on Lissa Balera, the Senegalese actress playing the role of Sili, directed by Senegalese filmmaker Georges Diodji and entitled <span class=\"jp-italic\">Sili<\/span>. In the film, Balera revisits her character through a series of narrative techniques: sharing intangible and tangible audio-visual archives, embracing oral stories, photo elicitation and space elicitation. Through a comparative, trans-diegetic and dialogical analysis of both films, I question the ways in which Sili\u2019s representation shifts the attention from disability to abilities. I suggest that despite Sili\u2019s physical impairment, because of poliomyelitis, she is a proactive entrepreneur, whose determination equips her with a set of abilities enhancing her agency in the world. Through Sili, Mamb\u00e9ty\u2019s ability to place marginality at the very centre of the narrative becomes evident, with a legacy that continues today, in films such as <span class=\"jp-italic\">La Danse des B\u00e9quilles<\/span> (\u2018The dance of the crutches\u2019) by <span class=\"xref\"><a href=\"https:\/\/intellectdiscover.com\/content\/journals\/10.1386\/jac_00137_1#CIT0020\">Yoro Lidel Niang (2021)<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">&nbsp;<\/pre>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SENDRA, E. (2025). Recentring marginality: Sili\u2019s abilities in La petite vendeuse de soleil. Journal of African Cinemas , 17(1-2), 91-108<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[257,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-257","category-publicaciones"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/journal.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa0lgR-1ag","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4482,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions\/4482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/compoliticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}