Crafting Future Memories

Reflections on a Female Carpentry Training Project in Lagos

Abstract

M
yths of gendered labour and specifically the masculinisation of certain forms of artisanship are both
steeped in Victorian colonial ideals of female respectability that serve to exclude unemployed, educated
women from market relevant, lucrative jobs in carpentry trades, in the city of Lagos, West Africa. These
hist orically situated dynamics of social exclusion expose an increasing number of educated women to
poverty in one of Africa's primary economic hubs. Utilising the linguistic devices of rich descriptions
and first person accounts in this reflective paper, and drawing data from culturally grounded
ethnographic research on a female carpentry training project in the city, I examine how the communities
which emerged from the project negotiate socio economic, familial, and historical constraints in an
effort to buil d new, inclusive training pathways and craft alternative future narratives of gendered labour
practices in Lagos.
Keywords