consumption, prostitution, and reproduction: the poetics of sweetness in bori
American Ethnologist November 1, 1995 DOI: 10.1525/ae.1995.22.4.02a00120 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Hausaphone Mawri of Niger |
| Citations | 16 |
| Key points | Argues that the semantics of sweetness among the Hausaphone Mawri unify prostitution, spirit possession, and obstetrics into a shared idiom for interpreting social change, and that this idiom expresses the temptations of consumer culture and the dangers of uncontrolled consumption in contemporary Niger. |
Abstract
In this article I explore the semantics of sweetness among the Hausaphone Mawri of Niger. I show how the various configurations of sweetness meaningfully unify the contexts of prostitution, spirit possession, and obstetrics for some Mawri struggling to make sense of changing social realities. These interrelated experiences of production and reproduction in turn provide an idiom for expressing concretely the temptations of consumer culture and the dangers of uncontrolled consumption in contemporary Niger.