Hausa Hand-Embroidery and Local Development Projects in Northern Nigeria

 

by

Elisha P. Renne

 

The Hausa people of Northern Nigeria have long been known for their production of voluminous robes, hand-embroidered in a range of embroidery stitches, materials (mainly cotton and silk), styles, and designs.  Until recently, the embroidery of these robes was done by men.  In the past twenty years, however, women have begun to take up this work, although they generally sell their robes through their male relations or brokers.  In the 1990s, several government programs allowed women to borrow money to expand their small-scale businesses, including the hand-embroidery of robes.  This paper examines two such government programs and their consequences for women embroiderers as well as one non-government project organized by the author to produce hand-embroidered items for the U.S. market.  The problems of these craft-production projects as sources of income for these women reflect some of the larger problems associated with micro-credit schemes and with artisan enterprises for economic development more generally.  For example, the small amounts of loans given to individual women did not allow poorer women to expand their hand-embroidery businesses to any great extent.  Furthermore, projects which do not challenge the existing bases of gender-linked occupations—e.g., low-paying handwork associated with women—may hamper women’s economic autonomy.    Some women, however, have managed to expand their hand-embroidery businesses, relying on personal loans for their initial investments.  Interviews with five such women suggest that cooperatives and government loans do not necessarily enhance Hausa women’s hand-embroidery businesses, although a regular system for marketing their products would.

 

Elisha P. Renne is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, having received a Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University.  She has conducted research on textiles in several parts of Nigeria, including the Niger delta area (Kalabari Ijo), Southwestern Nigeria (Bunu and Ekiti Yoruba), and Northern Nigeria (Hausa).  Her work focuses on the ways that textile traditions in Nigeria are selectively preserved and altered.  Her publications include Cloth That Does Not Die: The Meaning of Cloth in Bunu Social Life, articles in African Arts, RES, Economic Development and Cultural Change, and chapters in Dress and Ethnicity, Undressing Religion, Clothing and Difference, and Cloth is the Center of the World.