Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWork, Social Status, and Gender in Post-Slavery Mauritania is a brilliantly written book employing elegant and accessible language. While it focuses primarily on Harāīn women's experiences in Kankossa, Mauritania, it provides important insights into the question of non-elites' accessibility to elite forms of Islam and related status. It thus makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on gender, social hierarchy, economics, Islam, slavery, and dress. Policymakers, scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students who are interested in global studies of slavery, gender, social hierarchy, and Islam will surely find the book worth reading.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Note on Transliteration and Language
Introduction: I Will Make You My Servant: Social Status, Gender, and Work
1. From Black to Green: Changing Political Economy and Social Status in Kankossa
2. "We Work for Our Lives": Revaluing Femininity and Work in a Post-slavery Market
3. Joking Market Women: Critiquing and Negotiating Gender Roles and Social Hierarchy
4. Women's Market Strategies: Building Social Networks, Protecting Resources, and Managing Credit
5. Making People Bigger: Wedding Exchange and the Creation of Social Value
6. Embodying and Performing Gender and Social Status through the Malafa (Mauritanian veil)
Conclusion: Social Rank in the Neoliberal Era
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
