Men Own The Fields, Women Own The Crops: Gender And Power In The Cameroon Grassfields
by Miriam Goheen
University of Wisconsin Press, 1996 Paper: 978-0-299-14674-0 | Cloth: 978-0-299-14670-2 Library of Congress Classification DT571.N74G64 1996 Dewey Decimal Classification 305.3096711
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Women’s labor—producing both crops and children—has long been the linchpin of male status and power throughout Africa. This book lucidly interprets the intricate relations of gender to state-building in Africa by looking historically at control over production and reproduction, from the nineteenth century to the present. Miriam Goheen examines struggles over power within the Nso chiefdom in the highlands of Western Cameroon, between the chiefdom and the state, and between men and women, as the women increasingly reject traditional marriages.
Based on a decade of fieldwork, this work tracks the negotiations between chiefs and subchiefs and women and men over ritual power, economic power, and administrative power. Though Nso men obviously dominate their society at both the local level and nationally, women have had power of their own by virtue of their status as women. Men may own the land, for example, but women control the crops through their labor . Goheen explains clearly the place of gender in very complex historical processes, such as land tenure systems, title societies, chieftancy, marriage systems, changing ideas of symbolic capital, and internal and external politics.
In examining women’s resistance to traditional patterns of marriage, Goheen raises the question of whether such actions truly change the balance of power between the sexes, or whether resistance to marriage is instead fostering the formation of a new elite class, since it is only the better-educated women of wealthier families who can change the dynamic of power and labor within the household.
The issues raised in this book are not unique to Nso but apply throughout the African subcontinent. Written in a straightforward way with much of the theoretical argument in footnotes, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops marshals important arguments of wide relevance in present-day Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Miriam Goheen is associate professor of anthropology and sociology at Amherst College. She has lived intermittently in the Nso chiefdom in Cameroon for the past sixteen years, where as head of a large household she has earned the title “Yaa Nso” (Nso queen).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Maps
Prologue
Note on Orthography
1.
Introduction
2.
Nso' Geography and Social Setting: A Background
3.
The Forging of Hegemony
4.
Female Farmers, Male Warriors: Gendering Production and Reproduction
5.
Sum and Nsay: Access to Resources and the Sex/Gender Hierarchy
6.
The Fon's New Leopards, or Sorcerers of the Night? The Articulation of Male Hegemony
7.
Counterhegemony and Dissent on the Periphery: Chiefs, Subchiefs, and the Modern State
8.
Conclusion: Gender, Protest, and New Forms of Stratification
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Men Own The Fields, Women Own The Crops: Gender And Power In The Cameroon Grassfields
by Miriam Goheen
University of Wisconsin Press, 1996 Paper: 978-0-299-14674-0 Cloth: 978-0-299-14670-2
Women’s labor—producing both crops and children—has long been the linchpin of male status and power throughout Africa. This book lucidly interprets the intricate relations of gender to state-building in Africa by looking historically at control over production and reproduction, from the nineteenth century to the present. Miriam Goheen examines struggles over power within the Nso chiefdom in the highlands of Western Cameroon, between the chiefdom and the state, and between men and women, as the women increasingly reject traditional marriages.
Based on a decade of fieldwork, this work tracks the negotiations between chiefs and subchiefs and women and men over ritual power, economic power, and administrative power. Though Nso men obviously dominate their society at both the local level and nationally, women have had power of their own by virtue of their status as women. Men may own the land, for example, but women control the crops through their labor . Goheen explains clearly the place of gender in very complex historical processes, such as land tenure systems, title societies, chieftancy, marriage systems, changing ideas of symbolic capital, and internal and external politics.
In examining women’s resistance to traditional patterns of marriage, Goheen raises the question of whether such actions truly change the balance of power between the sexes, or whether resistance to marriage is instead fostering the formation of a new elite class, since it is only the better-educated women of wealthier families who can change the dynamic of power and labor within the household.
The issues raised in this book are not unique to Nso but apply throughout the African subcontinent. Written in a straightforward way with much of the theoretical argument in footnotes, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops marshals important arguments of wide relevance in present-day Africa.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Miriam Goheen is associate professor of anthropology and sociology at Amherst College. She has lived intermittently in the Nso chiefdom in Cameroon for the past sixteen years, where as head of a large household she has earned the title “Yaa Nso” (Nso queen).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Maps
Prologue
Note on Orthography
1.
Introduction
2.
Nso' Geography and Social Setting: A Background
3.
The Forging of Hegemony
4.
Female Farmers, Male Warriors: Gendering Production and Reproduction
5.
Sum and Nsay: Access to Resources and the Sex/Gender Hierarchy
6.
The Fon's New Leopards, or Sorcerers of the Night? The Articulation of Male Hegemony
7.
Counterhegemony and Dissent on the Periphery: Chiefs, Subchiefs, and the Modern State
8.
Conclusion: Gender, Protest, and New Forms of Stratification
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE