Portrait of Muslim women in Niger as they confront the challenges and opportunities of modernity. Contrary to Western stereotypes of passive subordination, these women are taking control of their own lives and resisting domination from indigenous traditions, Westernisation, and Islam alike. Based on thorough scholarly research and extensive fieldwork Alidou's work offers insights into the meaning of modernity for Muslim women in Niger. Mixing biography with sociological data, social theory, and linguistic analysis, this is a multi-layered vision of political Islam, education, popular culture, and war and its aftermath. 264pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS.

Looks closely at the Sudan Interior Mission, an evangelical Christian mission that has taken a tenuous hold in a predominantly Hausa Muslim area on the southern fringe of Niger. Based on sustained fieldwork, personal interviews, and archival research, it gives a unique glimpse into an important dimension of religious life in Africa. Cooper's involvement in a violent religious riot provides a useful backdrop for introducing other themes and concerns such as Bible translation, medical outreach, public preaching, tensions between English-speaking and French-speaking missionaries, and the Christian mission's changing views of Islam. Index, bib, maps, 384pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Over the last twenty years circumstances have become ever more difficult for the marginal people living in rural and urban Niger. This books adopts a bottom to top viewpoint considering how best to fight poverty. Particular insights are drawn from the experience of beggars. IN FRENCH, 288pp, FRANCE. KARTHALA.

An anthropological study of female fattening in an Arab village in Niger. The author demonstrates the concepts of desire, health, kinship and the control of sexuality through ideals of female beauty. Offers new perspectives on both African ideals of body images and Western concepts of slimness. Index, bib, gloss, notes, xv, 230pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE, 0415280966

Documents Tuareg responses to medicine and healing in northern Niger's predicament of ecological disaster, economic crisis, and political tension. BNS, notes, bib, 250pp, USA. BERGIN & GARVEY, 0897897617

Explores the shifting cultural attitudes to marriage and the role of women, while governments and individuals seek to maintain control over women. B/w illus, notes, bib, index, xlix, 228pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

An in-depth examination of the interaction between French colonial development theory and practice at the Office du Niger in what was then French Soudan (Mali). Focusing on the Office du Niger's irrigation project it analyses how and why development policies emerge, persist and change. The author argues that Africans not only influenced farming and marketing practices, but also re-shaped French concepts of rural development, as well as transforming French colonial perceptions of Africans and African societies, of importance to historians of colonialism in African as well as to scholars, students and policy makers working on issues of develop-ment theory and practice. xxxviii+214pp, maps, tables, index, photos, UK and USA. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS, 0852556497

Why do young men use mirrors and make-up more than girls? Why do the Wodaabe nomads of West Africa have beauty parades for men? Wodaabe's extraordinary and unique live performances are often misunderstood by outsiders. The book provides some answers about these aesthetic activities. One answer is courtship and "wife-stealing ceremonies" involving enemy clans, another is ethnic identity. Beauty and existence are linked. Wodaabe dances and visual arts are not "exotic" but are arenas for social action and identity politics in the largely agricultural society of the arid regions of Niger, Nigeria and Chad. Colour photos, 128pp, SWEDEN. NORDIC AFRICA INSTITUTE, 9171064672

The author explains how the spread of Islam has provoked irreversible change in Niger and how prayer has become synonymous with the loss of tradition. She reveals how possession nonetheless remains embedded in Mawri culture, representing more than simple resistance to Islam, patriarchy, or the state. 25 b/w photos, 2 maps, 352pp, USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 0822326396

This study shows how difficult it is for Niger to significantly change its expenditure composition in a short time span. A narrow and volatile domestic resource base, heavy dependence on aid, and a large share of pre-determined expenditures such as external debt payments are important factors behind this lack of flexibility. 146pp, USA. WORLD BANK PUBLICATIONS. DELAY.

Comprehensive study of this oppression institution in Niger. Bib, apps, map, charts, 123pp, UK. ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL.

Decolonisation and change in Niger - independence and the transformations it brought. 292pp, BNS, in French, FRANCE. L'HARMATTAN, 2738495052