The front line runs through every woman : women & local resistance in the Zimbabwean Liberation War

Author(s)

• O'Gorman, Eleanor

Bibliographic Information

The front line runs through every woman : women & local resistance in the Zimbabwean Liberation War

Eleanor O'Gorman

（African issues）

James Currey , Weaver Press, 2011

• : James Currey pbk

Other Title

Women and local resistance in the Zimbabwean Liberation War

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-186) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Theorizes the experiences of women in wartime, and specifically of African women during Zimbabwe's anti-colonial struggle. A Zimbabwe-specific study, focusing on the lives of women in a small locale (Chiweshe) during the anti-colonial insurgency, this book is also a challenge to established and still current modes of thought and research orientationswhich over-simplify the complex realities women face in the full range of violent conflicts, both past and present. By contextualizing the voices of women of Chiweshe, not only is an important and under-developed aspect of Zimbabwean and African history revealed, but a new approach to comprehending the highly-tensioned lives of women in war is presented, which is characterized here as Gendered Localised Resistance. This is examined through the prism of life in the Protected Villages in Chiweshe experienced in everyday social relations, revolutionary roles, and food security. It traces how women forged strategies of survival and resistance in the middle of guerrilla warfare pitted between the forces of the state and the revolutionary resistance movements. The book can be read as a unique and richly detailed account of the lives of women during the Zimbabwe civil war and liberation struggle; as a wider argument about how researchers can approach and incorporate lived experience into accounts of larger dynamics (war/revolution); and as a substantial and important contribution to feminist historiography and writings on women and war. Eleanor O' Gorman is Senior Associate at the Gender Studies Centre and a Research Associate at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge; an independent consultant who has advised the UN, the UK Government (DFID and FCO), the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Zimbabwe: Weaver Press

Table of Contents

Introduction: Women, War, Voice & Agency Situating Women in Revolution: Battlefront Myths & Homefront Lives Re-Framing Women's Revolutionary Lives: Women, Gender & Local Resistance Setting the Fieldwork Context: Zimbabwe as Arena, Chiweshe as Locale Women's Perceptions of Revolutionary Participation: Understandings of Agency & Consciousness Living with & within Revolution: Challenges to Unity & Community The Front Line Runs Through Every Woman: Resistance & Survival by Women in Revolutionary War Conclusion: Women's Agency & Voice in War Reconsidered

by "Nielsen BookData"

• NCID: BB10404663
• ISBN:
  • 9781847010407
• LCCN: 2011500976
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Woodbridge,Zimbabwe
• Pages/Volumes: xv, 192 p.
• Size: 22 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : DT2990
  • DC23 : 968.91
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Zimbabwe -- History -- Chimurenga War, 1966-1980 -- Women
  • LCSH : Women and war -- Zimbabwe
  • LCSH : Rural women -- Zimbabwe -- Social conditions -- 20th century
  • LCSH : Peasants -- Zimbabwe -- Social conditions -- 20th century
  • LCSH : Guerrilla warfare -- Social aspects -- Zimbabwe -- 20th century
  • LCSH : Counterinsurgency -- Social aspects -- Zimbabwe -- 20th century
  • LCSH : National liberation movements -- Zimbabwe -- History -- 20th century
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA29760928