Jacquemin, Mélanie, L’harmattan, 2012.

This French-language book gives a detailed and comprehensive sociological account of the historic, economic and social dynamics of girls’ domestic work in Ivory Coast’s major cities. Her findings are also relevant for other West African urban settings. Mélanie Jacquemin details three types of domestic oral ‘contractual’ agreements between the domestic girls she studied with, the informal ‘placement agencies for domestic workers’ and their ‘patronnes’ (female bosses) as well as the girl’s living conditions. She bases her work on extensive ethnographic field research.

Hoechner, Hannah, Cambridge University Press, 2018.

And: Hoechner, Hannah (2015). Participatory filmmaking with Qur’anic students in Kano, Nigeria: ‘speak good about us or keep quiet!’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18:6, 635-649.

Through extensive ethnographic field research in northern Nigeria, Hannah Hoechner shows in her English-language book how young male Qur’anic students – the so-called ‘almajirai’ – mitigate social exclusion through discourses on their religion and faith. She gives meticulous insights into these boys’ perception of themselves and their daily lives. They are sometimes viewed as working children, sometimes as Qur’anic students and navigate between those two sets of perceptions to find a better life. In her article, she reflects on a movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-SdeFX5rfI) she filmed with these Qur’anic students using a participatory approach in which the almajirai were able to state their own understanding of the places they occupy in Nigerian society.

Aduayi-Diop, Rosalie, Dakar, AfriMAP, 2010.

In her French-language book, Rosalie Diop gives a qualitative sociological account of the daily lives of Senegalese adolescent girls working in three so-called ‘informal’ markets in Dakar, Senegal. She details their ways of earning a semi-stable income, of saving some money for their commercial activities in small female-only tontines (called ‘tours’), and their struggles to find a reliable place to sell their products. She also shows the impact of adolescents’ ethnicities on their workplace activities and gives a nuanced analysis of their representations of prostitution in the context of the markets.

Viti, Fabio, Paris, Karthala (2013)

In this French-language book, Fabio Viti makes a sociological comparative study of what working means in three West African countries: Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Togo. His research on vocational training in the ‘informal’ economy gives a precise analysis of the intergenerational social and familial dynamics at play in the daily lives of working children – boys and girls – on their workplace. He explains how children are hired and why their work is considered a form of repayment for what they learn from their trainers. In these specific conditions, he shows how the children manage to earn money for themselves and to contribute to their family’s income.

Wouango, Joséphine, Cahiers de la recherche sur l’éducation et les savoirs, 10 | 2011.

This French-language article is based on qualitative sociological field research conducted by Joséphine Wouango in Burkina Faso. She shows how the reasons for children to choose to work in granite quarries – a type of work considered dangerous by the ILO – put the debate for a ‘right for children to work’ under a new light. She details the children and their families’ choice to go work in the quarries.

Thorsen, Dorte , International Development Planning Review, 35:2, 203-218, 2013.

This English-language article is based on ethnographical data on young rural-urban migrants in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Abidjan, Ivory Coast. It shows the central role of their network of kin in shaping their opportunities in the urban economies. With their family’s agreement both in rural and urban settings, they are freed from having to contribute to the familial income. This relative freedom is contrasted by the necessity they have to support themselves without the help of their family. They alternate between employment and self-employment in order to reach their goals.

Mabillard, Nicolas, Les enfants travailleurs/euses du Sénégal : entre droit international et conceptions locales de l'enfance. Université de Genève. Doctoral thesis.

In my French-language doctoral thesis in sociology I connect mundane forms of children’s work – vocational training, street selling on and around marketplaces and domestic work – to prominent conceptions of justice related to work ethics and childhood in Dakar and Saint-Louis, Senegal. I also analyse how working children negotiate with local NGOs their active participation to support or advocacy programmes in order to contribute to their everyday needs. My thesis is based on one year of extensive ethnographic field research. To request a copy of the thesis, please contact me directly at nicolas.mabillard [at] unige.ch.