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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2007. / Title from title page screen, viewed on July 16, 2008. Dissertation Committee: Cynthia A. Huff (chair), Ronald L. Strickland, Paula Ressler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-282) and abstract. Also available in print.

This study examines short stories from various Zimbabwe women writers and explores how these stories depict the socioeconomic and political status of women in postcolonial Zimbabwe. I argue that storytelling is truth-telling, as shown by the analysis of the stories. Through political consciousness and African feminism, the women writers use various shifting narrators as a strategy of presenting the ongoing struggles of corruption, domestic violence, mental health issues, HIV/ AIDS, rape, bad governance, and other ongoing struggles in Zimbabwe. Petina Gappah’s An Elegy of Easterly is a story collection that helps the reader to understand the social context in which women are oppressed and exploited in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Similarly, Irene Stauton’s Women Writing Zimbabwe, Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya’s The Fifty Rand Note and Other Short Stories, and Samantha Rumbidzai Vhazure’s Turquoise Dreams Anthology of Short Stories focus on fighting for women’s rights and human rights through writing. Political activists are silenced through persecutions and abductions, so to avoid such consequences, fiction is used for political activism. The sociocentric notion that women are only fighting against their oppression and exploitation is now outdated as 21st century women writers are also political analysts who are fighting bad governance and corruption, which means they are advocating for the society at large.

O nosso projeto de Mestrado em Estudos Comparados de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa, com ênfase na literatura moçambicana, surgiu de uma constatação do quotidiano de mulheres africanas em geral. Decidimos trabalhar, no caso da nossa dissertação, a questão da trajetória da personagem Rami no romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia, para encarar o feminismo fora das bandeiras ocidentais tal como o conhecemos e dar ao termo uma conotação africana, destacando de fato certa singularidade na(s) ideologia(s) feminista(s): a consciência da subalternidade. Esta singularidade naquela(s) ideologia(s) vem se afastando da política que radicaliza o debate e o orienta na direção da negação do homem. O nosso crescente interesse pela escrita feminina nasceu do fato de, em quase todos os romances africanos, de autoria feminina, lidos, termos descoberto uma certa convergência na abordagem relativa à questão do estatuto das mulheres dentro das sociedades africanas. Neste contexto, a autora Paulina Chiziane, de Moçambique, evidencia bem, com o seu romance Niketche, uma história de poligamia, esse questionamento ao estatuto das mulheres, construindo personagens que vão, no decorrer da narrativa, realçar o contexto ideológico do feminismo africano. Três críticos nos ajudarão, com suas reflexões, para a aproximação da trajetória da personagem com a ideologia feminista africana. São eles: Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (2000) para a questão do feminismo africano, Antonio Candido (1963) e Roland Bourneuf (1976) para tratar das personagens. / Our Project for a Masters Degree in Comparative Studies of Portuguese Language Literatures, emphasizing on Mozambican literature, arose from findings about African womens general everyday lives. We decided to work on the case of our dissertation, the question of the Rami characters trajectory in the romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia (Niketche: a story of polygamy) to confront feminism away from occidental standards such as we know it and give an African connotation to the term, outlining in fact a certain singularity in feminist ideology(ies): the cognizance of the inferiority. This singularity in that(those) ideology(ies) has been moving away from the policy that radicalizes the debate and orientates to the direction of mans denial. Our growing interest in the feminine writing was born from the fact of the discovery in nearly all African romances, of feminine authoring, read, a certain converging in the approach related to the question of the womens statute within the African societies. In this context the authoress Paulina Chiziane of Mozambique shows, well as her romance Niketche, uma história de poligamia, this questioning of the womens statute by building characters that will, during the unrolling of the story, highlight the ideological context of the African feminism. Thus, three critics will help us with their reflections to enable the approach of the trajectory of the character to the African feminist ideology. They are Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (2000) for the African feminist ideology, Antonio Candido (1963) and Roland Bourneuf (1976) to deal with the characters.

In this study the researcher explored what participation was like for Kenyan women involved in an international curriculum development project, considering important aspects of international curriculum development projects that have been neglected in the research literature. The main research purpose was to understand the womens experiences in a Canadian-sponsored post-secondary education curriculum development project titled "Supporting Environmental Education in Kenya". In addition the research investigated the conflicts, tensions, and contradictions the women experienced between their previous ways of learning and their workshop experiences. Finally, the researcher addresses what could be done to mitigate contradictions generated by the project implementation.<p> The study documented power relationships, issues of control and issues of role functionality; the researcher also identified the ways in which, in a patriarchal country women, especially married women, are closely monitored by their husbands or other significant males. In fact the women needed permission from their husbands to participate, to educate, to visit, and to consort with others such as the researcher. The study shares the womens stories about the experiences that they had during and after the workshop situations, and how they interpreted these experiences.<p> Additionally, the study identified differences in the teaching methods and learning styles experienced by the women. All the participants had experienced the Kenyan education system; the Kenyan curriculum was based on the English, post-colonial system that treated the learner as an empty vessel into which knowledge was poured; within classroom sessions this system did not encourage learner engagement that might be evidenced through questioning the teacher or discussing the topic at hand. Indeed, it was observed that all of the women participating in the project required encouragement to voice their thoughts.<p> By honouring the experiences of the women and including their voices, the researcher generated information for proposal writers and project leaders to make appropriate decisions for programming that includes cultural and indigenous ways of knowing, learning and dissemination of knowledge.

In this study the researcher explored what participation was like for Kenyan women involved in an international curriculum development project, considering important aspects of international curriculum development projects that have been neglected in the research literature. The main research purpose was to understand the womens experiences in a Canadian-sponsored post-secondary education curriculum development project titled "Supporting Environmental Education in Kenya". In addition the research investigated the conflicts, tensions, and contradictions the women experienced between their previous ways of learning and their workshop experiences. Finally, the researcher addresses what could be done to mitigate contradictions generated by the project implementation.<p> The study documented power relationships, issues of control and issues of role functionality; the researcher also identified the ways in which, in a patriarchal country women, especially married women, are closely monitored by their husbands or other significant males. In fact the women needed permission from their husbands to participate, to educate, to visit, and to consort with others such as the researcher. The study shares the womens stories about the experiences that they had during and after the workshop situations, and how they interpreted these experiences.<p> Additionally, the study identified differences in the teaching methods and learning styles experienced by the women. All the participants had experienced the Kenyan education system; the Kenyan curriculum was based on the English, post-colonial system that treated the learner as an empty vessel into which knowledge was poured; within classroom sessions this system did not encourage learner engagement that might be evidenced through questioning the teacher or discussing the topic at hand. Indeed, it was observed that all of the women participating in the project required encouragement to voice their thoughts.<p> By honouring the experiences of the women and including their voices, the researcher generated information for proposal writers and project leaders to make appropriate decisions for programming that includes cultural and indigenous ways of knowing, learning and dissemination of knowledge.

Despite significant progress in increasing female participation in national politics, Tanzanian households are still predominately run by men. Gender norms which define women as houseworkers and men as providers continue to pervade widespread notions that put a heavy burden on the backs of women and hinder an equal division of household labor, regardless of women’s employment situation. Although often disfavored in this patriarchal structure, research has found that women sometimes desire men to adapt to a role that further establishes these norms. This study examined how women and men in Babati town construct masculinities and the male role in romantic relationships, and how officially contested gender roles persist. Primary data was collected through qualitative interviews and focus groups with primarily highly educated married women and men in Babati town. The data was analyzed using a theoretical framework based on masculinities in gender relations and African notions of feminism. Moreover, explanations and rationalizations of gender inequality were deconstructed and categorized in a content-oriented analysis to explicate the resilience of dominant ideologies. The study found that men are expected to have a job and to make sure that the basic needs of the family are met. Most men did not construct ideal masculinity as mutually exclusive to cooking and cleaning, and neither did any woman. However, men often exempted themselves from household labor by arguing that African culture does not allow men to cook and clean unless the wife is sick or otherwise incapacitated.

The privileging of man in African societies has involved an erasure of identities and subjectivities of many women, holding them to an assumption of female inferiority. To counter the injustice, African women writers have engaged in rhetorical and performative strategies designed to reconstitute the cultural erasure as they try to claim status as individuals. But in the process, various cultural expectations such as their maternal roles act as constant bottlenecks to return them back to their prescribed roles as subordinate beings. This dissertation, “Imagined Realities, Defying Subjects: Voice, Sexuality and Subversion in African Women’s Writing” explores the methodologies of cultural resistance and the complex ways in which African women have articulated their subjectivity, challenged societal roles, negotiated tradition and formulated a literary and feminist aesthetic. As inventors invested in creating narratives that speak to the concerns of an African female aesthetic, these authors work in, through and toward what Gloria Anzaldua calls a “mestiza consciousness,” whose work is to “break down the subjectobject duality that keeps her [woman] a prisoner and to show in the flesh and through the images in her work how duality is transcended” (102). Embracing the framework of African Feminism or what Obioma Nnaemeka calls “Nego Feminism,” each chapter articulates the sites of enunciation in which the characters engage with their fragmented conditions. Though with differing methodologies, for each writer, the act of seeking a space through which a self with an “outline” is negotiated and articulated allows the women to become aware of the need to speak their own truths and realities. I examine how authors like Flora Nwapa, Mariama Ba, Yvonne Vera and Calixthe Beyala construct textual strategies that go beyond the marginalized figures and articulate themselves so that they escape society’s sanctioned external definitions. My dissertation proffers a fresh insight that goes beyond the descriptions of how women are represented, superseding this kind of criticism with more complex analysis of gender and women’s oppression.

This dissertation is an exploration of the African female body as a site of regulation and resistance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Dagara of northwestern Ghana, I illustrate how Dagara women are regulated through narratives of exclusion, through the mobilization of the rhetoric of tradition and cultural authenticity, and the racialization of gender ideologies. I then illustrate how Dagara women carve resistant spaces through song writing, dance, and instrumental performance, pointing to how female bodies in performance essay critiques of existent power structures. I argue that Dagara women redefine the terms of their sexed bodies through performance, as they open up new cultural possibilities. By mediating multiple categories of belonging, Dagara women expand the narrow demarcations that are mapped onto their bodies. Such divisive categories of African/Western, black/white, and traditional/modern are challenged through musical performance. Dagara women subvert regulation in ways that are instructive in re-theorizing the possibilities of resistant and transgressive action. / text

O nosso projeto de Mestrado em Estudos Comparados de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa, com ênfase na literatura moçambicana, surgiu de uma constatação do quotidiano de mulheres africanas em geral. Decidimos trabalhar, no caso da nossa dissertação, a questão da trajetória da personagem Rami no romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia, para encarar o feminismo fora das bandeiras ocidentais tal como o conhecemos e dar ao termo uma conotação africana, destacando de fato certa singularidade na(s) ideologia(s) feminista(s): a consciência da subalternidade. Esta singularidade naquela(s) ideologia(s) vem se afastando da política que radicaliza o debate e o orienta na direção da negação do homem. O nosso crescente interesse pela escrita feminina nasceu do fato de, em quase todos os romances africanos, de autoria feminina, lidos, termos descoberto uma certa convergência na abordagem relativa à questão do estatuto das mulheres dentro das sociedades africanas. Neste contexto, a autora Paulina Chiziane, de Moçambique, evidencia bem, com o seu romance Niketche, uma história de poligamia, esse questionamento ao estatuto das mulheres, construindo personagens que vão, no decorrer da narrativa, realçar o contexto ideológico do feminismo africano. Três críticos nos ajudarão, com suas reflexões, para a aproximação da trajetória da personagem com a ideologia feminista africana. São eles: Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (2000) para a questão do feminismo africano, Antonio Candido (1963) e Roland Bourneuf (1976) para tratar das personagens. / Our Project for a Masters Degree in Comparative Studies of Portuguese Language Literatures, emphasizing on Mozambican literature, arose from findings about African womens general everyday lives. We decided to work on the case of our dissertation, the question of the Rami characters trajectory in the romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia (Niketche: a story of polygamy) to confront feminism away from occidental standards such as we know it and give an African connotation to the term, outlining in fact a certain singularity in feminist ideology(ies): the cognizance of the inferiority. This singularity in that(those) ideology(ies) has been moving away from the policy that radicalizes the debate and orientates to the direction of mans denial. Our growing interest in the feminine writing was born from the fact of the discovery in nearly all African romances, of feminine authoring, read, a certain converging in the approach related to the question of the womens statute within the African societies. In this context the authoress Paulina Chiziane of Mozambique shows, well as her romance Niketche, uma história de poligamia, this questioning of the womens statute by building characters that will, during the unrolling of the story, highlight the ideological context of the African feminism. Thus, three critics will help us with their reflections to enable the approach of the trajectory of the character to the African feminist ideology. They are Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (2000) for the African feminist ideology, Antonio Candido (1963) and Roland Bourneuf (1976) to deal with the characters.