Eva Evers Rosander
Center for Development Research, Copenhagen
However, if the absence of women's groups was striking in my former field, the number and multiple forms of female associations which I found in Senegal, where I had recently started a new fieldwork, was absolutely overwhelming. [1] This difference between North and West Africa intrigued me and started a process of thinking and comparing field data along the lines described below. That is why this paper deals with material not only from Morocco, which we generally include in the Middle East, but also from a Sub-Saharan country such as Senegal, whose usual fate is to be excluded from all kinds of social science-related activities with connection to the so called Middle Eastern region. Still Senegal offers many cultural similarities with Morocco: it is deeply influenced by Arabo-Islamic culture and traditions and the Senegalese people often go to Morocco to study Arabic or religion. The greatest Sufi brotherhood (tariqa) inSenegal, the Tijaniyya, originates from the Maghreb and the founder's mosque in Fez is frequently visited by Senegalese Tijanis.
In this article I mention women and associating in Africa, without further distinctions. Following the general tradition in social science I then think of Sub-Saharan Africa in the first place. None the less, as will be shown in the following pages, there are certain structuring principles for social life which are similar both in North and West Africa, to which I will draw attention in my presentation of female linkage in the two regions. Thus, even if women's associating and networking take partly different forms due to varying cultural, social and economic backgrounds, basic values such as honour and shame, which in its turn often relate back to descent, do affect women's groups in Morocco as well as in Senegal. Through the study of women's organizational forms in these countries, key issues in the formation and maintenance of social structure, its ideology and social content, become visible. It also reveals to us how women's groups cope with social and economic change. The associations, networks etc. could be seen as reflecting basic structures of power and hierarchy, deeply rooted in people's minds, expressed in their rituals and in the daily interaction.
I will start with the presentation of some ideas about identity, self and personhood as food for thought, based on Paul Riesman's material from Burkina Faso concerning the construction of self in two African communities (Riesman 1992) and my own field data from Morocco and Senegal. I will then proceed to a description and analysis of Moroccan women's linkage and how this is manifested in different social activities such as the marriage and name-giving parties and in their networks. Women's relations to and dependence on men ideologically (expressed in ideas about honour and shame, morality and religion) and economically (manifested in the household and marriage structures) will be discussed in relation to their perceptions of individuality and collectivity. The same topics will be dealt with and related to the Senegalese women with whom I have worked. Special emphasis will be put on the description and analysis of some of the many different associations as cultural mirrors of underlying social values and the dominant power structure.
Finally, by seeing things from the point of view of female linkage, one could formulate tentative ideas about women's position in general in societies like the Moroccan and the Senegalese ones, which are permeated by a male Islam-dominated ideology. The moral codes for the women are hard to cope with and contribute to maintaining the women within the family and in the often polygynous household. For the rich, 'upper-class' or caste-less women or for women with a maraboutic descent, the main forum for realizing themselves may be inside the house in close relation to the family and the relatives. A woman without a big family, without many relatives, is perhaps in greater need to link herself to other people - be it a marabout, a president of an association or to a distant powerful classificatory `cousin'. The field data and arguments presented below point in that direction. To avoid conceptual confusion in the paper, I start with an attempt to define different aspects of 'linkage'.
While networks are mostly informal, channelling both material and immaterial resources along lines of kinship, propinquity, patron-clienthood etc., sharing belongings or interests of different kinds, associations are more acknowledged as entities or groups with a certain organizational structure and a certain constellation of people as participants or members who perceive of themselves as such. The associations may be informal or formal, private or public.
Thus, 'associations' are groups of people organized around certain activities and with some form of internal hierarchy in terms of a 'leader', president or chairman/woman, a treasurer and often one or more secretaries and the participants/members. 'Association' so defined is often undifferentially used in parallel with 'organization'. In this paper I mean by `organization' something wider and more general, namely..."structures of recognised and accepted roles" (Uphoff 1986:8), which may not necessarily be institutionalized, although this is often the case. 'Organization' is seen as a generic term indicating capacity to accomplish goals through collective action within a structure (cf. Bryant 85:21-23).
Africa is considered by some social scientists to be the continent with the most numerous and most active women's associations. Research on formalized women's organizations within a general change- and continuity discourse has yielded valuable information on the ways in which such collectivities are used by women to acquire greater economic control over the products of their own labour, or to affirm established female rights. However, much less is known about non-formalized or semi-formalized female collectivities, and for both categories little insight has been gained concerning motivational factors and the nature of the linkages and sentiments between the women concerned. Such networks or collectivities include relations based on kinship, neighbourhood, friendship, patron-client relations or special interest groups of a more or less temporary or sporadic character. It is necessary to understand the potential or actual role of such collectivities as gender-political mechanisms and the individual's role in such collectivities including their function as economic coping and corrective measures.
Global economic forces of capitalization and market integration have in many cases transformed former types of social formation (household/compound/family structure) away from collectivity, extended families and complementarity between men and women towards individualism, nuclear families and dependent wives. Christianity as well as Islam have long worked to legitimise and reinforce these processes. Effects for women have been social isolation, increased differentiation between women and loss of social networks. From this perspective women's linking and associating in different forms become all the more important and necessary.
The study of African organizations seen from the over-all perspective of individuality and collectivity cannot avoid focusing on social identity, including ethnic, religious, gender and kinship identity. For the sake of simplicity 'identity' will here be considered as a process of naming: naming of self, naming of others, naming by others (cf. Brenner 1993:59). In the group under study people will define themselves and others in accordance with the criteria of sameness and otherness. Mapping these emic categories will be of interest for the understanding of the more complex social and discursive processes. The use of 'mother' as a denomination of the woman `presidente' of an association reflects the cultural importance of motherhood in the society in question. In addition it ranks the speaker hierarchically in a subordinated role or position within the association under study.
Another important variable for identification of self and others in Africa is religion. Religion or beliefs provide the means whereby people negotiate the personal, social and political conditions they experience and through which they may be empowered (cf. Roberts and Seddon 1991). The great dividing line is between Christians and Muslims (the so called Animists constituting a very small minority), although micro studies may reveal a wide repertoire of culturally important subcategories even in a religiously homogeneous region ('good' Muslims, 'bad' Muslims, 'more' Muslim, `less Muslim' or 'not a real Muslim'... etc.). These are just a few examples of identity-creating, -maintaining and -reproducing concepts, which ought to be linked into the study of women's strategies and life careers in relation to African the current organizational structures (Bülow, Evers Rosander, Nautrup 1994). [2]
According to Paul Riesman, one's identity is initially entirely constructed by others. Identity, he argues, is the single most important component of the sense of self. Yet he insists in that one's sense of self is subjective to each individual. It is the fact that it is built out of a shared system of meanings which implies that other people's thoughts in fact are major constituents of a person's sense of self (Riesman 1992:186). These statements lead us into the central and yet complicated issue concerning people's perceptions of self and others. In my paper, 'people' refer to women in Northern Morocco and Ceuta and in the town of Mbacké, Diourbel region, in central Senegal. The interactional framework is, as always in this paper, female linkage.
Crucial for the understanding of the women's view of themselves in relation to the collective or the group is the sense of connectedness that they as individuals come to have of others, especially relatives (cf. ibid:10). For many of the Moroccan and Senegalese women society constitutes, as far as I can understand, the people one lives with or are surrounded by, and the people who may live elsewhere but with whom one is related. The creation and maintenance of a family is seen as a main goal in life and the expression of success for both Moroccan and Senegalese men. This is possible through having many children. Women's role as reproducers and mothers is highly valued by men and women alike. The presence of many people, being more or less dependent on one's favours, is a goal to which most people aspire. It is not wealth itself which proves success but rather the collection of dependants one has. What counts is the size of the entourage that wealth and moral reputation enable one to attract and support (ibid: 42). Thus, principles for female linkage are to lead a group or to adhere to a leader of a group or a social network, be it a family, an association or a religious group, centred around a marabout or his mother, sister or wife.
Exchange of information is one of the main purposes of creating and maintaining social networks. Entertainment is another. Both reasons are connected with the fact that the women's lives are totally anchored in and oriented towards their immediate surroundings. They display an intense interest in other people and in their own position in relation to the others in terms of respectability. Concern about things going on at a distance and among unknown people is minimal or non-existent. Another purpose for married women's talk in their networks is connected with their role in society as testers and reproducers of norms and traditions. In this endeavour much time is spent on gossiping about other women's moral reputations. Gaining supporters for their interpretations of reality is an important goal and a requirement for their female prestige careers. One key to ascendancy is a close-knit and reliable network of allies who will hide a woman's disgraces and advertise her successes. Her allies would willingly collect and communicate as much information as possible about people outside her own group. Such a broad, close-knit network is a great resource - a threat and a source of power that the other women cannot ignore. A mother and her married daughters can form such a constellation, as a woman's female kindred are her most reliable allies. This presupposes that they live relatively near to each other, at least in the same village.
Not only daughters and female relatives but also more recently settled neighbours may join a powerful woman, being brought in under her 'umbrella' of respectability and esteem in exchange for support for her versions of reality and moral judgement. Such a group can build up an information pool of considerable significance.
In the greater arenas like the wedding and name-giving parties, women perform mainly as representatives of their husbands and in-laws, but also as individual actors with the other women as their audience. The party hostess, her female family members and her guests will here be viewed as a group which serves as an example of female linkage with characteristic structuring aspects. The segregation of sexes (no men among the party guests) and the separation of kin and affines (the two mothers of bride and bridegroom have separate parties for their respective relatives and neighbours) are very crucial aspects. The competition for prestige between the party guests is apparent in garments and jewellery.
Yet the giving of money (grama) to the hostess is balanced by reciprocity. The same sum that is given by each guest to the hostess as a contribution to the financing of the party will be received from today's hostess the day that each particular guest has her own party - be it a wedding or a name-giving party. As the female married participants/donors are seen as representatives of their husband's family and household, it would be shameful for the women and dishonourable for the men if their wives did not fulfil their obligations by not paying or paying less money than they themselves have received (Evers Rosander 1991:1 89f). Poor women, whose husbands or close relatives lack economic means, cannot give them the sums needed. These women remain outside this reciprocal party financing system. Consequently they do not form part of the party networks, a factor which contributes to their marginalization in the society.
Wives and husbands are dependent on each other for the realisation of their female and male selves. This is expressed in an idiom of shame (hashuma) for women and honour (erd) for men. Women's sexual behaviour is closely linked to her moral reputation and the one of her family. Thus, as we all know from studies in other places in the Middle East, control of female sexuality is considered a male duty. These ideological concepts are linked to economic well-being and descent. Wealthy men from well-reputed families or shorfa families manifest their superior position by keeping their women more secluded than poorer women, who may have to work outside their homes to support the family or to contribute to their provision. Yet, the ideal remains for all women to situate one's activities as much as possible within one's own home or close to it. The alternative would be inside another woman's home or house yard, the condition being that this other woman forms part of one's own social network. Strange women who are not relatives and come from other places are often experienced as dangerous; there is a fear of 'others' as being the potential source of evil, sorcery and misfortunes beyond control. That is probably why, among other factors, the female Senegalese ideas about and practice of associating and linkage based on other criteria than kinship and neighbourhood are not to be found in Morocco or among the Moroccans/Ceuta Muslims in the Spanish enclave.
In Senegal, men and women fear to be exposed to witchcraft, they fear the anger and punishment of their ancestors' spirits and they fear the magic of some marabouts. One way of defending oneself from all these sources of evil is to live a morally good and respectable life, "transparent" (see below) and evident to everybody, together with other women, who can be one's best witnesses of one's good intentions and morally correct life. The African understanding of the person, which perceives of the self as connected to forces and entities outside it, carries considerable risks and dangers of its own, as compared with the Western ideas (Riesman 1986:77). [6] The self as part of a 'group ego' into which all family members and the ancestors are integrated is more close to the Senegalese ideas about one's place in relation to others. The person could be seen as made up of many parts which come to him or her from the ancestors and other powers in the world, so the person is not thought to be a closed, self-sufficient unit (ibid 1986:89). This does not mean to say that the individual is denied her/his right to assert her/his place in the collectivity. However, just as the Westerners feel there should be room for the individual and expressions like 'alone is strong' reflects the wish to liberate oneself from the pressure of and the subjugation to the will of the group, the Africans stress that persons exist in relations to others, not only needed for survival. Meyer Fortes has explained the phenomenon I am-hinting at in the following terms: "Individual and collective are not mutually exclusive but are rather two sides of the very same structural complex. The scheme of identification employed for individual persons is the same scheme of identification as serves to distinguish lineages and clans" (Fortes 1965:314). One also derives a sense of identity through these 'others', who seem to represent traditional ways of how one should react and behave to be a 'real' person.
Maintaining one's relations with other people can be seen as a way of reminding oneself of who you are. In a hierarchical social structure like the one of Senegal, where the ideas still are strong about a non-caste superior group of people (geer) acting as an upper-class in relation to the 'caste' groups, based on traditional professions, with the lowest rank ascribed to the griot (bard, praise-singer), the stress on dependency relations to others is important for the maintenance of the power structure. This is particularly the case for the women, who ideologically should be industrious, devoted and obedient to their husbands and outstanding moral examples for their children. The mother's good or bad moral behaviour is reflected in the success or misfortune of her children; accordingly she is held responsible for the well-being of her children not only when they are small but also when they have left the home.
Women's associations are fora for work (party preparations) and for social, economic and religious activities. The associations are organized in a top-down way with a president, a vice president, a treasurer, a number of secretaries (general secretary, social secretary, secretary of conflicts etc.) and the members. The president is always a geer, a non-casté. She is usually an influential woman with many connections in society, not the least with powerful male relatives and marabouts. She has a few chosen 'assistants' whom she calls on for running errands, convoking the meetings etc. They are griots, who get occasionally paid for their services. In the villages, all women participate in the female associations; those few who don't will be considered socially non-existing and completely isolated by the others. In the cities the social control is less strong, and women may be less strictly integrated into female associational networks. Still, all my data point in the same direction: women need their associations to be able to realize themselves as social persons and to finance their ritual and party activities in relation to the rites-de-passage. Their position in the husband's household both in relation to other households outside their own and in relation to their co-wives within the house or compound where they live makes access to big sums of money for investment in presents and ritual passage parties necessary. Thus, as individuals they need the benefits which the collective activities of the associations can offer.
They also need the group of women to legitimize these activities; a woman alone is regarded as morally weak and exposed to all kinds of temptations and evil powers; as if she would occupy herself with witchcraft or illicit love affairs. Again, transparency and honesty (leer) is a key word in all female activities. Being in a group together with others, what one does is clear and evident to all the members.
Regarding the boys, they are also expected to develop their associating spirit, although not to the same extent. Both young boys and young girls get socialized into the patterns of organizing themselves in associations by their membership in maas (wolof), the age group association, in which all Senegalese children and youngsters are members, at least in the countryside. [7] These are social fora, in the girls' case under the formal leadership of the president of the married women's association called mbotaye (see below) but organized by a young geer girl or boy (the maas being sexually separated, but with many common activities). The girls pay small weekly or monthly membership fees and organize parties or dances ('tam tam') where they sell snacks and soft drinks. The money they earn is invested in party equipment like kettles, bowls etc. for others to hire/use on the great party occasions like weddings and name-giving parties.
The meetings of the female saving associations that I have assisted, have all been linked to social activities of one kind or another. Even if the drinks offered may just consist of a glass of water with ice, the women participants have stayed for more than one hour in the house of the president, chatting, trying to sell cloth to each other or discussing prices, and even dancing and drumming a little. Most urban women take part in many different nats; membership may be based on sharing the same profession, another on sharing neighbourhood, or suffering from the same physical handicap, or even coming from the same geographical region outside the town or city. The women I met preferred this system to saving their money in the bank for many reasons. One reason was, that by 'giving' money away to the different nats, it was out of reach and could not be claimed by one's husband or relatives or anybody else, whom it otherwise would had been very difficult to deny money.
The only women who do not participate in women's associations of any kind are the sokhnas, i.e. the women of maraboutic descent or women married to a marabout. They are considered to stand above any female linkage, which expresses a need to associate outside the limits of the family for the fulfilment of certain demands, in order to get access to material and immaterial resources. The young sokhnas are supposed to get financial support to their weddings from their fathers, so they and their mothers do not need the contribution of the mbotaye. Compared with the female daira members, their position differs in relation to the marabouts. While the 'ordinary' daira members are disciple of the marabout, the sokhnas occupy the roles of daughters, mothers or wives. In a way they see their position as a superior form of 'disciplehood': their arena is the maraboutic polygynous household and their duties in the first place to organize the big religious events, the pilgrimage (magal) of the marabouts disciples, which take place annually to his house. On this occasion the collected money from the daira will be handed over and the marabout will bless all his disciples. Food and room for staying at least one day will be provided to the guests/disciples. All practicalities in relation to this big event will be in the hands of the women of the maraboutic family. Their role as highly prestigious hostesses in this social and religious context serves furthermore to distinguish them form 'ordinary' women.
The geer women of non-maraboutic lineages often play leading roles in the female associations. They constitute board members with a considerable power and influence. Not the least the president and the treasurer, who have control over the collected sum of money, kept in a secret place, are important persons in the women/members' lives. The 'femmes castées' (nienjo) are members and supporters of the leaders' proposals. The relation between the president and her members is often referred to in terms of the mother with her daughters of the association. The more 'daughters' that adhere to the president, their social mother, the more powerful she becomes.
Men estimate women's financial investments in the mbotaye and the nat as these activities alleviate the burden for the men of providing their wives and female relatives with economic means for the ritual passage parties and for the yearly pilgrimages to the marabout. Concerning women's participation in the dairas men cannot oppose it, as ideally everybody ought to be a disciple of a marabout to be a proper Muslim and Senegalese. "The one who has no marabout has the devil as his master"; so the saying goes. Most women are petty traders and earn small amounts of money, which they partly use for paying the different fees of the associations. Very few women are too poor to be able to fulfil the demands of at least one association - the monthly payment of the dairas, for example, are usually very low, especially for women.
Women's dependence on men for the realisation of self is closely united to woman's role a socially acknowledged mother in the society. No woman is regarded by others as a 'real' woman until she has become a mother, and a mother within wedlock, preferably with many children, at least some of them being boys. So even if women many times are comparatively independent economically, they are ideologically not free from men's demands on them to be pleasant, understanding and obedient to their husbands. That is why the polygynous households so often are tough arenas for competition: the wives compete between themselves to win the husband's favours. They try to serve the best food, to be the most seductive and beautiful and to get the greatest number of children. These are individual battles, which could be of benefit for the husband, but which put great strain on the women in the household collectives.
Without having gone into any details, I have shown that women both in Morocco and Senegal form groups of different kinds for the financing and the preparation of the great ritual passage parties - and, in the Senegalese case, also for religious purposes. While in Morocco membership in these networks is based on kinship and neighbourhood, and the financing is made by the women-participants of the parties, in Senegal, the members of the mbotaye associations could be women who have many other things in common. The mbotaye members are offering party help without themselves being invited guests to the marriage and name-giving parties. The financing is made partly through this association, not by the party members only, as in Morocco.
Women are dependent on men as husbands and fathers for their realization of self in both Morocco and Senegal. However, while ideas about male honour (ird or erd) and female shame (hashuma) knit men and women closely together in Morocco, in Senegal the stress is much more on women's shame, endurance of sufferings and ability to keep secrets about the husband and his family (soutoura), than on men's honour. In both countries the cultural ideal is to restrict women's activities to the house or the compound, especially among urban Arabs in Morocco and among the Wolof (Muslim) people in Senegal, as it seems. This is a sign of wealth but also of moral superiority, which only high status families can offer their women. Thus, the sokhnas' life in the maraboutic houses display great similarities with the ones of certain Moroccan women's. Also their forms of linkage are similar; i.e. limited to the close and distant relatives.
The traditional matrifocus that we find rests of in West Africa, where the social role of the mother is much more widely acknowledged, women's participation in the informal labour market much greater and the sexual segregation is less rigid than in North Africa, is contraworked by the ideas about female behaviour presented above. The current situation of the Senegalese woman both from an ideological and practical point of view is characterized by more contradictions and more aggressive gender relations than is the case in Morocco.
The female associations are not solving these problems but underlining them and maintaining the present hierarchical caste and gender structure. The same is the case with the Moroccan networks, which conserve the prestige structures which are based on ideas of women as respectable housewives and mothers only.
The change, or the claims on change, could have been expected to come from the low-caste people, especially from the griots, the lowest group of the hierarchical pyramid. This is however not the case. In a work situation characterized by high unemployment, which has affected the geer (non-caste) especially, the griots insist on their function as praisers of the high status families in the rites de passage-party context and elsewhere. This is so, even if the geer because of lack of means would have preferred to diminish the size of these ritual manifestations of family status and prestige. Thus, the ones who gain on maintaining the system are the griots, who do not have to avoid expressing needs publicly, whose pride and independence cannot be threatened because they are regarded to have little of it, and whose careers as upstarts in the Senegalese society is viewed with fear and contempt by the non castés. Cultural ideas about the non-castés' jaatu (generosity) and soutoura (shame, ability to endure) prevent the geer to deny the griots their share and the prestige system is conserved, at least partially.
Berger, Prudence Woodford, 1994. 'Associating women: female linkages, collective identities and political ideologies in Ghana.' Unpublished manuscript.
Bülow, Dorthe von; Evers Rosander, Eva and Nautrup, Birthe, 1994. `The Africa Gender Group'. Unpublished paper. Copenhagen: Center for Development Research.
Brenner, Louis, 1993. 'Constructing Muslim identities in Mali' in L. Brenner (ed.): Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. London: Hurst & Comp.
Evers Rosander, Eva, 1991. Women in a Borderland: Managing Muslim Identity where Morocco meets Spain. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology.
Fortes, Meyer and Germaine Dieterlen (eds.), 1965. African Systems of Thought.
Riesman, Paul, 1986. 'The Person and the life cycle in African social life and thought' in African Studies Review, Vol. 29, number 2, June.
-- 1992. First Find your Child a Good Mother. The Construction of Self in Two African Societies. New Brunswick: Rutger University Press.
Roberts, Pepe & David Seddon, 1991. `Fundamentalism in Africa: Religion and Politics', Review of African Political Economy, no 52, pp 3-8.
Uphoff, Norman, 1986. Local Institutional Development: An Analytical Sourcebook with Cases. Connecticut: Kumarian Press.
2. The text above is taken out from a larger paper called 'The Africa Gender Group', and somewhat revised. The paper was presented to the Center for Development Research, Copenhagen, in October 1994.[*]
3. By 'Moroccan women' is meant those women I met and studied during my fieldwork. in qbila Anjera, Jebala, north-western Morocco and in Ceuta.[*]
4. An 'arena' is a stage for women's oral communication and the display of affluence. It is a space for parading clothes and jewellery, for performance, for the presentation of self to others and for each other. It is more than a stage, however, more than a space for performing social roles; 'arenas' are also niches, institutions, customs. While the concept of 'arena' can be used abstractly, as when referring to a woman's network, it evokes the idea of many people coming together on purpose for the performance of a particular social activity (Evers Rosander 1991:12).[*]
5. In the following I am referring to data from my fieldwork in Mbacké (town) and Sam Kontour (a rural village 10 kilometres from Mbacké) in the Diourbel region among wolof-speaking women, most of them members of the Sufi order called Mouridiyya.[*]
6. "In the thinking of many African peoples, including Senegal, almost all misfortune is caused by people with whom you have some relation, including spirits of ancestors" (Riesman 1986:77). Riesman mentions this to make account for Western psychiatrists' difficulties in drawing a line between 'normal' and 'abnormal' in their studies of African forms of mental illness and ideas of persecution. I take this up here to get an idea of the existing perceptions of delimitation between the self and the others.[*]
7. The maas institution is gradually abandoned in the big cities of today.[*]
Eva Evers Rosander
© The author and Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Archived 14.11.95