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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Women in Production: The Economic Role of Women in Nineteenth Century Lesotho |
Author: | Eldredge, E.A. |
Year: | 1991 |
Periodical: | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |
Volume: | 16 |
Issue: | 4 |
Period: | Summer |
Pages: | 707-731 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Lesotho |
Subjects: | Sotho economic history women's work Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Labor and Employment History and Exploration Historical/Biographical Cultural Roles economics Sex Roles |
Abstract: | This article analyses women's contribution to the process of economic expansion in 19th-century Lesotho. The author's goal is to demonstrate that women were a central force generating economic change and that African economic history cannot be understood without reference to women. She begins with a brief survey of the productive activities of Sotho women in agriculture and in the household, with particular attention to labour time and to specialization, which allowed for the more efficient allocation of labour. In the second section she classifies women's productive activities and demonstrates the critical contribution of women in the process of accumulation and economic growth. In the third section she demonstrates that women played a deliberate role in initiating economic expansion in 19th-century Lesotho. However, their initiatives took place in the context of relative powerlessness: women exercised independent control and decisionmaking in certain spheres of production, but in the context of severe constraints. In the final section the author raises questions concerning the relations between women, production, and power in order to shed light on the origins of women's subordination in Africa. Notes, ref. |