Wicked Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa

by Hodgson, Dorothy L.; McCurdy, Sheryl A.

• ISBN13: 9780325070049
• ISBN10: 0325070040
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-19
• Publisher: Heinemann

Summary

Collection of detailed case studies demonstrates the centrality of women and

Author Biography

DOROTHY L. HODGSON is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University.SHERYL A. MCCURDY is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research in the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction: ``Wicked'' Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa	1	(26)
Dorothy L. Hodgson
Sheryl A. McCurdy
PART I: CONTESTING CONJUGALITY
Women, Marriage, Divorce and the Emerging Colonial State in Abeokuta (Nigeria) 1892-1904	27	(20)
Judith Byfield
``She Thinks She's Like a Man'': Marriage and (De) constructing Gender Identity in Colonial Buha, Western Tanzania, 1943-1960	47	(20)
Morgot Lovett
Wayward Women and Useless Men: Contest and Change in Gender Relations in Ado-Odo, S. W. Nigeria	67	(18)
Andrea Cornwall
``Gone to Their Second Husbands'': Marital Metaphors and Conjugal Contracts in The Gambia's Female Garden Sector	85	(24)
Richard A. Schroeder
PART II: CONFRONTING AUTHORITY
Dancing Women and Colonial Men: The Nwaobiala of 1925	109	(21)
Misty L. Bastian
Rounding Up Spinsters: Gender Chaos and Unmarried Women in Colonial Asante	130	(19)
Jean Allman
``My Daughter...Belongs to the Government Now'': Marriage, Maasai, and the Tanzanian State	149	(22)
Dorothy L. Hodgson
PART III: TAKING SPACES/MAKING SPACES
Gender and the Cultural Construction of ``Bad Women'' in the Development of Kampala-Kibuga, 1900-1962	171	(17)
Nakanyike B. Musisi
You Have Left Me Wandering About: Basotho Women and the Culture of Mobility	188	(24)
David B. Coplan
Urban Threats: Manyema Women, Low Fertility, and Venereal Diseases in Tanganyika, 1926-1936	212	(22)
Sheryl A. McCurdy
Negotiating Social Independence: The Challenges of Career Pursuits for Igbo Women in Postcolonial Nigeria	234	(21)
Philomena E. Okeke
PART IV: NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCE
The Politics of Difference and Women's Associations in Niger: Of ``Prostitutes,'' ``the Public, and Politics''	255	(19)
Barbara M. Cooper
``Wicked Women'' and ``Respectable Ladies'': Reconfiguring Gender on the Zambian Copperbelt, 1936-1964	274	(19)
Jane L. Parpart
Gender and Profiteering: Ghana's Market Women as Devoted Mothers and ``Human Vampire Bats''	293	(20)
Gracia Clark
Index	313	(10)
About the Contributors	323