Between dialogue and contestation: gender, Islam, and the challenges of a Malian public sphere

Abstract

This paper examines how Islam has become a widely used idiom in discussions about gender in Mali. It foregrounds ordinary Malians' and particularly women's reflexive engagements with broadly debated religious and political questions. Centred on a 2004 five‐day conference on gender issues, this paper examines the forms of Muslim women's involvement in the Malian public sphere, some of the challenges these women encounter, and their discursive attempts to reconcile their emancipatory agendas with their identities as Muslims. Résumé L’article analyse la façon dont l’islam est devenu un mot très employé dans des discussions portant sur le genre au Mali. Il sous‐tend la réflexion des Maliens ordinaires, et en particulier des femmes, sur lesquestions religieuses et politiques les plus débattues. Centré sur une conférence de cinq jours qui s’est tenue en 2004 sur les questions de genre, l’auteur examine les formes d’engagement des femmes musulmanes dans la sphère publique malienne, quelques‐unes des difficultés qu’elles rencontrent et leurs tentatives discursives de concilier leurs mots d’ordre d’émancipation et leurs identités de femmes musulmanes.

Urban Displacement and Trade in a Senegalese Market

“…West Africanist scholarship has generated important insight into how male dominance and gender inequality is perceived and experienced in this region, often challenging Eurocentric prejudice and misconceptions. Research in the West African context has tended to emphasise the complementarity of the genders and a communitarian ethic where women are often associated with cooperation and social harmony (Brand 2001;De Jorio 2009;Fall-Sokhna and Thiéblemont-Dollet 2009;Grosz-Ngaté 1989;Hoffman 2002;Sieveking 2007). For example, scholars have pointed out that while women in Mali have sought to improve their rights, they reject the Euro-American ideology of individualism and pursuit of autonomy, and instead stress the need to relate (Brand 2001: 4;De Jorio 2009).…”

Tactical strangers: Mobility, trade, and gendered strangerhood in West Africa

“…West African women who have sought to improve their rights have tended to reject ontological individualism and the pursuit of autonomy, instead stressing the interdependence of the genders and the need to relate (Brand, 2001, 4; cf. De Jorio, 2009). Some feminist scholars have argued that West African societies are not patriarchal in the Western sense in that women do have important domains of power, especially in the domestic arena (Brand 2001; Fall‐Sokhna and Thiéblemont‐Dollet, 2009; Grosz‐Ngaté, 1989; Hoffman, 2002; Sieveking, 2007).…”

Napoleonic Legacies, Postcolonial State Legitimation, and the Perpetual Myth of Non-Intervention: Family Code Reform and Gender Equality in Mali

“…Administratively, significant funding for the reform effort was provided through a project aimed at improving the judiciary’s efficiency and credibility, called PRODEJ ( Programme décennal de developpement de la justice ), whose donors included the World Bank, United Nations Children’s Fund, France, Canada, and the European Union (Justice Mali, 2019; Schulz, 2003: 133). Within what Dorothea Schulz (2003: 137) describes as the Konaré administration’s ‘decidedly secularist and pro-Western orientation’, reform sought to strengthen women’s rights in keeping Mali’s obligations under international human rights law (De Jorio, 2009: S98; Soares, 2011: 276). Around 2001, the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and Families (MPFEF) ( Ministère de la promotion de la femme, de l’enfant, et de la famille ) recruited a committee of experts to draft the Family Code bill (Koné, 2015: 29).…”

“…The resultant Family Code bill unanimously passed by the National Assembly on the 9th of August 2009 only recognised secular marriage, raised the minimum marriage age to 18 for girls, removed the wife’s obedience clause, provided for equal inheritance for men and women, and granted natural children (i.e. children born to parents who are not legally married) inheritance rights (De Jorio, 2009: S98; Mali, 2016). Although the bill harmonised Malian law and human rights obligations, many viewed it as an affront to socio-cultural norms, leading to widespread protest across Mali.…”

“…This is further complicated by the involvement of international donors (Schulz, 2003: 143–144; Soares, 2011: 275). While recognising reform’s complexity, some scholars emphasise the possibility of dialogue, highlighting the space opened up for public debate (De Jorio, 2009: S95–S96); the role dialogue between judges can play in enabling a more equal ‘ordered pluralism’ 1 (Tounkara, 2012: paras 29, 476); or how Obioma Nnaemeka’s ‘nego-feminism’ can help reach ‘common ground’ (Artner and Malueke, 2016: 171). I seek to contribute to existing scholarship by not only situating the reform in a broader socio-historical context, but by using the concept of myth to link family code reform and state legitimation projects with a key goal of better understanding the conditions of possibility for more egalitarian legislation governing the family.…”