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MAR
28
Year of Global Africa: Eye on Africa: Student Research Showcase
Date:
Thursday, 28 Mar 2019
Time:
12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Location:
Room 201, International Center
Department:
African Studies Center
Event Details:

As part of Africa Week and Women's History Month, the African Studies Center is proud to present a student research showcase featuring two students working on projects that help us more fully understand women and girls in Africa.

"What are we missing? Gender gaps and Sustainable Intensification of Cropping Systems in Mozambique"

Abstract

The role of women in agriculture development has been the focus of research and development debates. The 2010-2011 FAO report on "The State of Food and Agriculture" drew attention to the need of include women in agriculture, highlight the gender gaps in agriculture and the need to invest in women to produce equitable socio-economic development. Since the FAO report, international organization and government in developing countries introduced significant changes aimed to ensure women participation in agriculture development and equity on access to resources. However, the condition of women in rural areas have not changed and have worsened in some countries. This presentation addresses the gender gaps in agriculture development. Why we are not producing changes and impacts on women's lives? What are we missing? Using the case of sustainable intensification of cropping systems in Mozambique, I highlight the major limitations for inclusion in agriculture programs and  I discuss the policy, the approach and methods of gender analysis as the key to closing the gender gaps in agriculture.

Angela Manjichi is a doctoral student in the department of Community Sustainability. Her research interest is in sustainable intensification of cropping systems, adoption of technology and gender dynamics. In Mozambique she works a lecturer at the Higher Polytechnic Institute of Manica, and she has been involved in research and development aimed to understand socio and economic aspects of farmer led irrigation, maize and legume farming systems, seed systems, technology upscaling and innovative ways of delivering agriculture information and technology to the rural households.  She is also involved in higher education administration where she has contributed to curriculum development for the technical and vocational agriculture colleges in Mozambique and worked on development of training packages for agricultural extension services in Mozambique.

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 "Rural Migrant Muslim Hausa Girls, Community Faith Based Schools, and Environmental Change in Sokoto, Northwest Nigeria"

In his dissertation research, Abubakar Idris examines the shift that is occurring amongst rural Hausa families, who now send their daughters to the metropolitan city of Sokoto to study in residential Quaranic schools instead of sending them to government schools. He argues that Hausa parents desire to send their daughters to the residential Quranic schools so as to entrench traditional gender roles grounded in the principles of Islamic religious ideology. In order to fulfill their desire of educating their daughters in the residential Quranic schools, the parents disrupt another aspect of the existing traditional gender roles in which girls disproportionately farm and perform household duties, freeing them instead to attend the residential schools. The study engages feminist and post-colonial theories to examine the ways in which gender identity, gender power, and gender relations are enacted in the households of rural Hausa families, examining the migration experiences of the Hausa girls who study in the residential Quranic school of Sokoto, northwestern Nigeria. The study concludes that Hausa fathers—who are the major decision makers of their households—are reshaping labor in their households and communities by sending their daughters to the residential Quranic school, oftentimes in sharp opposition to the desires of their wives. As a result, Hausa mothers now find themselves without a major labor source, and need to adjust to the absence of their daughters from their households. 

Abubakar Idris is a doctoral candidate in the K-12 Educational Administration and Leadership program at Michigan State University. His dissertation examines the participation and experiences of rural migrant Muslim Hausa girls in a residential Quranic school in Sokoto, Northwestern Nigeria. His dissertation research has been funded by the Michigan State University College of Education Summer Research Development award and the Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change fellowship from the Center for Gender in Global Context.