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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Positioning the self: Pre- colonial values and post-colonial disputes among Shona Women.
| Panel |
36. Between customs and state law: The dynamics of local law in sub-Saharan Africa
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| Paper ID | 261 |
| Author(s) |
Mester, Andrea Johanne
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | When Mudimbe (1988) raises the question as to what would be truly African, one might feel inclined to say, this is foremost the negotiability of values and bargaining positions. Among others the work of Comaroff and Roberts (1981) reveals the extensive impact of elaborated bargaining processes over value orientations and individual goals on every day self-conception.
With my contribution I will introduce a semi-autonomous arena of negotiating pre-colonial female bargaining power in Shona society, which sheds light on contradictory gender concepts today. Who would not know of the high value and respect generally demanded towards mothers and sisters in African societies and immediately wonder how such values apply to women’s rather deplorable living conditions and legal positions.
I will present in short some findings of my doctoral thesis which suggest a re-evaluation of female part taking in social bargaining processes in pre- and early colonial Shona society. They imply women’s early positions as independent agents of kinship networks and marriage taboos as well as highly complex female hierarchies. Such hierarchies supported a minimal marriage distance between mothers and daughters and thereby keeping apart relatively short termed, but nonetheless very influential, matri lines from the patrilineal principle. And they had their specific conflict patterns. The arbitrage of sisters over marriage considerations of lineage daughters, which was never recognized by any type of law but remained eminent in every day life, was a prominent feature in dispute regulation formula within distinct female spaces. Such bargaining, of course, was never free of individual interests.
A life history which I collected during my field research in the mid 1990s contains the case of a marriage of too narrow a distance to former marital networks. As a result, the arbitrative bargaining position of the brides father’s sister vis-à-vis the mother-in-law clashed with her subordinated position towards the same woman. The arising conflict led to hardening arguments on both sides and cumulated in dramatic mutual witchcraft accusations. It was at first handled exclusively among women, very much like other historic cases. Men joined in the regulation of this dispute either reluctantly or on the advise of the mother-in-law. When they assumed an active role they tried their best to retain principles governing female hierarchies. A decision by a local court could only grant maintenance to the child of this short union and call on the mother-in-law to acknowledge the legitimacy of her granddaughter. This she never did, as she regarded the child as incestuous. Whereas the court was prepared to regard the marriage as lawful, the mother-in-law was not, for she applied pre-colonial values as her guidelines. The opinion of the local community was, as in most disputes, inconsistent.
This conflict certainly does not portray a local community. During my research I found diverse discourses on changing values concerning women’s bargaining positions. But it might shed light on contradictive orientations in every day life due to a rather slow erosion of pre-colonial guidelines.
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