Well-Known Catholic Women. The Public and Political Role of the Chita chaMaria Movement in Mbare Township, Zimbabwe, 1945-65

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Periodical article

Title:	Well-Known Catholic Women. The Public and Political Role of the Chita chaMaria Movement in Mbare Township, Zimbabwe, 1945-65
Author:	Hinfelaar, Marja
Year:	2004
Periodical:	Le Fait Missionnaire: Social Sciences and Missions
Issue:	14
Period:	July
Pages:	47-72
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Zimbabwe Great Britain
Subjects:	Catholic Church colonialism townships women's organizations Urbanization and Migration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration Women's Issues Religion and Witchcraft Historical/Biographical organizations urbanization
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1163/221185204X00203
Abstract:	Members of the Catholic women's organization 'Chita chaMaria Hosi yaDenga' (the Union of Holy Mary in Heaven) played a prominent role in the public life of Mbare, Zimbabwe, but in the scholarly literature they have remained largely invisible. In an introductory review of the existing historiography, the author examines the reasons for this scholarly neglect of women's church organizations. Thereafter she gives a detailed description of 'Chita chaMaria', which started in the early 1940s. She demonstrates a seeming contradiction between the movement's exclusive and conservative character on the one hand, and the actual role its members played in the public domain, on the other. This public role is further examined in the context of the rise of nationalism in Zimbabwe prior to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]