Creating Modernities through Conversation Groups: The Everyday Worlds of Hausa Migrants in Niamey, Niger

African Studies Review, Dec 2004 by Youngstedt, Scott M

Abstract:

This article focuses on how Hausa men in Niamey, Niger, use street side hira ("conversation") groups to navigate their lives as migrants and to experience, negotiate, and create their own understandings of modernity. In Niamey, hira groups are the most important institution of public culture. More than any other aspect of Hausa social organization, hira groups bring together, in a concentrated fashion, circulating people and circulating ideas and thus offer a prime localized entry into the global reality of modernity.

Résumé: Cet article se concentre sur la manière dont les hommes Hausa de Niamey (Niger), utilisent les groupes de hira (conversation) dans les rues pour guider leurs vies en tant que migrants, mais aussi pour vivre, négocier et créer leur propre version du monde moderne. À Niamey, les groupes de hira constituent l'institution la plus importante de la culture populaire. Plus que tout autre aspect de l'organisation sociale des Hausa, les groupes de hira réunissent, de façon concentrée, des personnes et des idées en mouvance, et offrent donc une entrée localisée de premier plan dans la réalité globale du monde moderne.

THIS ARTICLE FOCUSES on how migrant Hausa men draw upon their street side him (conversation) groups in order to orient their lives, practically and symbolically, in Niamey, Niger. Counteracting the extraordinarily difficult material conditions they face in their diaspora communities, Hausa cherish the vibrant sociability, dignity, leisure, and intellectual stimulation of daily hira participation. Their appreciation of the power of language and verbal art to transform social experience is expressed in the popular proverb "magana jari ce" (speech is wealth). This article views the public culture of hira groups as a key space for creative reflection, engagement, and response to the intrusions of globalization. Drawing upon these groups is not simply a way of managing the modern; it is, in effect, one crucial way that Hausa men create their own modernities, however provisional, contested, or ambivalent. Five interrelated dynamics highlight the centrality of hira groups in their contemporary lives.

First, Hausa men use hira groups and Islamic prayer to structure their sense of time and to reflect on and adjust to other modern concepts of time. On any given day, most Hausa men in Niamey have little or no money-earning work. Their most common jobs, such as selling fruit or hot tea and coffee from small tables, lend themselves well to hira. These are men with time on their hands. Indeed, most men spend most of their waking hours in hira groups.

Second, men use hira groups to negotiate-in a practical sense-the urban and modern terrain of Niamey as well as its interconnections with other areas of Niger and the wider Hausa diaspora. The first order of business for migrants upon arrival in Niamey is to find their hometown hira group or groups: to secure or at least get informed advice about lodging and jobs; to "learn the ropes" about life in Niamey; and to integrate themselves in the communication networks linking Niamey and "home." Migrants seeking work need wide and effective social networks, especially since many jobs are temporary. For most, long-term success depends on having links to settled migrants and especially wealthy traders who are willing to establish patron-client relationships. The best way to establish and maintain effective social networks is through regular, skilled performance in several hira groups.

Third, men use hira groups to mediate the intrusions of other understandings of modernity in a space where they can retain some sense of autonomy and self-respect in the face of proliferating visions of modernity by insisting upon certain traditional values (articulate speech, leisure, and male social interaction that is appropriate within Islam) that are undervalued in Western culture. As a "traditional" institution, hira groups continue to address central Hausa concerns in the production of urban space in Niamey, most notably, the desire for a vibrant social life emphasizing engaging conversation. Through participating in dense networks of hira groups, at least one of which is frequented by friends and kin from homes, migrants are creating homes away from homes.

Fourth, men use hira groups as a safe arena of debate and definition of their own not-so-traditional modernity, from appropriating global popular culture to testing various ways of thinking about what is and is not permitted within Islam, to reflecting upon Niger's place in the global economy by discussing radio, television, and videos. Cultural debates draw from an expanding reservoir of symbolic resources: each other's increasingly varied migratory career histories; the multiculturalism of Niamey; and the proliferation of global and local mass media.

Finally, men retain hira groups actively as a space of social distinction, an arena of performance in which men of relatively modest means can nevertheless make a mark in the male Hausa social world. This pursuit of prestige, based on verbal skills, knowledge of the world, and character, is heightened in Niamey where job opportunities are limited. Simply put, for many unemployed and underemployed migrants, hira groups offer the best, and sometimes the only, realistic way to achieve distinction. Those who do not earn special distinction enjoy associating with charismatic men.