Issues of gender, marriage and family are at the heart of the main cultural wars of our time and have led to a number of legal and societal reforms in many African countries. These reforms, generally initiated by the state and dictated by the neoliberal model of human rights, often have to come to terms with local resistance, mainly from religious circles. What is the modus operandi of these reforms? What are the power relationships that structure them? How are they perceived and received by African societies? What are the terms of religious resistance? These questions are at the heart of this volume which examines the margins of docility and indocility of African societies to legal reforms aimed at promoting the neoliberal model of sexuality, marriage and the family. Emphasis is placed on the centrality of the state and the power struggle with other stakeholders in the deconstruction and reconstruction of gender relations. Few empirical studies have illustrated the issue of power struggles surrounding the social production of gender norms. This book is the outcome of an international conference organized at the Institute of Dignity and Human Rights of the Center for Research and Action for Peace (CERAP) in Abidjan, in June 2017, on the following theme: ''State, Religions and Gender in West and Central Africa''. The main objective of the conference was not only to highlight the results of a research project on the reception of the recent modification of the family code in Côte d’Ivoire but also to broaden the discussion to similar case studies in other countries of West and Central Africa such as Senegal, Niger, Benin, Cameroon and Mali.
