WITHIN THE TENT AND AT THE CROSSROADS - TRAVEL AND GENDER IDENTITY AMONG THE TUAREG OF NIGER

This essay examines the shaping of gender relations in travel among th e seminomadic Tuareg in the Niger Republic. Expressive forms including narrative conversation, poetry, and song articulate ambivalence towar d chancing travel practices in a society based on movement, and a fund amental preoccupation with inside, outside, and the borders that separ ate them. Men's and women's travel experiences undermine existing inst itutions, consequently enmeshing gender identity in new power relation s in other domains. These Tuareg data challenge some tendencies of tra nsnational theory to elevate the transcultural to the universal, and o ffer a perspective on the interaction between gender and forms of hege mony.