Sexuality and Gender Politics in Mozambique
Title Details

328 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

18 b/w, 21 line illus.

Imprint: James Currey

Sexuality and Gender Politics in Mozambique

Re-thinking Gender in Africa

by Signe Arnfred

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Reviews
Demonstrates shortcomings in Western feminist conceptualizations, and shows how insights from African feminist thinking may enhance understandings of gender, both in and beyond Africa.

Winner of the 2012 gender research award KRAKA-prisen.
This book is about gender politics in Mozambique over three decades from 1975 to 2005. The book is also about different ways of understanding gender and sexuality. Gender policies from Portuguese colonialism, through Frelimo socialism to later neo-liberal economic regimes share certain basic assumptions about men, women and gender relations. But to what extent do such assumptions fit the ways in which rural Mozambican men and women see themselves? A major line of argument in the book is that gender relations should be investigated, not assumed, and that policies not matching people's lives are not likely to succeed.
The empirical data, on which the argument is based, are first a unique body of data material collected 1982-1984 by the national women's organization, the OMM [when the author was employed as a sociologist in the organization] andsecondly data resulting from more recent fieldwork in northern Mozambique.
Importantly inspired by African post-colonial feminist lines of thinking, the book engages in a project of re-mapping and re-interpreting 'culture andtradition'. In this context, the book investigates in particular matriliny [c. 40 per cent of Mozambique's population live under conditions of matriliny] and female initiation. The findings open new avenues for gender politics, and for rethinking sexuality and gender - in Africa and beyond.

Signe Arnfred is Associate Professor, Dept of Society & Globalization, and Centre for Gender, Power & Diversity, Roskilde University
Introduction Part I Conceptions of Gender and Gender Politics in Mozambique
Women in Mozambique: Gender Struggle and Gender Politics, 1988
Notes on Gender and Modernization. Examples from Mozambique, 1990
Family Forms and Gender Policy in Mozambique, 1990
Simone de Beauvoir in Africa: Woman - The Second Sex?: Issues of African Feminist Thought, 2001
Conceptions of Gender in Colonial and Post-colonial Discourses, 2004 Part II Night of the Women, Day of the Men: Meanings and Interpretations of Female Initiation
Feminism and Gendered Bodies: On Female Inititation in Northern Mozambique, 2008
Moonlight and Mato: Initiation Rituals in Ribáuè, 2000
Wineliwa - the Creation of Women: Initiation Rituals during Frelimo's Abaixo Politics, 1990
Female Initiation and the Coloniality of Gender, 2010
Situational Gender and Subversive Sex? African Contributions to Feminist Theorizing, 2008 Part III Implications of Matriliny in Northern Mozambique
Male Mythologies: An Inquiry into Assumptions of Feminism and Anthropology, 2006-2007
Ancestral Spirits, Land and Food: Gendered Power and Land Tenure in Ribáuè, 2001
Sex, Food and Female Power: On Women's Lives in Ribáuè, 2006-2007
Tufo Dancing: Muslim Women's Culture in Ilha de Moçambique, 2004
Epilogue
"A fascinating and important book [and] a powerful and moving contribution to the debates around how to improve African women's lives and, hence, men's as well. It would make an effective teaching tool, and, for its sometimes combative turn of phrase among its other writing strengths, is plain enjoyable to read." AFRICAN AFFAIRS
"A unique and immensely valuable anthropological and historical study [that] should be considered vital to discussions both of the modern history of Mozambique and of gender politics in southern Africa and beyond." LEEDS AFRICAN STUDIES BULLETIN
"The book is impressive on many fronts. To name two: as a narrative tracing changes in her thinking on gender in Africa over the years, it is a stellar example of a working scholar's self-reflexivity; and instructors seeking to introduce students to the complex, ongoing and productive debate concerning the efficacy of feminist theory in the African context will find the book very useful." CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES
"Makes a welcome contribution to Mozambican studies and will also interest feminists, especially those unfamiliar with the works of African feminist scholars." MODERN AFRICAN STUDIES

Paperback

9781847010872

February 2014

Buy

£24.99 / $36.95

Shipping Options

Buy Ships within 2 business days

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Hardcover

9781847010353

October 2011

Buy

£80.00 / $115.00

Shipping Options

Buy Ships within 2 business days

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Ebook (EPDF)

9781846159978

October 2011

Buy

£24.99 / $29.95

Title Details

328 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

18 b/w, 21 line illus.

Imprint: James Currey