This book is a study of the social and economic opportunities open to and seized upon by Muslim Hausa women, primarily in the city of Katsina, Nigeria, over the course of the past three decades. In the context of multiple political regimes, the turmoil of the Nigerian economy, and major ideological shifts, women have sought to optimize their resources and situations. Women and Work in Northern Nigeria takes as a primary theme, women's ability to recognize and to cross the physical, spatial, and discursive boundaries which ostensibly service to define and confine them.