Market associations and the political economy of exclusion: A gender analysis of two markets in Plateau State, 1976–2022

The study analyses the contributions and challenges women face in the Jos Plateau marketplaces. Since the colonial period, indigenous women traders have contributed to market activities. Despite the long history of women in this space, gender power dynamics remain prominent. Women generally occupy the lower level of the market chain of command, mostly as petty traders, and they are excluded from positions of market administration and middlemanship. Drawing on feminist scholarship, and based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, the study focuses on two markets in Plateau State – Mangu and Mai katako – both major markets in maize, vegetable, and potato. The study reconstructs the intricate ways in which market associations have been converted into exclusive ‘men’s clubs’, and how the traders’ associations have perpetuated gender inequality.