Adeline Masquelier | Tulane University (original) (raw)

Books by Adeline Masquelier

Configuring Contagion: Ethnographies of Biosocial Epidemics, 2022

Rather than drawing on anthropological models that frame spirit possession as individual resistan... more Rather than drawing on anthropological models that frame spirit possession as individual resistance, the somatization of unconscious desire, or a kind of localizing discourse for dealing with conflict, in this chapter we attend to the relational dimensions of spiritual attacks among schoolgirls in Niger through the analytical prism of contagion. By taking spirit possession to be a form of ‘circulating affliction’ (Seale-Feldman 2019), we address the problem of schoolgirls’ susceptibility, that is, their openness and impressionability, to others. Inspired by the incipient anthropology of intangibles (Espírito Santo and Blanes 2014), we consider the lives of spirits by tracing the symptoms and effects they produce in our interlocutors’ own lives. In what follows, we discuss the rash of spiritual attacks occurring in Nigerien schools by drawing on the model of contagion elaborated by Gabriel Tarde to account for the rapid spread of ideas, fashions, technologies, and crimes across a population. Diagnosing the possession of schoolgirls as ‘hysteria’ or ‘conversion disorder,’ whereby a psychological experience is converted in bodily affliction, does not account for how ideas and emotions spread and ‘infect’ certain people. Through a focus on imitation—by which he meant the ability to affect and be affected, consciously and unconsciously, by others—Tarde put the accent on the extraordinary ‘magnetic’ power people can exert over each other in their interactions. Following Tarde, we tentatively argue that the mass possession of Nigerien schoolgirls instantiates how persons incorporate others into themselves and are themselves embodied in others—a process that can be described as a contagion without contact.

Veiling/Counter-Veiling in Africa, 2013

African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance, 2013

Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and Childbearing, 2021

In urban Niger young men are forced into delayed adulthood--unable to find jobs, unable to marry ... more In urban Niger young men are forced into delayed adulthood--unable to find jobs, unable to marry and to achieve adult status. Much of their waiting time is spent in fadas, neighborhood tea circles where they gather to strategize imagined futures. I describe this time spend fadas as purposeful waiting, a time when young men brew tea, talk, and play games, and in the process, regain some control over how time unfolds. They provide each other a measure of the support lacking in their broader social lives, support that takes the form of gestures of respect and recognition, advice on sex and romance, even on occasion, financial assistance.

Critical Terms for the Study of Africa, 2018

Far too long the Global North viewed Africa as unmappable terrain---a repository for outsiders' w... more Far too long the Global North viewed Africa as unmappable terrain---a repository for outsiders' wildest imaginings. This problematic notion has had lingering effects not only on popular impressions of the region but also on the development of the academic study of Africa. In the introduction we focus briefly on maps and mapping to jumpstart a discussion of the legacies that have shaped our understanding of the continent. We provide a brief discussion of how terms intended to reflect the current state of African studies and to push the field in new directions were collected for this edited collection.

African Futures, 2022

In this chapter I question the assumption that modern education entails a break with the past, pa... more In this chapter I question the assumption that modern education entails a break with the past, particularly when school systems are dysfunctional and resource deficient, as in Niger. The globalized mobilization of "girl power" rhetoric, I argue, is an alibi for the depoliticization of collective welfare and a step towards the privatization of responsibility, and, ultimately, tyrannical futures.

Engaging Evil: A Moral Anthropology, 2019

notes in The Anthropology of Evil that scholars typically describe moralities as either "monistic... more notes in The Anthropology of Evil that scholars typically describe moralities as either "monistic" or "Manichean," depending on the extent to which evil can be distinguished from good. In the monistic tradition, evil is conceived as contiguous to good and the two often coexist in a single cosmological agent. In Manichean traditions, on the other hand, the forces of goodness are unmistakably distinct from the power of evil. In the Hausa-speaking and overwhelmingly Muslim town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, where many of the spiritual forces (iskoki; plural of iska, which also means "wind") that intersect with human trajectories were traditionally conceived as both the sources of and the remedies to human suffering, it could be argued that morality belongs to the monistic register. With the recent intensification of practices aimed at purifying Islam from "animism," however, existing moral ambiguities are dissolving, giving way to a more absolute notion of evil that is fully distinct from good. Muslim preachers describe spirits in their sermons as malevolent creatures whose sole aim is to tempt humans into straying from the right path. Spirits, the preachers claim, are Satan's servants, against whom Muslims must guard themselves by relying on the power of prayer. When they attack people, they must be exorcized rather than be allowed to use humans as hosts in the context of ritualized possession

Approaches to the Qur'an in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2019

Scholars have paid much attention to techniques of control and discipline, ignoring how the perfo... more Scholars have paid much attention to techniques of control and discipline, ignoring how the performance of pious acts may be motivated by the expectation of pleasure and gratification. In this essay, rather than examining ritual performance as a disciplinary practice through which Muslims foster the desire to be closer to God, I focus instead on the pleasurable dimensions of prayer, which Sufi practitioners say is at the very heart of Muslim life. The concept of pleasure, I argue, provides a fertile lens for analysing how the emergence of factionalism in Niger crystallized around questions of correct prayer and embodied religiosity.

Prayer Has Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger, 2001

Bori, in Hausa-speaking communities of Niger, are mischievous and invisible beings that populate ... more Bori, in Hausa-speaking communities of Niger, are mischievous and invisible beings that populate the bush. Bori is also the practice of taming these wild forces in the context of possession ceremonies. In Prayer Has Spoiled Everything Adeline Masquelier offers an account of how this phenomenon intervenes--sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically--in human lives, providing a constantly renewed source of meaning for Mawri peasants confronted with cultural contradictions and socioeconomic marginalization.
To explore the role of bori possession in local definitions of history, power, and identity, Masquelier spent a total of two years in Niger, focusing on the diverse ways in which spirit mediums share, transform, and contest a rapidly changing reality threatened by Muslim hegemony and financial hardship. She explains how the spread of Islam has provoked irreversible change in the area and how prayer--a conspicuous element of Islamic practice in this region of West Africa--has thus become equated with the loss of tradition. By focusing on some of the creative and complex ways that bori at once competes with and borrows from Islam, Masquelier reveals how possession nevertheless remains deeply embedded in Mawri culture, representing more than simple resistance to Islam, patriarchy, or the state. Despite a widening gap between former ways of life and the contradictions of the present, bori maintains its place as a feature of daily life in which Mawri people participate with varying degrees of enthusiasm and approval.

In the provincial town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recru... more In the provincial town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recruited by local Muslim leaders to denounce the practices of reformist Muslims. Malam Awal’s message and the larger Islamic revival of which it is part have been viewed as a mixed blessing by Muslim women who have seen new definitions of Islam and Muslim practice impact their place and role in society. While they have gained new rights and understandings of their place in Muslim society, they have also lost some of their autonomy and sources of value as new gender dynamics and patterns of authority, wealth management, and sociality have emerged out of the ongoing debates over what is and what is not part of Islam. This study follows the career of Malam Awal and documents the engagement of women in the religious debates that are refashioning their everyday lives. Adeline Masquelier reveals how these women have had to define Islam on their own terms, especially as a practice that governs education, participation in prayer, domestic activities, wedding customs, and who wears the veil and how. Masquelier’s richly detailed narrative presents new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Africa today.

While there is widespread interest in dress and hygiene as vehicles of cultural, moral, and polit... more While there is widespread interest in dress and hygiene as vehicles of cultural, moral, and political value, little scholarly attention has been paid to cross-cultural understandings of dirt and undress, despite their equally important role in the fashioning of identity and difference. The essays in this absorbing and thought-provoking collection contribute new insights into the neglected topics of bodily treatments and transgressions. In detailed ethnographic studies from around the world, the contributors recast assumptions about filth and nakedness, exploring how various forms of transgression associated with the body’s surface are drawn up into relations of power and inequality. They demonstrate imaginatively how body surfaces are powerfully mobilized in the making and unmaking of moral worlds.

Papers by Adeline Masquelier

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2023

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2023

Being Young and Muslim, 2010

... flip-flops whose upper soles were adorned with a picture of the World Trade Center's bur... more ... flip-flops whose upper soles were adorned with a picture of the World Trade Center's burning towers, so that they could stamp on the ... In the end, Issoufou lost the election and the incumbent,Mamadou Tandja of the MNSD (Mouvement national pour la société de développement ...

Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 2020

In this article, I explore the possession of schoolgirls by spirits based on ethnographic researc... more In this article, I explore the possession of schoolgirls by spirits based on ethnographic research conducted in the district of Dogondoutchi, Niger. Besides pointing to the struggles girls face in a country where women's education remains controversial, possession brings attention to a past Muslim religious authorities have tried to silence. When trees were cut to make space for schools, their spiritual occupants were uprooted. Far from vanishing, however, the displaced spirits now haunt the very venues whose emergence contributed to their displacement. I consider how the irruption of spirits in schools highlights the fraught relation between Islam and animism, suggesting how Islam and animism exist in and through each other. Weber wrote how modern times were about the disenchantment of the world, yet he knew gods and spirits do not completely disappear. It is this predicament and the conundrums it gives rise to that the attacks on Nigerien schoolgirls exemplify.

African Futures, 2022

This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permi... more This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder.

Configuring Contagion: Ethnographies of Biosocial Epidemics, 2022

Rather than drawing on anthropological models that frame spirit possession as individual resistan... more Rather than drawing on anthropological models that frame spirit possession as individual resistance, the somatization of unconscious desire, or a kind of localizing discourse for dealing with conflict, in this chapter we attend to the relational dimensions of spiritual attacks among schoolgirls in Niger through the analytical prism of contagion. By taking spirit possession to be a form of ‘circulating affliction’ (Seale-Feldman 2019), we address the problem of schoolgirls’ susceptibility, that is, their openness and impressionability, to others. Inspired by the incipient anthropology of intangibles (Espírito Santo and Blanes 2014), we consider the lives of spirits by tracing the symptoms and effects they produce in our interlocutors’ own lives. In what follows, we discuss the rash of spiritual attacks occurring in Nigerien schools by drawing on the model of contagion elaborated by Gabriel Tarde to account for the rapid spread of ideas, fashions, technologies, and crimes across a population. Diagnosing the possession of schoolgirls as ‘hysteria’ or ‘conversion disorder,’ whereby a psychological experience is converted in bodily affliction, does not account for how ideas and emotions spread and ‘infect’ certain people. Through a focus on imitation—by which he meant the ability to affect and be affected, consciously and unconsciously, by others—Tarde put the accent on the extraordinary ‘magnetic’ power people can exert over each other in their interactions. Following Tarde, we tentatively argue that the mass possession of Nigerien schoolgirls instantiates how persons incorporate others into themselves and are themselves embodied in others—a process that can be described as a contagion without contact.

Veiling/Counter-Veiling in Africa, 2013

African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance, 2013

Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and Childbearing, 2021

In urban Niger young men are forced into delayed adulthood--unable to find jobs, unable to marry ... more In urban Niger young men are forced into delayed adulthood--unable to find jobs, unable to marry and to achieve adult status. Much of their waiting time is spent in fadas, neighborhood tea circles where they gather to strategize imagined futures. I describe this time spend fadas as purposeful waiting, a time when young men brew tea, talk, and play games, and in the process, regain some control over how time unfolds. They provide each other a measure of the support lacking in their broader social lives, support that takes the form of gestures of respect and recognition, advice on sex and romance, even on occasion, financial assistance.

Critical Terms for the Study of Africa, 2018

Far too long the Global North viewed Africa as unmappable terrain---a repository for outsiders' w... more Far too long the Global North viewed Africa as unmappable terrain---a repository for outsiders' wildest imaginings. This problematic notion has had lingering effects not only on popular impressions of the region but also on the development of the academic study of Africa. In the introduction we focus briefly on maps and mapping to jumpstart a discussion of the legacies that have shaped our understanding of the continent. We provide a brief discussion of how terms intended to reflect the current state of African studies and to push the field in new directions were collected for this edited collection.

African Futures, 2022

In this chapter I question the assumption that modern education entails a break with the past, pa... more In this chapter I question the assumption that modern education entails a break with the past, particularly when school systems are dysfunctional and resource deficient, as in Niger. The globalized mobilization of "girl power" rhetoric, I argue, is an alibi for the depoliticization of collective welfare and a step towards the privatization of responsibility, and, ultimately, tyrannical futures.

Engaging Evil: A Moral Anthropology, 2019

notes in The Anthropology of Evil that scholars typically describe moralities as either "monistic... more notes in The Anthropology of Evil that scholars typically describe moralities as either "monistic" or "Manichean," depending on the extent to which evil can be distinguished from good. In the monistic tradition, evil is conceived as contiguous to good and the two often coexist in a single cosmological agent. In Manichean traditions, on the other hand, the forces of goodness are unmistakably distinct from the power of evil. In the Hausa-speaking and overwhelmingly Muslim town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, where many of the spiritual forces (iskoki; plural of iska, which also means "wind") that intersect with human trajectories were traditionally conceived as both the sources of and the remedies to human suffering, it could be argued that morality belongs to the monistic register. With the recent intensification of practices aimed at purifying Islam from "animism," however, existing moral ambiguities are dissolving, giving way to a more absolute notion of evil that is fully distinct from good. Muslim preachers describe spirits in their sermons as malevolent creatures whose sole aim is to tempt humans into straying from the right path. Spirits, the preachers claim, are Satan's servants, against whom Muslims must guard themselves by relying on the power of prayer. When they attack people, they must be exorcized rather than be allowed to use humans as hosts in the context of ritualized possession

Approaches to the Qur'an in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2019

Scholars have paid much attention to techniques of control and discipline, ignoring how the perfo... more Scholars have paid much attention to techniques of control and discipline, ignoring how the performance of pious acts may be motivated by the expectation of pleasure and gratification. In this essay, rather than examining ritual performance as a disciplinary practice through which Muslims foster the desire to be closer to God, I focus instead on the pleasurable dimensions of prayer, which Sufi practitioners say is at the very heart of Muslim life. The concept of pleasure, I argue, provides a fertile lens for analysing how the emergence of factionalism in Niger crystallized around questions of correct prayer and embodied religiosity.

Prayer Has Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger, 2001

Bori, in Hausa-speaking communities of Niger, are mischievous and invisible beings that populate ... more Bori, in Hausa-speaking communities of Niger, are mischievous and invisible beings that populate the bush. Bori is also the practice of taming these wild forces in the context of possession ceremonies. In Prayer Has Spoiled Everything Adeline Masquelier offers an account of how this phenomenon intervenes--sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically--in human lives, providing a constantly renewed source of meaning for Mawri peasants confronted with cultural contradictions and socioeconomic marginalization.
To explore the role of bori possession in local definitions of history, power, and identity, Masquelier spent a total of two years in Niger, focusing on the diverse ways in which spirit mediums share, transform, and contest a rapidly changing reality threatened by Muslim hegemony and financial hardship. She explains how the spread of Islam has provoked irreversible change in the area and how prayer--a conspicuous element of Islamic practice in this region of West Africa--has thus become equated with the loss of tradition. By focusing on some of the creative and complex ways that bori at once competes with and borrows from Islam, Masquelier reveals how possession nevertheless remains deeply embedded in Mawri culture, representing more than simple resistance to Islam, patriarchy, or the state. Despite a widening gap between former ways of life and the contradictions of the present, bori maintains its place as a feature of daily life in which Mawri people participate with varying degrees of enthusiasm and approval.

In the provincial town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recru... more In the provincial town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recruited by local Muslim leaders to denounce the practices of reformist Muslims. Malam Awal’s message and the larger Islamic revival of which it is part have been viewed as a mixed blessing by Muslim women who have seen new definitions of Islam and Muslim practice impact their place and role in society. While they have gained new rights and understandings of their place in Muslim society, they have also lost some of their autonomy and sources of value as new gender dynamics and patterns of authority, wealth management, and sociality have emerged out of the ongoing debates over what is and what is not part of Islam. This study follows the career of Malam Awal and documents the engagement of women in the religious debates that are refashioning their everyday lives. Adeline Masquelier reveals how these women have had to define Islam on their own terms, especially as a practice that governs education, participation in prayer, domestic activities, wedding customs, and who wears the veil and how. Masquelier’s richly detailed narrative presents new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Africa today.

While there is widespread interest in dress and hygiene as vehicles of cultural, moral, and polit... more While there is widespread interest in dress and hygiene as vehicles of cultural, moral, and political value, little scholarly attention has been paid to cross-cultural understandings of dirt and undress, despite their equally important role in the fashioning of identity and difference. The essays in this absorbing and thought-provoking collection contribute new insights into the neglected topics of bodily treatments and transgressions. In detailed ethnographic studies from around the world, the contributors recast assumptions about filth and nakedness, exploring how various forms of transgression associated with the body’s surface are drawn up into relations of power and inequality. They demonstrate imaginatively how body surfaces are powerfully mobilized in the making and unmaking of moral worlds.

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2023

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2023

Being Young and Muslim, 2010

... flip-flops whose upper soles were adorned with a picture of the World Trade Center's bur... more ... flip-flops whose upper soles were adorned with a picture of the World Trade Center's burning towers, so that they could stamp on the ... In the end, Issoufou lost the election and the incumbent,Mamadou Tandja of the MNSD (Mouvement national pour la société de développement ...

Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 2020

In this article, I explore the possession of schoolgirls by spirits based on ethnographic researc... more In this article, I explore the possession of schoolgirls by spirits based on ethnographic research conducted in the district of Dogondoutchi, Niger. Besides pointing to the struggles girls face in a country where women's education remains controversial, possession brings attention to a past Muslim religious authorities have tried to silence. When trees were cut to make space for schools, their spiritual occupants were uprooted. Far from vanishing, however, the displaced spirits now haunt the very venues whose emergence contributed to their displacement. I consider how the irruption of spirits in schools highlights the fraught relation between Islam and animism, suggesting how Islam and animism exist in and through each other. Weber wrote how modern times were about the disenchantment of the world, yet he knew gods and spirits do not completely disappear. It is this predicament and the conundrums it gives rise to that the attacks on Nigerien schoolgirls exemplify.

African Futures, 2022

This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permi... more This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder.

Preternature, 2020

In this essay, I explore the mass possession of schoolgirls in the district of Dogondoutchi, Nige... more In this essay, I explore the mass possession of schoolgirls in the district of Dogondoutchi, Niger. Besides pointing to the struggles girls face
in a country where women’s education remains controversial, possession brings attention to a past Muslim religious authorities have tried to silence. When trees were cut to make space for schools, their spiritual occupants were uprooted. Far from vanishing, however, the displaced spirits now haunt the very venues whose emergence contributed to their displacement. I consider how the irruption of spirits in schools highlights the fraught relation between Islam and animism, suggesting how Islam and animism exist in and through each other. Weber wrote how modern times were about the disenchantment of the world, yet he knew gods and spirits do not completely disappear. It is this predicament and the conundrums it gives rise to that the
attacks on schoolgirls exemplify.

Time Work, 2020

In this chapter, I explore the agentive dimension of waiting at the fada through the analytical l... more In this chapter, I explore the agentive dimension of waiting at the fada through the analytical lens of time work. Focusing on teatime, I discuss how the fadas of young Nigerien men constitutes what might be called workspaces-in-waiting. In particular, I consider how the emergence of a new sociality—epitomized through the practice of sharing tea—shapes the temporality and texture of waiting, helping boredom vanish and giving samari a fleeting sense of control over the spread of time. Following a brief description of the economic conditions that have given rise to a widespread sense, among the younger generation in particular, that a future, once possible, is now imperiled, I consider the effects of unemployment, precarity, and idleness on the experience of time and productivity, and I describe the strategies samari have devised to reinsert flow and momentum into their lives. I discuss how the small pleasures that the fada, as a space of care and conviviality, affords its members lead to a restructuring of temporality such that, rather than being a source of anxiety and ennui, time becomes a resource. Teatime, I argue, is a kind of production, a social practice that shapes—and is itself shaped—by notions of time, sociality, and futurity. In the way it resituates young men in the rhythm and tempo of daily life, teatime provides opportunities for hope to nest and for dreams of a good life to be nurtured. However, when teatime clashes with other temporalities, such as the regimented schedule of daily prayers Muslims are enjoined to follow, it becomes an expression of impiety. In the end, it also suggests that youth understand time and apprehend the future very differently from elders, while providing yet another demonstration of how, to paraphrase Flaherty (2003), time and agency work together.

LEGISLATING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN AFRICA: HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIETY, AND THE STATE, 2020

In this chapter I explore the fraught question of early marriage in Niger to consider how interve... more In this chapter I explore the fraught question of early marriage in Niger to consider how interventions in the name of girls’ rights frame culture as an obstacle on the path to gender justice, foreclosing any possibility of genuine dialogue between advocates and opponents of gender-based reforms. Moving beyond the debates over the limits of rights as a “universal” concept, I discuss how activists’ notion of female vulnerability is inconsistent with the understanding of many Nigeriens, including Islamists, of what is “right” for girls. The model of girls’ rights promoted by activists is based on a narrow definition of empowerment that is not easily reconciled with what it means to have status, enjoy respectability, and claim power over others when one is young and female in Niger. I first examine how the rhetoric of rights produced by global advocacy is articulated around the demonization of culture and the promotion of education as a tool of emancipation. I then consider the legal and moral arguments centered on marriage put forth by opponents to rights-based interventions. Finally, I discuss how a controversial family law project allowed proponents and challengers of early marriage to stake out their positions. Critical to my approach is a concern for the tension between “‘the culture of rights’ and ‘the rights of culture’” (Hodgson 2011, 2) that has emerged in discussions of early marriage.

Journal of Africana Religions, 2020

The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of incidents of mass possession among schoolgirls i... more The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of incidents of mass possession among schoolgirls in Niger. Possession by revengeful spirits dramatizes the controversies surrounding women's education. During exorcism, possessing spirits speak of the homes they lost when trees were cut to build schools. Spirits were part of a sacred topography disrupted by the transformation of bushland into farmland, the shift toward individual property, and urban expansion. This essay centers on narratives of loss, displacement, subjection, and appropriation and the claims to knowledge about the past that these narratives authorize. By focusing on schools as staging grounds for historical reckoning, I consider how the possession of schoolgirls by vindictive spirits and the memory work sparked by these unsettling events constitute temporal tactics—subversive modes of unfolding time so as to retrieve forgotten histories while also reframing the present (and, by implication, the future) in relation ...

Being and Becoming Hausa, 2010

In Muslim majority Niger where demographic growth has translated into a large cohort of youth, un... more In Muslim majority Niger where demographic growth has translated into a large cohort of youth, unemployment among young men has skyrocketed. Excluded from the normative world of work and wages, male youth are confined to merely talking about the possibility of a future. Many of them have turned to hip-hop to find a means of expressing their concerns about the world in which they live. Niger in the last half century has seen tremendous changes in local patterns of religious practice. For those who converted to Islam soon after independence, there was no question about the definition of Islam and the authenticity of Muslim practice. This chapter explores how young men in Dogondoutchi draw from images of insecurity and ideologies of survival to engage in musical and stylistic experiments which their parents and grandparents perceive as un-Islamic, but which they see as ethical ways of addressing their current predicament. Keywords: Dogondoutchi; hip-hop; Islam; Niger

Ethnos, 2011

Examining the varied reactions of people to the blood-stained wrapper of a spirit devotee during ... more Examining the varied reactions of people to the blood-stained wrapper of a spirit devotee during a bori possession ceremony in Niger, I explore how dirt and disgust are more complex than neat structuralist models of purity and pollution often used to explain them. Understanding menstrual blood in situational terms, and looking at the reactions as shaped more about complex dimensions

Africa, 2013

ABSTRACTTo fight boredom, un(der)employed young men in Niger have joinedfadas(youth clubs) where ... more ABSTRACTTo fight boredom, un(der)employed young men in Niger have joinedfadas(youth clubs) where they listen to music, play card games and strike up new friendships – or nurture old ones. Membership in these organizations cuts across social divides, educational backgrounds and religious affiliations, affirming the spirit of egalitarianism and comradeship that drives these largely urban projects. At thefada, conversation routinely takes place around the making and sharing of tea, a ritual idle young men have come to value greatly as they struggle to fill their days with purpose and direction. Whereas elders largely condemnfadasas futile, self-indulgent, and occasionally criminal endeavours,samari(young men) defend their pastimes, claiming that they engage in meaningful activities. In this essay I explore the temporalities of teatime at thefada. Rather than focus on what is lost under conditions of crisis and privation, I consider instead what is produced, and in particular how value,...

How were the tragic events of September 11, 2001, experienced by young Muslims across the world? ... more How were the tragic events of September 11, 2001, experienced by young Muslims across the world? Did those events simply and irrevocably change the world in which they lived through the subsequent massive response, including military incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq by the United States and its allies? Or did 9/11 transform the consciousness of a cohort of young people at a critical juncture in their lives, helping to produce a new generation, selfconscious and actively engaged in the construction of their lives and selves? June Edmunds and Bryan Turner (2005:559) suggested that 9/11 may very well have shaped the consciousness of a new “global generation” of young people. While noting that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did not generate uniform reactions in the United States, let alone worldwide, they nevertheless argued that the attacks were “homogenizing in a peculiar way” (572), in the sense that they created a focal point around which new memories, new ...

The Routledge International Handbook to Veils and Veiling, 2017

Conspicuous Consumption in Africa, 2019

Youth and Popular Culture in Africa, 2021