International records / OpenAlex research

Hausa women on strike

A strike by Hausa women of Northern Nigeria in 1977 raised a number of interesting questions. How is it that these subordinate Muslim women could undertake and carry off a strike for better wages? How useful are the categories of ‘peasant’ and ‘landless labourer’, which are the cornerstones of generalizations about rural rebellions, in explaining the particular situation of Hausa women? Why is it that women went on strike as a response to exploitation by a foreign capitalist enterprise but are incapable of such action in their relations with Hausa peasants? Finally, in a comparison with a stri…