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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'I'll Bury You in the Border': Women's Land Struggles in Post-War Facazisse (Magude District), Mozambique
Author:Gengenbach, HeidiISNI
Year:1998
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:24
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:7-36
Language:English
Geographic term:Mozambique
Subjects:power
women farmers
customary law
land law
Women's Issues
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Cultural Roles
agriculture
Politics and Government
Status of Women
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637446
Abstract:For women in Facazisse, Magude district, Maputo province, Mozambique, cultivated fields are more than just patches of soil for growing crops; they are also a source of female social and ritual power. Oral testimony depicts 'traditional' land administration as a largely feminine domain in which women's de facto control over land allocation and use confers collective responsibility for the moral and material well-being of the chiefdom. Women's responsibility for agriculture fostered a sense of 'cultivating community' among them. However, new systems of land management introduced by missionaries, the colonial State, and Frelimo district officials have eroded women's authority and autonomy in this sphere - a process dramatically accelerated by the introduction of emergency land distribution measures to accommodate the massive influx of 'deslocados' to Magude town during the war. The profound implications of these changes for rural women are already evident in the emergence of 'xifula' witchcraft as a weapon in postwar land conflicts, and women's increasingly restrictive definitions of who does and does not belong to the 'cultivating community'. The paper is based on participant observation and interviews among women in Facazisse, where the author lived in 1995 and 1996. Notes, ref., sum.
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