Ayesha Mje-Tei Imam

Biographical Information

Ayesha Imam is a theorist, teacher, and activist in Nigeria. For the past ten years, Imam has been a trainer in gender awareness at many international symposia and workshops. She received her B.S. in Sociology at the Polytechnic of North London (UK) in 1980, her M.S. in Sociology at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria (Nigeria) in 1987, and her D.Phil. in Social Anthropology at the School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex at Brighton (UK). From 1980-1993, she was a lecturer in the Sociology Department at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria.

Since 1992, Imam has been the Co-ordinator of the International Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws in Region West (Africa and Middle East). As part of coordinating group, she has developed programmes and comparative frameworks for the Women and Law Programme, i.e. action-research on women and laws in 26 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As regional coordinator, respond to the training needs of action-research groups in 13 countries in Africa and the Middle East. This includes training in proposal writing, project planning and implementation, research methods, data analysis, group conflict-resolution, gener-awareness, assertiveness training, and outreach, as well as evaluations. Some of these training programmes include: multi-country training workshop on women, status and laws in Dakar in May 1995; national training workshop in Zaria, Nigeria in March 1996, a joint gender sensitivity training wokshop for the Nigeria and Sudan country teams in Zaria in June 1996, and a workshop on gender sensitivity in field research on women and laws in Kati, Mali. Also responsible for information sharing, database building, networking, solidarity action and organising campaigns throughout Africa and the Middle East.

In 1985, Imam was an advisor for the Strengthening Gender in Development Capacity in Africa Project, United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Dakar, Senegal. She was responsible for developing programme to ensure that all training courses in planning and economic development take account of gender issues. Also for organising and facilitating training in gender sensitivity and gender analysis for trainers of planners and policy-makers, and for their trainees.

In 1984, Imam was the Course Director for the First Gender Institute, Council for the Development of Social Science in Africa (CODESRIA), Dakar, Senegal. She developed, organised, facilitated and taught intensive two-month post-graduate courses on gender analysis and methodologies to young African social scientists.

Summary of Major Themes

Ayesha Imam's publications revolve around the issue of rights for women under Muslim law in (mainly) Northern Nigeria.

Bibliography

EDITED BOOKS

Engendering African Social Sciences. (Co-edited with Amina Mama and Fatou Sow) Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 1997. (also forthcoming in French as Engen(d)rer les science sociales africaines)

Gender Revisited -- Second Special Issue of Africa Development, Vol XXII No. 1 (co-edited with Tade Aina), 1997.

Gender Revisited -- Special Issue of Africa Development, Vol. XX No. 4 (Guest Editor), 1995.

Women and the Mass Media in Africa AAWORD Occasional Paper Series No.6. Dakar: AAWORD, 1992 (Convenor of Editorial Committee, with Mounira Chelli and Soha Abdel Kader)

Women and the Family in Nigeria. Dakar: CODESRIA, 1985 (Convenor of Women in Nigeria Editorial Committee, with R. Pittin and H. Omole)

The WIN Document: The Conditions of Women in Nigeria, and Policy Recommendations to 2,000 AD. Zaria: WIN, 1985 (Convenor of Women in Nigeria Editorial Committee)

Women in Nigeria Today. London: Zed Books, 1985 (Convenor of WIN Editorial Committee)

Green Revolution in Nigeria? Zaria: IAR/ABU, 1984 (Co-edited with G. O. I. Abalu and Y. Abdullahi)

ARTICLES

"Engendering African Social Sciences: An Introductory Essay." in Engendering African Social Sciences. Ed. Ayesha M Imam, Fatou Sow and Amina Mama. (Dakar, Senegal : CODESRIA, 1997), pp. 1-30.

"The Muslim Religious Right (Fundamentalists) and Sexuality Women Living Under Muslim Laws." Dossier 17 (1997): 7-25. (abridged and re-printed in Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights Newsletter 60 (1997).)

"ìI wan bi President...î: Gender Politics and Discourses of Democracy in Nigeria," in Transitions in Africa: Expanding Political Space. Ed. Pearl Robinson, Catherine Newbery and Mamadou Diouf. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

"The Dynamics of WINning: An Analysis of Women in Nigeria (WIN)," in Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. Ed. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Mohanty. (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 280-307.

"Introduction to Islam, Islamisation and Women in Africa," in Women & Islam in Africa Series No.1. (Grabels, France: WLUML Research Information and Documentation Unit, 1994). pp. 3-5.

"The Role of Academics in the Restriction of Academic Freedom in Africa," (Co-authored with Amina Mama) in Academic Freedom in Africa. Ed. Mahmood Mamdani and Mamadou Diouf. (Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 1994), pp. 73-107.

"SAP is Really Sapping Us, Squeezing the South." New Internationalist 257 (July 1994): 12-13

"Politics, Islam and Women in Kano, Northern Nigeria," in Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective. Ed. Valentine Moghadam. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 123-144.

"Women in Nigeria, Kaduna State Branch: Position Paper on Nigeria's Political Future," in Women in the Transition to Democracy in Nigerian Politics. (Kano: WIN, 1993), pp. 45-53.

"Women, Ideology and Mass Media in Kano State, Nigeria," in Women and the Mass Media in Africa. Ed. Ayesha M Imam, Mounira Chelli and Soha Abdel Kader. (Dakar: AAWORD Occasional Paper Series No.6 , 1992), pp. 39-104

"Women's Access to Education: Issues of Development and Equality," (Co-authored with Hauwa Mahdi and Hannatu Omole) in Women and Education: Proceedings of the Third Women in Nigeria Conference. (Zaria: WIN, 1992), pp. 155-161.

"Women and Fundamentalism, Women Living Under Muslim Laws." Dossier 11/12/13 (1991): 13-15.

"The Development of Women's Seclusion in Hausaland, Northern Nigeria: Women Living Under Muslim Laws." Dossier 9/10 (1991): 4-18.

"Ideology, the Mass Media and Women: A Case-study from Radio Nigeria, Kaduna," in Hausa Women in the Twentieth Century. Ed. C. Coles and B. Mack. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), pp. 244-52.

"Democratic Processes in Africa: Problems and Prospects." (Co-authored with Jibrin Ibrahim) Codesria Bulletin No. 2 (1991). (Reprinted in Review of African Political Economy 54 (1992): 102-105; and in Development - Journal of SID 3 (1992): 17-19.)

"Gender Analysis and African Social Sciences in the 1990s." Africa Development XV (1990): 241-57

"The Presentation of African Women in Historical Writing," in Retrieving Women's History: Changing Perspectives of the Role of Women in Politics and Society. Ed. S. Jay Kleinberg. (Oxford/Paris: Berg/UNESCO, 1988), pp. 30-40

"The Place of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal in the Third Republic." Nigerian Journal of Policy and Strategy 2 (1987): 71-75

"Ideological Manipulation, Political Repression and African Women." AAWORD in Nairobi '85 -- AAWORD Occasional Paper Series 3 (1986):18-22.

"Reflections on Forum '85." AAWORD in Nairobi '85 -- AAWORD Occasional Paper Series 3 (1986): 54-57.

"Women's Liberation: Myth or Reality," in Women, Struggles and Strategies: Third World Perspectives (Rome: ISIS, 1986): 68-73.

"Planning Women's Projects: An Experience from Kaduna State, Nigeria." Women and Rural Development in Africa -- AAWORD Occasional Paper Series 2 (1986): 116-124.

"Women and the Family: What is to be Done?," in Women and the Family in Nigeria. (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1985), pp.254-265.

"Toward an Adequate Analysis of the Position of Women in Nigeria," in Women in Nigeria Today. (London: Zed Books, 1985), pp.13-15.

"Women and Work in the Rural Areas (Co-authored with N. D. Ngur-Adi, Y. Laniran and G. Makeri), in The WIN Document: The Conditions of Women in Nigeria, and Policy Recommendations to 2,000 AD. (Zaria: WIN, 1985), pp.8-41

Take a Closer Look ...

Ayesha Imam's research projects cover a wide range of topics, including:

1997 -- Research on Muslim Discourses of Sexuality, (Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics Project ìGood Sex: Womenís Religious Wisdom on Sexuality - on-going)

1994 -- Co-ordinating 13 country research on religious, customary and statutory laws affecting women as family members, citizens, and as individuals - consideringboth contemporary practices and their historical constructions (WLUML Women and Law Programme - on-going).

1988-90 -- Research on the seclusion of Muslim women in Nigeria. Funded by Ford Foundation grant and presented for doctoral degree as: 'If You Won't Do These Things For Me, I Won't Do Seclusion For You': Local and Regional Constructions of Seclusion Ideologies and Practices in Kano, Northern Nigeria. (Social Anthropology, University of Sussex at Brighton)

1985-86 -- Research on the ideological representation of gender in radio and television in northern Nigeria. Presented for M.Sc degree as Gender Ideology in the Mass Media in Kano. (Ahmadu Bello University)

1986 -- Research on gender relations and social reproduction in rural northern Nigeria. Reported as Social Reproduction and the Gender System: A Consideration of the Rural Muslim Hausa in Northern Nigeria. (Third World Forum, United Nations University, African Regional Perspectives, Dakar)

1983-84 -- (With R. I. Pittin) Evaluation of women's projects in northern Nigeria. Reported as The Identification and Evaluation of Successful Women's Projects - Kaduna State, Nigeria. (International Labour Organisation, Rural Employment Division, Geneva)

1979 -- Research on racism in the print media in Britain. Presented for B.Sc. degree as An Analysis of the Structure of Racist Ideology in the Media. (Polytechnic of North London)

1979 -- Analytical research on ideologies in Nigerian novels. Reported as Notes Toward the Analysis of Nigerian Literary (Novel) Production. (Polytechnic of North London)

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