Mobility as a contradictory resource: peripatetic Qur'anic students in Kano, Nigeria

Abstract

Mobility is a powerful resource young people can draw on to improve their lives, but it can also entail risks. This paper explores how mobility becomes a contradictory resource for peripatetic Qur'anic students (almajirai) in Kano State in northern Nigeria. Moving to urban areas allows the young almajirai to escape difficult conditions and to access educational and income opportunities absent in their rural homes. It makes it possible for them to adopt self-conceptions as migrants in search of sacred knowledge who were once widely respected. However, economic decline has made survival in the city more difficult. Lacking the economic and cultural resources to participate in displays of status, and without social superiors to speak for them, the almajirai feel they have become fair game for those searching for scapegoats.

Keywords:

• Qur'anic education
• madrasa
• almajirai
• Nigeria
• mobility
• education

Acknowledgements

I thank the people in Kano and Albasu for hosting me and for sharing their lives so generously with me. I am grateful to my supervisors Dr Laura Camfield and Dr Abdul Raufu Mustapha for their guidance and support. Financial support from the German Academic Exchange Foundation (DAAD – Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), the Green Templeton College travel fund, the QEH travel fund, and the Gurdev Kaur Bhagrath Memorial Research Fund is gratefully acknowledged. I also thank the reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. Living in relative poverty is defined as living on 2/3 or less of mean per capita expenditure.

2. Qur'anic/Islamiyya schools are of course available also in rural areas. For the reasoning that makes enrolment away from home appear more appropriate, see Section 3.2.

3. I changed the names of informants where I felt it necessary to protect their identity. Where informants were comfortable with statements being publicised in their name and where I considered this safe for them, I left names unchanged.