STRIVING FOR KNOWLEDGE AND DIGNITY

How quranic ‘boarding’ students in Kano, Nigeria, learn to live with rejection & educational disadvantage

Hannah HöchnerD.Phil. Candidate Development StudiesUniversity of Oxford

http://peef.soup.io/since/53324629?mode=own

Structure of presentation:

1. context: global trends shaping children’s experiences

2. questions3. the Almajirai

1. context2. defence against outsiders’

assaults3. striving to further their

knowledge4. conclusions

http://arewaaid.wordpress.com/category/almajirai/

global trends shaping young people’s

experiences: formal education = epitome of increasingly

globalised standards of ‘modern childhood’ raised aspirations for formal education &

formal sector jobs lack of cost-free formal education

adequately adjusted to local priorities & of acceptable quality

simultaneously: ‘traditional’ strategies for social reproduction undermined by economic restructuring

questions: How do modern standards of childhood &

youth affect those excluded from them? What experiences do young people make for

whom desired standards of ‘modern childhood’ are unattainable?

How do young people make sense of the constraints their lives & futures are subjected to?

What strategies are available to young people to deal with rejection and educational disadvantage?

the Almajirai: boys & young men from poor

peasant households sole curriculum: Quran (read &

write & recite) ‘boarding‘ beyond state control earning their own livelihood

(begging, household helps, menial jobs, petty trading)

ca. 10mio Almajirai in Northern Nigeria & similar systems in Muslim West Africa

steep decline of respect for system over past century (impoverishment, western education, Islamic reformism)

UPE-, child welfare- & security concerns

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1220032.stm http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/6596232/Nigeria-struggles-to-curb-rise-in-child-beggars.html

Almajiri-system today: entrenched coping strategy

STRUCTURAL FACTORS FUEL DEMAND… massive population growth declining rural economy western education: costly & of poor

quality

… & ARE RATIONALISED THROUGH high regard for quranic knowledge social concern with learning ‘respect’ &

‘fending for oneself’ moral concern with preventing children

from ‘getting spoiled’

living as Almajiri in contemporary urban Kano

environment of societal

disapproval & rejection

environment viewing

western & modern Islamic

(Islamiyya) education positivelysimultaneous struggle

to defend Almajiri-system against assaults from outsiders

to subvert boundaries to acquisition of knowledge it imposes on them

defence against outsiders’ assaults

producing explicitly moral narratives of what it means to be an Almajiri ‘code of conduct’ re: football, rough play, fooling

around “Please, if you go out to beg, I want you to always pull yourself

together, because some people use to say, Almajirai are not well-behaved, that they like playing rough play.” (15 years, role-play)

criticising assaulters… …for lacking faith & knowledge

“[Almajirai in urban areas are treated worse than in rural areas because] most of the village people are [quranic] teachers, they know the Quran and its importance very well. In Kano, some of them are illiterate. They only have the boko [western] studies.” (15 years)

striving to further their knowledge:Islamiyya education

‘traditional’ knowledge economy of quranic schooling system: memorisation of Quran (without translation / explication / access to

other Islamic subjects) = necessary first step stratified access to power & prestige associated with religious

knowledge – memorisation alone: demonstration of mastery impossible Islamiyya schools: easy access to translation &

explication of Quran, & other Islamic subjects! Almajirai aspire to such knowledge: secret enrolment in Islamiyya school translations: quranic exegesis at Friday mosque, books, radio,

preachers on the street, guessing from similarities Hausa & Arabic claim to know God‘s position on contentious issues (not formally not

entitled to such knowledge) “Even Allah says you should know him first before you worship him.” “God will also punish them for giving him bad food.” “Allah said what you cannot eat, don’t give it to someone to eat, even if he’s a

mad man.”

striving to further their knowledge:western education

aspired to as means ‘to progress’ “If you have only the Quranic studies, there are places

that when you go there, people will think you are nobody” (24 years)

aspirations for formal sector jobs hope to pursue western education in the future

“If your parents took you to Quranic school, and you refuse to study and say you only prefer boko [western education], what will you tell Allah in heaven?… After I complete my school, I can go to boko, because my parents will not give their consent for me to go to boko now. I have to obey them, because it is said that ‘whoever obeys his parents, obeys Allah’… we still have hope that we will go to boko. We will not lose hope.

conclusionscaveat: research with 1 group of children at 1 point in time general conclusions:

modern education not inconsequential for those not taking part

young people not passive victims in the face of rejection & exclusion, struggle to make sense of their experiences

Almajirai: aspirations for western & modern Islamic education ability to conceive of themselves positively cushions assaults

on their dignity – possible not to resent the better-off & to embrace hope to advance through western education in the future

important questions: what discourses are available for young people to position

themselves vis-à-vis an exclusionary modernity? under what conditions may ‘protective shields’ break down?

hannah.hoechner@qeh.ox.ac.uk

thank you for your attention!