Documenting the changes occurring since the 1984 study, this edition provides a collection of life histories from the women of Mutira. Two new introductory chapters frame the life histories within the context both of significant macro-level transitions in Kenya and current thinking on gender.

The American Historical Association's Committee on Women Historians commissioned some of the pioneering figures in women's history to prepare essays in their respective areas of expertise. This volume, the first in a series of three, collects their efforts. Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 1 addresses the comparative themes that the editors and contributors see as central to understanding women's history around the world. Later volumes will be concerned with issues that have shaped the history of women in particular regions. The authors of these essays, including Margaret Strobel, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Mrinalini Sinha, provide general overviews of the theory and practice of women's and gender history and analyze family history, nationalism, and work. The collection is rounded out by essays on religion, race, ethnicity, and the different varieties of feminism. Incorporating essays from top scholars ranging over an abundance of regions, dates, and methodologies, the three volumes of Women's History in Global Perspective constitute an invaluable resource for anyone interested in a comprehensive overview on the latest in feminist scholarship.

Oral history gives history back to the people in their own words. And in giving a past, it also helps them towards a future of their own making. Oral history and life stories help to create a truer picture of the past and the changing present, documenting the lives and feelings of all kinds of people, many otherwise hidden from history. It explores personal and family relationships and uncovers the secret cultures of work. It connects public and private experience, and it highlights the experiences of migrating between cultures. At the same time it can bring courage to the old, meaning to communities, and contact between generations. Sometimes it can offer a path for healing divided communities and those with traumatic memories. Without it the history and sociology of our time would be poor and narrow. In this fourth edition of his pioneering work, fully revised with Joanna Bornat, Paul Thompson challenges the accepted myths of historical scholarship. He discusses the reliability of oral evidence in comparison with other sources and considers the social context of its development. He looks at the relationship between memory, the self and identity. He traces oral history through its own past and weighs up the recent achievements of a movement which has become international, with notably strong developments in North America, Europe, Australia, Latin America, South Africa and the Far East, despite resistance from more conservative academics. This new edition combines the classic text of The Voice of the Past with many new sections, including especially the worldwide development of different forms of oral history and the parallel memory boom, as well as discussions of theory in oral history and of memory, trauma and reconciliation. It offers a deep social and historical interpretation along with succinct practical advice on designing and carrying out a project, The Voice of the Past remains an invaluable tool for anyone setting out to use oral history and life stories to construct a more authentic and balanced record of the past and the present.

"A major contribution in women's studies and in other disciplines dealing with issues of agency. The authors raise issues that are very important . . . and they raise them as they must be raised--by bridging theory and action." -- Kathryn Pine Addelson, author of Moral Passages: Toward a Collectivist Moral Theory Both the women's liberation movement and those who have studied it characterize agency as the capacity to make change in individual consciousness, personal lives, and society. The seventeen contributors to Provoking Agents explore whether--and how--feminist theory, writing, and other social practices can help readers move beyond seeing women as a powerless group to effecting changes in their own lives and, ultimately, becoming social activists. Topics in this multi-disciplinary collection range from maternal surrogacy to writing, from consciousness-raising to AIDS activism, from pornography to local organizing

By featuring the life histories of eight senior men, Making Men in Ghana explores the changing meaning of becoming a man in modern Africa. Stephan F. Miescher concentrates on the ideals and expectations that formed around men who were prominent in their communities when Ghana became an independent nation. Miescher shows how they negotiated complex social and economic transformations and how they dealt with their mounting obligations and responsibilities as leaders in their kinship groups, churches, and schools. Not only were notions about men and masculinity shaped by community standards, but they were strongly influenced by imported standards that came from missionaries and other colonial officials. As he recounts the life histories of these men, Miescher reveals that the passage to manhood—and a position of power, seniority, authority, and leadership—was not always welcome or easy. As an important foil for studies on women and femininity, this groundbreaking book not only explores masculinity and ideals of male behavior, but offers a fresh perspective on African men in a century of change.

These volumes offer a one-stop resource for researching the lives, customs, and cultures of Africa's nations and peoples. Unparalleled in its coverage of contemporary customs in all of Africa, this multivolume set is perfect for both high school and public library shelves. The three-volume encyclopedia will provide readers with an overview of contemporary customs and life in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa through discussions of key concepts and topics that touch everyday life among the nations' peoples. While this encyclopedia places emphasis on the customs and cultural practices of each state, history, politics, and economics are also addressed. Because entries average 14,000 to 15,000 words each, contributors are able to expound more extensively on each country than in similar encyclopedic works with shorter entries. As a result, readers will gain a more complete understanding of what life is like in Africa's 54 nations and territories, and will be better able to draw cross-cultural comparisons based on their reading.

This book is written by anthropologists who are currently engaged in research on gender. The editors argue for the development of an ethnography-based feminism that both pays heed to what women in specific circumstances identify as their concerns and recognizes the contradictions inherent in the goals of feminist anthropology. The essays consider a range of "awkward" issues, including feminism in international contexts, the invisibility of women's working lives, and the problems of voice and ethnographic representation. Referring to a variety of ethnographic contexts, and working from diverse perspectives, the contributors examine the multiple dilemmas and conflicts of gender and power.

This significant new study contains the work of anthropologists engaged in doing research on gender. The editors argue for the creation of an ethnography-based feminism that, at the same time, pays heed to what women in specific circumstances identify as their concerns and also recognizes contradictions inherent in the goals of a feminist anthropology. These essays grapple with a range of awkward issues, including feminism in international contexts, the invisibility of women's working lives, and the problems of voice and ethnographic representation. Referring to a variety of ethnographic contexts, and working from diverse perspectives, the contributors examine the multiple dilemmas and conflicts of gender and power.A volume which will not only constitute a significant contribution to the social sciences literature both theoretically and substantively, but will also place Canadian feminist anthropology on the cutting edge of global feminist anthropology. I strongly recommend it. Valda Blundell Carleton University

"These four volumes in this major series... provide a single-source reference to the status of the field of women's history and to ways that the field can be expanded.... A basic set for all academic libraries." -- Library Journal Academic NewswireBerger and White focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, tracing women's history from earliest times to the present. By exploring their place in social, economic, political, and religious life, the authors highlight the changing societal position of women through shifts over time in ideas about gender and the connections between women's public and private spheres.

How did African women negotiate the complex political, economic, and social forces of colonialism in their daily lives? How did they make meaningful lives for themselves in a world that challenged fundamental notions of work, sexuality, marriage, motherhood, and family? By considering the lives of ordinary African women -- farmers, queen mothers, midwives, urban dwellers, migrants, and political leaders -- in the context of particular colonial conditions at specific places and times, Women in African Colonial Histories challenges the notion of a homogeneous "African women's experience." While recognizing the inherent violence and brutality of the colonial encounter, the essays in this lively volume show that African women were not simply the hapless victims of European political rule. Innovative use of primary sources, including life histories, oral narratives, court cases, newspapers, colonial archives, and physical evidence, attests that African women's experiences defy static representation. Readers at all levels will find this an important contribution to ongoing debates in African women's history and African colonial history.