Striving for knowledge and dignity

1. Striving for knowledge and dignity http://peef.soup.io/since/53324629?mode=own Hannah Höchner D.Phil. Candidate Development Studies University of Oxford How quranic ‘boarding’ students in Kano, Nigeria, learn to live with rejection & educational disadvantage

2. Structure of presentation: • context: global trends shaping children’s experiences • questions • the Almajirai • context • defence against outsiders’ assaults • striving to further their knowledge • conclusions http://arewaaid.wordpress.com/category/almajirai/

3. 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

4. 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?

5. theAlmajirai: • boys & youngmenfrompoorpeasanthouseholds • solecurriculum: Quran(read & write &recite) • ‘boarding‘ • beyondstatecontrol • earningtheirownlivelihood (begging, householdhelps,menialjobs, pettytrading) • ca. 10mio Almajiraiin Northern Nigeria & similarsystems in Muslim West Africa • steepdecline of respectforsystemoverpastcentury (impoverishment, westerneducation, Islamicreformism) • UPE-, childwelfare- & securityconcerns 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

6. 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’

7. living as Almajiriin contemporary urban Kano environment of societal disapproval & rejection environment viewing western & modern Islamic (Islamiyya) education positively simultaneous struggle • to defend Almajiri-system against assaults from outsiders • to subvert boundaries to acquisition of knowledge it imposes on them

8. 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 itsimportance very well. In Kano, some of them are illiterate. They only have the boko [western] studies.” (15 years)

9. striving to further their knowledge:Islamiyyaeducation • ‘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 • Islamiyyaschools: easy access to translation & explication of Quran, & other Islamic subjects! Almajirai aspire to such knowledge: • secret enrolment in Islamiyyaschool • 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.”

10. 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) • aspirationsfor formal sectorjobs • 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.

11. conclusions caveat: 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?

12. thank you for your attention! hannah.hoechner@qeh.ox.ac.uk