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Spanning the second millennium BC to the 19th century, this volume addresses the place and role of women in societies of East-Central Africa, primarily Zambia and Malawi, but also including southern parts of DRC and Tanzania. Using multi-disciplinary sources, including historical linguistics, archaeology and ethnography, Saidi has woven together a narrative that integrates topics as diverse as female sexuality and ceramic production. The primary impetus behind this volume is the perceived androcentric bias of colonial observers, which, Saidi argues, has shaped subsequent historical research, and denied a voice to female agency (Chapter 1). In particular, Saidi highlights the introduction of western stereotypes that framed how African society was understood. Thus the nuclear family is regarded as `natural', whilst women are principally regarded as wives, rather than mothers or sisters. These structuring principles governed early observers, and have, as Saidi argues, seeped into historical reconstructions as well, thus denying or overlooking the multi-faceted role of female authority in the region, and instead emphasising patrilineal descent. This volume is therefore a challenge to this accepted history, and a rejection of stereotype. In Chapter 2 Saidi presents her re-evaluation of the linguistic and archaeological data, arguing for example, that proto-Sabi was
Journal of African Archaeology – Brill
Published: Oct 25, 2011
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