White Women and African Nationalism in Colonial Zimbabwe

Abstract

The chapter inserts into the historical narrative white women as protagonists whose perceptions of, and contributions to, African nationalism are worth studying. This insertion of white women into the historical narrative of the liberation struggle debunks the bifurcation of the struggle into a black versus white experience. It uses various examples of white women from colonial Zimbabwe to reflect on some of the attitudes of white women towards African nationalists. The main interest in this chapter is to examine white women’s contribution to, perceptions and experiences of the liberation struggle in colonial Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) from around the 1950s. The chapter also examines white women’s relations with, and their attitudes towards, African nationalists and, to a certain extent, analyses the impact of the liberation struggle on white women. The study benefited largely from the National Archives of Zimbabwe, particularly newspaper articles, women’s magazines, private letters, interviews, correspondence by government and women’s organisations, among other sources.