Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Patriarchal Myth: Deconstruction and Reconstruction
- 2 Correlating Linguistics and Archaeology in East-Central African History
- 3 The Early Social History of East-Central Africa
- 4 Women's Authority: Female Coalitions, Politics, and Religion
- 5 Women's Authority and Female Initiation in East-Central African History
- 6 Pots, Hoes, and Food: Women in Technology and Production
- 7 Sacred, but Never Profane: Sex and Sexuality in East-Central African History
- 8 Kucilinga na Lesa Kupanshanya Mayo
- Bibliography
- Index
- Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora
1 - The Patriarchal Myth: Deconstruction and Reconstruction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Patriarchal Myth: Deconstruction and Reconstruction
- 2 Correlating Linguistics and Archaeology in East-Central African History
- 3 The Early Social History of East-Central Africa
- 4 Women's Authority: Female Coalitions, Politics, and Religion
- 5 Women's Authority and Female Initiation in East-Central African History
- 6 Pots, Hoes, and Food: Women in Technology and Production
- 7 Sacred, but Never Profane: Sex and Sexuality in East-Central African History
- 8 Kucilinga na Lesa Kupanshanya Mayo
- Bibliography
- Index
- Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora
Summary
All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation … for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.
—Edward W. SaidThe inclusion of women and women's roles in the study of the long precolonial eras of African history is overdue. Even after a half-century of professional study of African history in universities in Africa and elsewhere, the precolonial eras remain historical spans on which little research into gender and gender relations has been undertaken. Numerous studies exist on colonial and postcolonial African gender relations and even a few on those of the late precolonial period; but the present work is the first to seek to uncover gender dynamics going back more than two thousand years in Africa. In recapturing these aspects of the precolonial past, this study shows that it is possible, desirable, and even necessary to historicize gender dynamics in early Africa. In pursuing these goals, it raises basic issues for theory and practice in the understanding of social roles in early history, both in Africa and elsewhere.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010