This documentary presents women of Niger and the range of activities in which they engage to make a living. The video's title evokes Niger's geographical location, namely the Sahel region of West Africa. Niger's economy is based on herding, agriculture, and mining. The industrial sector is extremely small and people in salaried employment counted only about 150,000 out of a population of eight million when the film was made in 1995. As a result, women -- as well as men -- look to the so-called "informal sector" to generate cash. In the course of the film, its directors take the viewer on a journey across Niger, demonstrating the vital roles women play in supporting themselves and their families. They do not dwell on the fact that most, if not all, of the women presented are Muslims, but it is noteworthy in light of the popular images of Islam in the United States. The women in the video provide a good counterpoint to prevailing stereotypes.

The journey begins in Gaya, a town on the banks of the Niger river close to the border with Benin and Nigeria. The narrator introduces "Mamou", who heads a busy household while her husband works as a truck driver. The filmmakers show how she takes advantage of available opportunities. In a peanut-producing area, but with no field of her own, she buys groundnuts in the market and turns them into oil and snacks; she purchases fish and fries them for sale; and she occasionally travels to Benin to buy goods for resale locally.

For enjoyment, Mamou still participates in rehearsals of the local dance troupe, although she has stopped going on tour with it as a singer. The narrator's explanations in English language voice-over are interspersed with Mamou's own commentary on what she is doing. Her words, spoken in Hausa, appear as subtitles in English. In like manner, the viewer encounters women in other parts of the country who extract and process salt from the soil; dig up gypsum and transform it into plaster; weave brightly-colored mats, or make pottery to sell to traders or leather products to sell at the local craft center.

The emphasis throughout is on women's activities, but ethnicity also is highlighted in the last segment dealing with Tuareg women. The comparison that is drawn here between "Tuareg women [that] are not exhausted by hard physical work ... [and] other women in the Sahel" implicitly resurrects colonial distinctions between the "noble" nomads and sedentary folk dulled by hard labor. It also ties labor to ethnicity rather than to class or social hierarchy. The statement that "[for Tuareg women] there is a great freedom of expression [in] celebrating births and marriages" reinforces this impression and glosses over the fact that women of nearly all ethnic backgrounds also celebrate life cycle events through dance and other forms of artistic expression.

Placed in the context of Women's Studies, the video uses a "women's roles" approach to the subject matter. This means that women's activities are presented and their contributions highlighted with no more than passing reference to gender relations and the wider political economy of which they are a part. Cooperatives are mentioned in several instances but their benefits and problems, the impetus behind their creation, or their relationships to local household and community structures are never seriously discussed. In spite of these criticisms, the video is suitable for use in a range of classrooms (e.g. women's studies, introduction to Africa, economic anthropology) at the secondary school and college levels and is a welcome addition to the available audiovisual resources on the subregion.

Instructors and students interested in complimentary readings may wish to consult: Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger, 1900-1989 by Barbara Cooper (1997); The Poetics and Politics of Tuareg Aging: Life Course and Personal Destiny in Niger by Susan J. Rasmussen (1997); Historical Dictionary of Niger by Samuel Decalo (1997).

Maria Grosz-Ngate
Center for African Studies
University of Florida