Exile, Humanitarian Governmentality, and Gender Relations Among the ‘Black Kel Tamasheq’ from Mali in Niger

Abstract This article discusses the ways in which forceful migration and humanitarian regulations in exile, have prompted redefinitions of gender roles and relations in Bellah families in the refugee camp of Abala, Niger. These include transformations in relations between the Bellah and their former masters, relations between Bellah men and women, and intergenerational relations between Bellah elders and children. The article proposes to view this development as a new sequence in the reformulations of the Bellah ’s family structures, relations, and household economy that began under colonial rule. By probing these complex processes of changes in Bellah family relations, this article places, simultaneously, the empirical focus of a study of gender relations on men and women and elders and youth. It departs from and supplements accounts in gender studies that focus either only on women or men, or else on intergenerational tensions among elderly men and youth. The analysis draws its influence from studies that conceive of gender as the very process of structuring subjectivities and social positionalities through the performances of certain roles.