Courtyards, Markets, City Streets: Urban Women in Africa

Abstract

This book offers a comprehensive collection of in depth case studies focused on the lives of women who make their livelihoods on the streets of urban and semi-urban Africa. Classified into broader themes of migration and urbanization, marriage and family, markets and livelihoods, and politics and community, the book covers an extensive range of both history and geography. Some sections offer an overview of gender transitions throughout various movements for independence, while others offer intellectual discussion over controversial and difficult issues such as polygyny and AIDS. The latter part of the book focuses on women's formal and informal social networks. This includes research through comparing the livelihood strategies employed by women in the market place in relation to their social, physical, and human capital as well as a discussion of the solidarity formed through women's networks in various political movements in more recent experience.