ABSTRACT
This chapter relies on ethnographic case studies to explore how entrepreneurship opportunities for women pilgrims from Guinea (West Africa) allow a local economy of beauty to emerge, operating particularly around weddings and Islamic religious observations. Newly returned Hajja’s become important brokers of style by sharing knowledge of Islamic fashion and respectability in their home communities, allowing a previously impossible marketing reach to larger audiences. By importing religiously appropriate couture, Hajja’s enhance their social and economic positions. Their work also reveals emerging patterns of consumption, reconfigured notions of gendered respectability and piety, and transformed family dynamics. Kin relations continue to play a significant role in access to capital and business connections as wives and daughters position themselves within a lucrative global political economy. Through three case studies of Guinean pilgrim’s business ownership and social networks, especially those achieved through pilgrimage, this chapter elaborates on how female economic successes are locally contingent on the cumulative cultural effects at the intersection of religion, gender, and age.
