BERGER, Iris and E. Frances WHITE, WOMEN IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: Restoring Women to History

Abstract

BERGER, Iris and E. Frances WHITE, WOMEN IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: Restoring Women to History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999,168 pp., $25.00 hardcover /$12.95 softcover. This volume is the second phase of a larger project whose goal is to restore women to history and to provide appropriate material for classroom use. It consists of four volumes each focussed on a particular region of the world including Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa. The volume is introduced by two prefaces. The first from the series editors, Cheryl Johnson-Odim and Margaret Strobel, thanks the authors for committing effort to what they term `the scholarship of integration' in producing this kind of work. The second preface is that of the authors. Following the prefaces is a relatively brief glossary including definitions of such terms as 'brideservice' and `Coptic Christianity' providing readers new to the area a quick reference aid. After that appear a series of six maps devoted to major language families, ethnic groups, nations with dates of independence and the like. Finally there is a chronological table starting with the development of settled communities in 18,000-7,000 B.C.E. and ending with 1994 C.E, the date of the first democratic elections to be held in South Africa. However, this does not exhaust the introductory material presented. The first substantial piece of the volume consists of a sixty one page introduction by the series editors. It is entitled `Conceptualizing the History of Women in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Carribean, and the Middle East and North Africa.' The editors introduce several themes which they see as common to histories of `non-Western' women and attempt to justify this broad ranging approach on the basis of a comparative discussion of the significance of common phenomena, the approaches of feminist scholarship and regional research questions with reference to the possibilities for further investigation. Although it is clear that the study of gender gives particular insight into regional histories as the authors contend, there is still an uneasy tension between the generalization required by the large scope of the subject matter (Third World women's histories) and the particular detail of experience that frames regional and local histories. After all this, there is another brief introduction by the authors themselves. The balance of the volume is devoted to the essay by his Berger presented as Part I: Women in East and Southern Africa and Part II: Women in West and West-Central Africa by E. …