Women in African Colonial Histories [Paperback]

How did African women negotiate the complex political, economic, and social forces of colonialism in their daily lives? How did they make meaningful lives for themselves in a world that challenged fundamental notions of work, sexuality, marriage, motherhood, and family? By considering the lives of ordinary African womenfarmers, queen mothers, midwives, urban dwellers, migrants, and political leadersin the context of particular colonial conditions at specific places and times, Women in African Colonial Histories challenges the notion of a homogeneous African womens experience. While recognizing the inherent violence and brutality of the colonial encounter, the essays in this lively volume show that African women were not simply the hapless victims of European political rule. Innovative use of primary sources, including life histories, oral narratives, court cases, newspapers, colonial archives, and physical evidence, attests that African womens experiences defy static representation. Readers at all levels will find this an important contribution to ongoing debates in African womens history and African colonial history.

This is an interesting and revealing exploration of an important population that has long been neglected. All levels and collections.December 2002Readers of this volume will find a number of real gemes in each section. . . . Instructors can not only expose their students to the latest researchbut also provide a primary source that the students can use to hone their own reading and analytical skills.

Preliminary Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction Jean Allman, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi

Part 1. Encounters and Engagements
1. What My Heart Wanted : Gendered Stories of Early Colonial Encounters in Southern Mozambique Heidi Gengenbach
2. Dynastic Daughters: Three Royal Kwena Women and E. L. Price of the London Missionary Society, 1853-1881 Wendy Urban-Mead
3. Colonial Midwives and Modernizing Childl4