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theses

During the last twenty years Muslim women in West Africa have become more involved in development (education, economic, health) work through the establishment of non-governmental (NGOs) and community based organizations (CBOs). In order to contribute to scholarship in these areas, I spent five months in Kano, Nigeria and five months in Tamale, Ghana conducting a comparative analysis of the ways in which Hausa women’s organizations use their development work to advocate for more economic inclusion and mobilize around political and gender issues. The Hausa are the largest predominately Muslim, linguistic and ethnic group in West Africa, a majority in Kano a Sharia state and a minority in Tamale. More specifically my work used ethnography, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, oral histories and statistical data on labor to answer two related questions, 1) how are Hausa Muslim women in different economic and social positions interacting with the state?, and 2) how do different types of work impact the relationships among Hausa women of different social status and how does this impact the politics of economic development? The work of indigenous African Muslim women’s organizations is often absent from the literature creating an incomplete picture of the potential impact of women’s organizations on the national development agenda. Studying NGOs and CBOs is an effective way to explore the intersections of gender, economic participation, religion and nationalism, because Hausa women at all levels of society are supporting, providing or receiving services from these organizations. The activities of Hausa women’s organizations illustrate the role of women as progenitors rather than as solely benefactors of economic development policies and provide mechanisms to place key issues on the political and legislative agenda. For older women, the importance of motherhood cut across social positions and makes the completion of child rearing the best predictor of economic activity outside the home. In Kano there are more direct relationships among NGOs and CBOs in contrast to Tamale, where these direct relationships are nearly non-existent. In Ghana, relationships between CBOs and pre-colonial political institutions is most pronounced in contrast to Kano where NGOs and CBOs interact with contemporary and pre-colonial institutions.

ETD_4320

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Adryan R. Wallace

http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000067011

doi:10.7282/T3JM28C8

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.