Resting at creation and afterlife: Distant times in the ordinary strategies of Muslim women in the rural Fouta Djallon, Guinea

Although anthropologists have discredited use of the liberal and secular concept of “agency” for explaining Muslim women's behavior, their evidence comes from women who still appear rather agentive to Western readers, hence, muting the necessity and consequences of discovering and applying the women's own ethical and religious terms in their analysis. In Guinea's rural Fouta Djallon, women are not prone to mobilize and make self‐interested decisions with immediately observable outcomes. Therefore, understanding them on their own terms requires greater attention to their religious frameworks, namely, to their use of visions of creation and afterlife to define themselves and strategize for redemption.