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"Niger"
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Feeding Desire
While the Western world adheres to a beauty ideal that says women can never be too thin, the semi-nomadic Moors of the Sahara desert have for centuries cherished a feminine ideal of extreme fatness. Voluptuous immobility is thought to beautify girls' bodies, hasten the onset of puberty, heighten their sexuality and ripen them for marriage. From the time of the loss of their first milk teeth, girls are directed to eat huge bowls of milk and porridge in one of the world's few examples of active female fattening. Based on fieldwork in an Arab village in Niger, Feeding Desire analyses the meanings of women's fatness as constituted by desire, kinship, concepts of health, Islam, and the crucial social need to manage sexuality. By demonstrating how a particular beauty ideal can only be understood within wider social structures and cultural logics, the book also implicitly provides a new way of thinking about the ideal of slimness in late Western capitalism. Offering a reminder that an estimated eighty per cent of the world's societies prefer plump women, this gracefully written book is both a fascinating exploration of the nature of bodily ideals and a highly readable ethnography of a Saharan people.
eBook
Women and Islamic revival in a West African town
In the small town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recruited by local Muslim leaders to denounce the practices of reformist Muslims. Malam Awal's message has been viewed as a mixed blessing by Muslim women who have seen new definitions of Islam and Muslim practice impact their place and role in society. This study follows the career of Malam Awal and documents the engagement of women in the religious debates that are refashioning their everyday lives. Adeline Masquelier reveals how these women have had to define Islam on their own terms, especially as a practice that governs education, participation in prayer, domestic activities, wedding customs, and who wears the veil and how. Masquelier's richly detailed narrative presents new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Africa today.
eBook
A Decade of Niger
This volume provides an overview of political and socioeconomic developments in Niger during the last ten years. Besides demonstrating the structural continuities in the politics of Niger, its society and economy, it goes into some of the fundamental changes that the country experienced in this period. Thus, it discusses the end of the Mamadou Tandja era, the beginning of oil production, the new Islamist insurgencies and the threat to Niger's security, the chronic difficulties in food production and the growth of authoritarianism in Mahamadou Issoufou's government.
eBook
The Yearning for Relief
In The Yearning for Relief Klaas van Walraven traces the history of the Sawaba movement in Niger and its rebellion against the French-protected regime during the 1960s. The book analyses its guerrilla campaign and failure, followed by the movement's destruction.
eBook
Adaptability assessment of Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus terreus isolated from long-term municipal/industrial effluent-irrigated soils to cadmium stress
Heavy metals (HMs) contamination is a major issue produced by industrial and mining processes, among other human activities. The capacity of fungi to eliminate HMs from the environment has drawn attention. However, the main process by which fungi protect the environment against the damaging effects of these HMs, such as cadmium (Cd), is still unknown. In this study, some fungi were isolated from HMs-polluted soil. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and the tolerance indices of the tested isolates against Cd were evaluated. Moreover, molecular identification of the most tolerant fungal isolates (
Aspergillus niger
and
A. terreus
) was done and deposited in the GenBank NCBI database. The results showed that the colony diameter of
A. niger
and
A. terreus
was decreased gradually by the increase of Cd concentration. Also, all the tested parameters were influenced by Cd concentration. Lipid peroxidation (MDA content) was progressively increased by 12.95–105.95% (
A. niger
) and 17.27–85.38% (
A. terreus
), respectively, from 50 to 200 mg/L. PPO, APX, and POD enzymes were elevated in the presence of Cd, thus illustrating the appearance of an oxidative stress action. Compared to the non-stressed
A. niger
, the POD and PPO activities were enhanced by 92.00 and 104.24% at 200 mg/L Cd. Also, APX activity was increased by 58.12% at 200 mg/L. Removal efficiency and microbial accumulation capacities of
A. niger
and
A. terreus
have also been assessed. Production of succinic and malic acids by
A. niger
and
A. terreus
was increased in response to 200 mg/L Cd, in contrast to their controls (Cd-free), as revealed by HPLC analysis. These findings helped us to suggest
A. niger
and
A. terreus
as the potential mycoremediation microbes that alleviate Cd contamination. We can learn more about these fungal isolates’ resistance mechanisms against different HMs through further studies.
Journal Article