Farmers and ‘Prostitutes’

Twentieth-Century Problems of Female Inheritance in Kano Emirate, Nigeria

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8979310
AutoresSteven Pierce (0009-0007-1410-220X, Tulane University, autor correspondente)
Ano2003
Volume44
Fascículo3
Páginas463-486
Data de publicação2003-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Journal of African History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021853703008478
OpenAlexW1974698645
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas17

This article focuses on the implications of an emir of Kano's decision to forbid women from inheriting houses and farms in 1923 and a successor's reversal of that policy in 1954. The earlier emir justified his policy by claiming that women inheritors were becoming prostitutes and the later one argued that women's re-enfranchisement would ameliorate the poverty of destitute elderly women. Both these events appear to have been radical innovations for their time and reflect continuous anxiety over women living outside of male control and a longer-term attack on women's public role. While the emirs' explanations do not fully comprehend the political logic of their decisions, both the proclamations and the way they were explained illustrate contradictions and ambiguities within Hausa conceptions of gender

Birth control · Economic growth · Economics · Family planning · Inheritance (genetic algorithm · Political science · Politics · Population · Poverty · Research methodology · Sociology · Successor cardinal · African history and culture studies · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Demography · Gender Studies · History · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender