CONSTRUCTION OF WOMANHOOD IN AFRICA: THE CASE OF WOMEN IN RURAL TANZANIA
Open Access
- Author:
- Swai, Elinami Veraeli
- Graduate Program:
- Adult Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Education
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 20, 2006
- Committee Members:
- Ian E Baptiste, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Fred Michael Schied, Committee Member
Carolyn Elizabeth Sachs, Committee Member
Paul T Zeleza, Committee Member - Keywords:
- post structural feminist theory
identity. learning
knowing
CHAT - Abstract:
- ABSTRACT This critical ethnographic study investigates ways in which women in Yuuri and Sufi in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania negotiate their womanhood identities and what factors have influenced their decisions. My framework for this study is developed from post structural feminist and cultural-historical activity perspectives. I appropriated post-structural feminist perspective to understand ways in women’s social positions, spatial locations and their agency shaped their thinking and behavior. From cultural-historical activity perspective, I utilized the notions of history and culture to understand ways in which historical and cultural processes have shaped the current condition of women and shape their interactions. Specifically, this study explores the following three questions: (1) what are the socio-cultural and historical conditions under which the women in my study operate? (2) How are womanhood ideas represented in people’s day-to-day interactions? (3) What are particular women’s perceptions and actions about womanhood identity? Data collection included two summer semesters of participant observation, personal interviews, archival research, and published materials. I examined historical processes and practices to understand how the various dimensions of power have operated to separate women from men and to deny them freedom to utilize their agency with equal footing with men. I also examined ways in which womanhood ideas became normalized and maintained in people’s day-to-day interactions. Lastly I examined selected women’s ideas and behavior as they configure their identity to achieve their life goals. By examining historical, cultural and social processes and practices, I challenge the argument that construction of identity is a matter of reiterating or repeating the norms that constitute individual’s identity. In this study I found that rather than reiterating the norms, women in this study use various sources not necessarily those prescribed as ‘womanly,’ but configured their identity within the family and other cultural dynamics. These findings contribute several wider discussions including: how history, culture and social position shape people’s interactions and how these interactions in turn transform their culture. I suggest that identity cannot be separated from its historical and cultural processes. Furthermore, learning is very much connected to learner’s history, culture and social position in the learning activity.