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Beyond the World of Commerce: Rethinking Hausa Diaspora History through Marriage, Distance, and Legal Testimony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Harmony O’Rourke
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Abstract:

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Hausa migrants traveled to the Cameroon Grassfields where they established multiple settlements known as abakwa, a term referring to descendants of mixed marriages between Hausa men and local, mainly non-Muslim women. Previous historical studies on Hausa diaspora communities in West Africa have largely concentrated on the spread of commerce and Islam. By contrast, this article asks how gendered power asymmetries, together with the essential diaspora factors of distance and travel, influenced the marital relationships that made the diaspora possible. This approach to Hausa diaspora history emerges from Islamic court records dating from the late 1940s to the early 1960s in British mandated territory. The founding of the court resulted in the institutionalization of Islamic household patriarchy as well as debates over Hausa values, especially marriage as a primary site of belonging and patriarchal control. This article demonstrates that marital negotiations and distance interacted with colonial legal structures and community patriarchy in a manner that both intensified women’s vulnerability and provided opportunities to strategically forge new identities and relationships.

Résumé:

Dès le milieu du XIXe siècle, des migrants Haoussas se sont rendus sur les hauts plateaux du Cameroun où ils ont créé plusieurs établissements appelés abakwa, un terme faisant référence aux descendants de mariages mixtes entre des hommes haoussas et des femmes originaires de la région et principalement non-musulmanes. Les précédentes études historiques portant sur les communautés haoussas de la diaspora en Afrique de l’ouest se sont largement concentrées sur le développement du commerce et de l’islam. Cet article quant à lui interroge les asymétries de pouvoir entre les sexes, ainsi que les facteurs essentiels de la diaspora qu’étaient la distance et le voyage, et la manière dont ceux-ci ont influencé les relations conjugales qui ont fait que la diaspora était encore possible. Cette approche de l’histoire de la diaspora haoussa émerge de dossiers judiciaires islamiques datant de la fin des années 1940 au début des années 1960 dans le territoire de l’Organisation des Nations Unies sous mandat britannique. La création de la cour a abouti à l’institutionnalisation du patriarcat islamique des ménages ainsi qu’à des débats sur les valeurs haoussas, en particulier le mariage comme site primaire d’appartenance et de contrôle patriarcal. Cet article démontre que les négociations conjugales et la distance ont interagi avec les structures juridiques coloniales et patriarcat de la communauté d’une manière qui a simultanément intensifié la vulnérabilité des femmes et fourni des occasions de forger de nouvelles identités et relations stratégiques.

Type
Critical Historiographies
Information
History in Africa , Volume 43 , June 2016 , pp. 141 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2016 

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