One Foot in Heaven Narratives on Gender and Islam in Darfur, West-Sudan

"One Foot in Heaven" conflates two main perspectives on women propagated by the Islamist government of Sudan since its inception in 1989: as mothers and wives within the walls of their compounds. Central are the biographic narratives of two working women in Kebkabiya, a town in Darfur, each belonging to a different class: low-class market women and highly esteemed female teachers. Based on anthropological research(1990-1995) the author analyses the narratives as part of the multi-layered context in which these were performed - and of which the author also formed part. She shows how these women constructed identities while negotiating the Islamist moral discourse on gender in a period of ethnic conflict, religious transformation and the waging of the first Gulf-war.