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Honour, respectability and ‘noble' work: Descent and gender-based obstacles to the education and employment of young Haalpulaar women in northern Senegal
- Source :
- Children's geographies
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Descent-based hierarchies shape the lives of members of 20 ethnic groups across West Africa and the Sahel. Yet, except for work on human rights violations against people of slave descent, little research investigates the experiences of other groups within these hierarchies, or the influence of descent-based identities on wider development issues. Hence, this paper examines the intersecting influences of descent-based identity and gender on education and employment among the Haalpulaar’en in the Futa Tooro, northern Senegal, focusing on women of the dominant group, the Muslim clerics or tooroɓe. On one hand, their families’ privileged access to capital enabled their trajectories. However, patriarchal notions of honour and respectability, including expectations to marry young, limited their educational careers. Restrictive definitions of ‘noble’ work also reduced their employment options. Analysis of the occupation of hair-braiding unpacks how beliefs in supernatural forces underpinned these ideals and how women negotiated and sometimes challenged these norms.<br />info:eu-repo/semantics/published
- Subjects :
- Sociology and Political Science
Social Psychology
media_common.quotation_subject
Geography, Planning and Development
0507 social and economic geography
Ethnic group
West africa
050906 social work
Sociologie du développement
gender
Sociology
Géographie humaine
media_common
Anthropologie culturelle et sociale
education
youth
Human rights
05 social sciences
Gender studies
Développement social
Senegal
Honour
Work (electrical)
employment
Africa
0509 other social sciences
Descent (aeronautics)
050703 geography
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Children's geographies
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....8506b3c7548a0113875c7e9955f34be1