Feminist Knowledge | Bibliography: African Women's Studies I
Certain earlier case-studies and life histories of African women define them as passive sources of information. From the mid-eighties, historians like Nancy Hunt and Marcia Wright used life history as positioned testimony to foreground the value of African women's narratives as knowledge, rather than research information. Marjorie Mbilinyi's work (1989) has been especially important in offering appraisals of methodology and research trends. Since her study, Hoppe and Gengenbach have taken up issues in debates about the politics of representing African women's stories.
Works like
La Ray Denzer's Constance Agatha Cummings-John: Memoirs of a Krio Leader (1995),
Margaret Ekpo: A Political Biography (1996) published and written by the organization
“Women in Nigeria" and Folarin Coker's A Lady: A Biography of Lady Oyinkan
Abayomi (1987), all stress the value of personal narratives as independent forms
of knowledge. A work which has the advantage of directly incorporating analysis
of patriarchy and feminist research methodology is Ngaiza and Koda's The Unsung
Heroines: Women's Life Histories from Tanzania (1991). These sensitively-written
studies offer important testimonies of women's culturally marginalized self-narratives.
Atiya, N. 1984. Khul-Khaal: Five Egyptian Women Tell Their Stories. Cairo: American Uiversity in Cairo Press.
Barrett, J. et al. Vukani Makhosikasi: South African Women Speak. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations.
Bozzoli, B. 1991. Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy and Migrancy in South Africa: 1900–1983. Johannesburg: Ravan.
Bujra, J. 1993. "Gender, Class and Empowerment: A Tale of Two Tanzanian Servants." Review of African Political Economy, 56.
Coker, F. 1987. A Lady: A Biography of Lady Oyinkan Abayomi. Ibadan: Evans Brothers.
Cummings, M. 1991. Surviving Without Romance: African Women Tell Their Stories. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press.
Denzer, L. Ed. 1995. Constance Agatha Cummings-John: Memoirs of a Krio Leader. Ibadan: Humanities Research Centre.
Gengenbach, H. 1993. "Truth-Telling and the Politics of Women's Life History Research in Africa: A Reply to Kirk Hoppe." International Journal of African Historical Studies, 27, 3:619–627.
Hoppe, K. 1993. "Whose Life Is It, Anyway? Issues of Representation in Life Narrative Texts of African Women." International Journal of African Historical Studies, 26, 3:623–636.
Kendall, K. Ed. 1995. Basali! Stories by and about Women in Lesotho. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.
Kenyon, S. 1991. Five Women of Sennar: Culture and Change in Central Sudan. Oxford: Clarendon.
Kuzwayo, E. 1985. Call Me Woman. Johannesburg: Ravan.
Marks, S. 1987. Not Either an Experimental Doll. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Mashinini, E. 1989. Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life: A South African Autobiography. London: Women's Press.
Mbilinyi, M. 1989. "'I'd Have Been a Man': Politics and the Labor Process in Producing Personal Narratives", in Personal Narratives Group. ed. Interpreting Women's Lives. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
McKenzie, C. 1990. A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings. London: Heinemann.
Mernissi, F. 1988. Doing Daily Battle: Interviews with Moroccan Women. London: Women's Press.
Mirza, S. and Strobel, M. Ed. and trans. 1984. "The Life History of Mishiwa Wbdala: A Swahili Kungwi from Mombasa, Kenya". Africa Review, 11, 1, 1984.
Mirza, S. and Strobel, M. Eds. 1989. Three Swahili Women: Life Histories from Mombasa, Kenya. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis.
Magona, S. 1990. To My Children's Children. Cape Town: David Philip.
Magona, S. 1992. Forced to Grow. Cape Town: David Philip.
Ngaiza, M. and Koda, B. Eds. 1991. The Unsung Heroines: Women's Life Histories from Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Research and Documentation Project.
Nzenza, S. 1988. Zimbabwean Woman. My Own Story. London: Karia Press.
Ramphele, M. 1995. A Life. Cape Town: David Phillip Publishers.
Romero, P. Ed. 1988. Life Histories of African Women. London & Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Ashfield Press.
Russel, D. 1989. Lives of Courage: Women for a New South Africa. New York: Basic Books
Sadat, J. 1987. A Woman of Egypt. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sibiya, E. 1990. Thoughts of an African Woman. Braamfontein: Skotaville Publishers.
Strobel, M. 1977. "Doing Oral History as an Outsider." Frontiers, A Journal of Women's Studies, 2, 2(Summer):68–72.
Wright, M. 1993. Strategies of Slaves and Women: Life Stories from East/Central Africa. London: James Currey.
Zenie-Ziegler, W. 1988. In Search of Shadows: Conversations with Egyptian Women. London: Zed Books.