Diaspora, gender, and identity

This dissertation is the first major study to address the history of Hausa diasporic communities in the Cameroon Grassfields. Both a social and legal history of this largely Muslim population, it focuses on the ways in which geographic dispersal and complex hierarchies of gender, religion, ethnicity, and race have shaped people's capacity to define themselves and their communities as Hausa. Grounded in rich material from Islamic court cases and oral interviews, as well as research conducted in colonial, missionary, and government archives in Cameroon, Britain, Switzerland, and France, this dissertation illustrates the myriad ways people of diverse social statuses and cultural backgrounds established, challenged, and exploited various forms of power and authority in order to exert anew their understanding of Hausa identity in the diaspora.