Gendered Colonialisms in African History

Gendered Colonialisms in African History presents path-breaking work on the gender dimension of power in colonial Africa. Focusing on African and European women and men, five articles explore generational conflict, connections between representation and violence, the incorporation of gendered power into state formation, memory and forgetting, and consumption and commodity cultures.

Original essays by younger scholars draw upon archival research and field work in Africa and Europe. "Ngaitana (I will circumcise myself)", by Lynn M. Thomas, demonstrates that controversy over female initiation occurred among African women and men as well as between colonial officials and Africans. In 'Cocky' Hahn and the 'Black Venus', Patricia Hayes explores the linkage between ethnographic representations of "natives" and physical and sexual violence against them. "Not Welfare or Uplift Work", by Keith Shear, shows how debate over white women police was an integral part of the construction of policing as masculine during the formation of the South African state. In "Love Magic and Political Morality in Central Madagascar, 1875-1990", David Graeber probes the regendering of fantasies of power and powerlessness through the memory of colonial slavery. Finally, Timothy Burke traces the legacy of colonialism amid global capitalism in "Fork Up and Smile".