Vol. 32 No. 3 (2023): NJAS Special Issue Rethinking Time and Gender in African History
Special Issue: Rethinking Gender and Time in Africa

Gender Time, Gendered Time: In Parts of Africa

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  • David Schoenbrun
David Schoenbrun
Department of History, Northwestern University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v32i3.1084

Published 2023-09-28

Keywords

  • time,
  • gender,
  • Bantu languages,
  • oral textuality,
  • sex

How to Cite

Schoenbrun, D. (2023). Gender Time, Gendered Time: In Parts of Africa. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 32(3), 165–184. https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v32i3.1084

Copyright (c) 2023 David Schoenbrun

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Over the long term, Africans socially constructed time and gender through struggle and invention, the stuff of history. But to get at this broad salience we must toggle between scales of region and period, among different kinds of evidence, and among themes such as agriculture, statecraft, and political economy. The story of time and gender told here moves from a distant past into the present, with a focus on the people of an East African inland sea commonly referred to as ‘Lake Victoria’. It takes up African language vocabulary, then oral texts, then social practice. The ideas, aspirations, and struggles of Africans drive each step in the journey. They limit the effects of Global North academic ideas about gender and time in Africa’s past and present, revealing new facets of both categories.

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