ABSTRACT
The introduction starts with a vignette on doing ethnographic fieldwork among women in Kankan’s main market, Dibida. It then introduces the reader to the main theme of the book, namely women’s silent modes of political articulations in Kankan. The chapter explains that institutional politics is not the sphere where women articulate themselves politically. It further elaborates on why the concept of agency as proposed by the sociologists Mustafa Emirbayer and Anne Mische is useful in understanding women’s political articulations in a Muslim Guinean city (Emirbayer and Mische 1998). Then, the chapter provides an overview on the literature on gender in Guinea. It further introduces the city of Kankan and explains the methodology on which this book is based: The data for this study was gathered during one year of ethnographic fieldwork and is premised on interviews, informal conversations, naturally occurring talk, as well as observations of and participation in everyday life. Lastly, the different chapters are introduced.
