Regarding totalities and escape hatches in Mozambican politics and Mozambican studies

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Periodical article

Title:	Regarding totalities and escape hatches in Mozambican politics and Mozambican studies
Author:	Dinerman, Alice
Year:	2009
Periodical:	Politique africaine
Issue:	113
Pages:	187-210
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Mozambique
Subjects:	historiography Frelimo political ideologies
Abstract:	This text is an answer to Michel Cahen's article on Mozambican historiography 'À la recherche de la défaite. Notes sur une certaine historiographie de la 'révolution' et de la 'contre-révolution' au Mozambique et sans doute ailleurs', published in Politique africaine no. 112, December 2008. The present text argues that the concept of totality offers a strategic point of entry for analysing the political arc of Mozambique's ruling elite. It suggests that differences concerning how best to mobilize this concept so as to yield maximum insight and understanding have often formed the subtext of scholarly disputes about Frelimo's ever-lengthening tenure. It brings these differences to the fore as part of a broader bid to identify frequently overlooked common positions and to clarify some of the main axes of historiographical debate. Notes, ref., sum. in English and French (p. 240). [Journal abstract]