Capitalism, Kinship and Gender in the Lower Tchiri (Shire) Valley of Malawi, 1860-1960: An Alternative Theoretical Framework

Abstract

During the past two decades Africanist scholars have come to recognize the importance of changes in gender relations in the larger process of class formation and, in particular, have examined Engels' attempt to locate the dynamics of sexual subordination in the rise of capitalism and the state (see, for example, Robertson, 1984; Sacks, 1979). Thus, while noting the prior existence of various forms of female oppression in precapitalist Africa, these scholars emphasize the different implications for women and men of such developments as the decline in the importance of kinship organization, the introduction of private property in land, the separation of domestic from social production, and the rise of new classes. They have questioned the validity of such categories as kinship and chieftaincy that stress continuity rather than change. They have sought to replace these categories and derivative models with others that can better illuminate the reality of change under the impact of the world economy. One concept borrowed from peasant studies has become increasingly popular and has aroused considerable debate: household (Friedmann, 1980; Guyer, 1981; Vaughan, 1983). Critics of the household model have pointed out that rural Africa has not experienced a complete shift from one type of system to another and have therefore rejected the concept of household (Guyer, 1981: 88-98). They underscore the openendedness of historical change in Africa, arguing that categories derived from peasant studies overlook the implicit and explicit contracts between households and the ways in which family labor is controlled under different circumstances. (Ibid., 88, 102). Other commentators have posited as a major methodological problem the tendency among oral informants to contrast the past with the present along the dichotomy between kinship solidarity and its breakdown. They further caution against falling victim to the evolutionist biases of colonial observers who interpreted every change in domestic organization