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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History: Changing Gendered Relations among Maasai in Tanganyika, 1890-1940 |
| Author: | Hodgson, Dorothy L. |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
| Volume: | 40 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 41-65 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Tanzania |
| Subjects: | gender relations Maasai Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration Women's Issues Cultural Roles Historical/Biographical |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/183394 |
| Abstract: | Based on ethnohistorical research among Maasai in Tanzania, this article demonstrates that contemporary gender relations among pastoralists, which many scholars have described as 'patriarchal', are not inherent to pastoralism as a mode of production or ideology, but the result of a historically particular constellation of interactions involving both British and Maasai ideas and practices. The article traces the emergence of 'patriarchy' among Maasai to two interrelated processes central to colonial State formation: the division of the complementary responsibilities of men and women into spatially separated, hierarchically gendered domains of 'domestic' and 'public', and the consolidation of male control over cattle through the commoditization of livestock, the monetization of the economy, and the targeting of men for livestock development interventions. Together, these processes shifted the contours of male-female power relations, resulting in the material disenfranchisement and conceptual devaluation of Maasai women as both women and pastoralists. Notes, ref., sum. |
