Women and the Imageries of the State in Guinea

Abstract

This PhD project is part of the research project entitled The Work of State Imageries: How Imageries of Governance and the State Constitute Everyday Practice in Conflict Affected West Africa. Its aim is to understand how imageries of governance and the state are negotiated and how they influence everyday practices of the local population in conflict affected West Africa. This project examines the relationship between the state and women in Guinea. Anything regarding the state or statehood is in many cases implicitly masculine. Agency of African women is often not recognized because they do not become as visible as men in the public sphere. In Guinea, women have been affected in particular by the long-lasting economic and political crisis since the 1980s.

The project’s focus is on the following main questions:

• What imageries of governance and the state do women have? 
• How do these imageries influence everyday practice of the female population in times of political unrest and transformation? 
• How do women negotiate their relationship with the state? 
• What impact does transition have on gender relations?

State and governance are experienced more directly in urban centres. This project thus looks at the interaction of women and the state in the understudied urban and peri-urban area of Kankan. This third largest town in Guinea, situated in the Haute Guinée region, is known as a chief trading and communication centre. In recent years Guinea has experienced a time of transition – after fifty years of military rule. The proposed research looks at the influence of insecurity on the every day life of women in times of political unrest and transformation. Empirical enquiry is based on the Emic Evaluation Approach, a triangulation of a mapping of actors, discourse analysis and practice analysis. The findings are brought together in a series of internal workshops and then presented at international conferences.

Keywords
Guinea, Haute Guinée, West Africa
State, Statehood, Transition, Insecurity, Political Participation, Everyday Life, Gender

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Till Förster

Short CV

• PhD student, Social Anthropology, University of Basel, Switzerland, since April 2011
• MA in African Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland, 2010, BA in History and Political Science, University of Berne, Switzerland, 2008
• Student Assistant at the Institute of History, University of Basel, 2010
• Field research practice and internship in Cotonou, Benin, 2010
• Participation in the organisation of the District Six Museum exhibition Fields of Play, Football in Cape Town on memory and forced removal, 2009 - 2010