<i>Yawon Dandi</i>: a Hausa category of migration

Introduction Spatial mobility is one of the most striking characteristics of Hausa history and society. The Hausa provide us with an opportunity for exploring a number of emic categories of spatial mobility, including migration, and the cultural content and values which they attach to these categories. As Spradley has recently suggested, in order to achieve an integration of the anthropological study of migration, we need ‘systematic ethnography which seeks to describe the emics of spatial mobility and … discussion of native categories for spatial movement (as well as) a systematic attempt to discover their definitions of migration’ (Spradley 1973 : 546). To achieve a cultural analysis of a category of migration in this spirit, this paper will concentrate on what the Hausa call yawon Dandi , ‘the walk of Dandi’ , yawon duniya , ‘the walk of the world’, or yawon bariki , ‘the walk to the barracks’, terms used interchangeably by my informants. This category most typically comes into play when a migrant seeks liberation from social constraints, and it has played a significant part in the formation of the Hausa diaspora.