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Writing African Women's History with Male Sources: Possibilities and Limitations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Lynn Schler*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Extract

Colonial sources can provide historians with a wealth of information about African lives during the colonial period, but they must be read against the grain, filtering out valuable information from the biases and prejudices of European officials. The task of studying African women's history using colonial sources is even more complicated, as women were not often the focus of the colonial agenda, and contact between colonial officials and African women was relatively limited, and often indirect. Particularly in those arenas of African social, cultural, and political life deemed as women's spheres, colonial officials had little incentive to intervene. As a result, historians of later generations are faced with relatively sparse documentation of women-centered social activity during the colonial era. For their part, African women guarded cultural and political spheres under their influence from outside intervention, thus making it difficult for Europeans, and particularly European men, to gain a full and accurate understanding of women's individual and collective experiences under colonial rule.

This paper will examine colonial research and documentation of African women's birthing practices.to illustrate both the potential for using these sources to understand some basic elements of women's experiences, and the limitations of this source material in providing deep and accurate insights into African women's history. Using an example from colonial Cameroon, we will see how European interest in women's birthing practices was motivated by colonial economic and scientific agendas steeped in racism and sexism, preventing European researchers from obtaining a balanced and accurate understanding of this women's sphere of social life. On the other hand, the documents reveal efforts of African women to prevent the colonial infiltration into women's arenas of influence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2004

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References

1 Olivier, Georges and Aujoulat, Louis, “L'obstétrique en pays Yaounde,” Bulletin de la Société d'Etudes Camerounaises 12(December 1945), 772Google Scholar.

2 Ekallé, Stéphane, “Croyances et pratiques obstéricales des Duala,” Bulletin de la Société d'études Camerounaises 19/20(September-December 1947), 6192Google Scholar.

3 See Hunt, Nancy Rose, A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization and Mobility in the Congo (Durham, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Summers, Carol, “Intimate Colonialism: The Imperial Production of Reproduction in Uganda, 1907-1925,” Signs 16(1991), 787807CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vaughan, Megan, Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (London, 1991)Google Scholar.

4 Journal Officiel des Territoires Occupés de l'Ancien Cameroun (15 October 1925), 437Google Scholar.

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6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., 24.

8 See, for example, Poovey, Mary, Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (Chicago, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roberts, Mary Louise, Civilization Without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917-1926 (Chicago, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenberg, Carol Smith, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

9 Olivier, /Aujoulat, , “Obstétrique,” 38Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., 39.

11 Ibid., 45.

12 Ibid., 18.

13 Ibid., 19.

14 Ibid., 21.

15 Ibid., 17.

16 Ekalle, , “Croyances,” 62Google Scholar.

17 See Austen, Ralph and Derrick, Jonathan, Middlemen of the Cameroon Rivers: The Duala and their Hinterland, c. 1600-1960 (Cambridge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Derrick, Jonathan, “The ‘Germanophone’ Elite of Douala Under the French Mandate,” JAH 21(1980), 255–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ekalle, , “Croyances,” 61Google Scholar.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid., 81.

21 Ibid., 62-63.

22 Ibid, 69.

23 Ibid., 62.

24 Ibid., 67.

25 Ibid., 81-82.