Paper short abstract:

In Niger girls' education, a cornerstone of development, is opposed by religious actors who stress its incompatibility with Muslim values. This paper explores how these actors buttress their moral positions by invoking the vulnerability of girls and constructing girls’ education as an “anti-future.”

Paper long abstract:

There has been an unprecedented push to widen girls’ access to secular education in Niger, the world’s least educated country. In narratives of “girls’ education” peddled by women’s rights activists and other actors, schooling is cast as an engine of social progress while girls are portrayed as entrepreneurial “subject in waiting,” who, if given opportunities, will overcome poverty, energize their communities, and propel their country forward. This model of social mobility is vigorously opposed by a diverse array of religious actors who stress its incompatibility with Muslim values. Not only does the model fail to grant stable livelihoods to young women, but it also puts their entire future at risk by exposing them to sexual violence, these religious actors argue. Muslim activists, preachers, and other members of civil society, who have challenged the rhetoric of female empowerment based on girls’ education, promote instead a vision of moral futures contingent on early marriage, motherhood, and conformity to Qur’anic teachings. Arguing that the failure of development and other social problems Niger is facing are ultimately moral in nature, they insist that conformity to pious norms of Muslim femininity and domesticity is what will make progress possible in Niger. Marriage—not school—is where girls must invest in the future. Through a focus on some debates unfolding around the “projectification” of mobility in Niger, this paper examines how some religious leaders buttress their moral positions by invoking specters of vulnerable girls and constructing the liberal project of girls’ education as an instance of “anti-future.”