The bush is sweet : identity, power and development among WoDaaBe Fulani in Niger

Abstract

In this book Kristín Loftsdóttir gives the reader a highly personal insight into the lives of the Wodaabe nomads of Niger, who are striving to make a living between the bush and the city. Spending nearly two years as a Wodaabe, within a Wodaabe extended family and alternating between the nomadic setting of the bush and the urbanised life-style of the capital, Niamey, she was in a unique position to observe the effects that increasing urbanisation and globalisation, together with the modern tourist industry’s preconceptions and demands, have had on the identity and power relations of the Wodaabe. Interwoven with the abstract scientific observations are the more personal reflections and analyses of a young white woman on living within, and sharing all aspects of, the everyday lives of the Wodaabe with the broad spectrum of reactions which this entails. These sensitively written and honest descriptions, including details of what the author at times experiences as her own shortcomings within her project, give a most interesting dimension to the work not always found in social science studies which means that this book should appeal to a wider readership than might initially be expected.

CONTENTS -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: The ever changing world -- Chapter 2: A global world of images -- Chapter 3: At home in the bush -- Chapter 4: Animals in Wodaabe economic and social life -- Chapter 5: The cold and the hot season -- Chapter 6: Wodaabe ethnic identity -- Chapter 7: Gender and power -- Chapter 8: The rain starts to fall -- Chapter 9: The border town -- Chapter 10: Working in the city -- Chapter 11: The makers of handicrafts -- Chapter 12: Jumare's accident -- Chapter 13: Gendered lives -- Chapter 14: Dancing in Niamey -- Chapter 15: Desire and identity -- Chapter 16: Lived relations -- Chapter 17: Development and identity: creating subjects -- Concluding remarks