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KKFc1-16.qxp_KKF a 3/03 08/08/16 13.19 Side 92 92 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 1 2016 WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE SLAVE TRADE B Ipsen, Pernille: Daughters of the Trade. At - lantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. University of Pennsylvania, 2015, O 269 pages. Price: 388 DKK . psen’s book sets out to explore the politics Iof gender and race in the pre-colonial and colonial period on what was then known as the Gold Coast (now called Ghana). The top - O ic is approached from the perspectives of women – the daughters of the trade – and the larger, transatlantic relations they were part of in Osu (a part of the capital Accra) as well as K Copenhagen. In the book, it is described how these women should not be seen (only) as victims of the trade, but also as women who benefitted from the trade by virtue of their status as ‘free’ African women with linkages R to the Danish fort Christiansborg. More specifically, the book has a focus on the insti - tution of cassare (marriage in Portuguese), meaning marriage practices between Danish E men at the fort and (Euro)African women on the Gold Coast in the 18th century. These marriages form a point of departure for un - derstanding the shifting perceptions of gen - V der and race in the pre-colonial and colonial period as well as of the broader perspectives of the slave trade. By describing the lives of these daughters of the trade, whose existence have been I erased from our memories, the book is shed - ding light on new and surprising perspectives on the slave trade which is often perceived to be a male ‘business’. The reason for the invis - E ibility of the women’s stories may be that these marriages were tolerated, but not ac - cepted, in Copenhagen, and that the women did not follow their husbands when they left the fort. Consequently, only few sources are W available on this topic. In addition, the colo - nial period brought about a stronger segrega - tion between Africans (including the (Euro) African women) and the white male staff of S the fort. As such, the book contributes with KKFc1-16.qxp_KKF a 3/03 08/08/16 13.19 Side 93 BOOKREVIEWS 93 valuable insights through its meticulous doc - of the book – is demonstrated by the fact that umentation of the women’s stories – perhaps several attempts were made to regulate and also rather disturbing insights for the Ga peo - undermine the institution. The most persis - ple of Osu, reminding them of their role in tent attempts came from the religious author - the preservation of the slave trade, as well as ities, as especially the chaplains were con - for the Danish/Ghanaian descendants of the cerned about these intimate relations. A bish - staff from the fort who were perhaps not op wrote about the need for teaching the aware of their forefather’s former wives. gospel of Christianity to the wives and the One of the main points of the book is that offspring of these marriages and for support - the cassare marriages were advantageous for ing the children. He also encouraged the both parties and served to maintain relations Danish husbands to ask the wives to follow and build alliances between the Ga trading them back to Copenhagen. Thus, Christian families in Osu and the Danish staff at the schools were established and the offspring fort. The marriages took place in accordance were trained according to the existing gen - with the Ga customs underlining the need to dered division of labour. respect local traditions. It is described that Throughout the period the Danish hus - “Women on the Gold Coast not only helped bands had to balance between on the one their European husbands survive and resettle hand the dominant, racialised discourses le - in Africa; they also helped them as translators, gitimising the preservation of the slave trade cultural ambassadors, and trading partners” – including the general notion of ‘the Afri- (p. 9). The front cover of the book is a paint - cans’ as one uniform, lower-ranking group of ing of Sara Malm, the cassare wife of Wulff people – and on the other hand the practices Joseph Wulff (a Danish assistant at the fort), of the cassare marriages with specific (Euro)- illustrating her hybrid identity as a (Euro) African women who had to separate them - African woman dressed in mainly European selves from African women and to some ex - clothes but with a traditional African head - tent assimilate themselves to European culture scarf and gold jewellery to mark her differ - in the later period of these marriage practices. ence from other African women. Through However, this balancing act became increas - their marriages, the women gained access to ingly difficult. During the more pronounced the ‘mulatto chest’ at the fort, which sup - racial segregation of the colonial period, it ported the children of these marriages. In a was probably not possible to even consider number of cases, they also inherited property (Euro)African women as potential wives. from their husbands. The book could serve as a way of main - Another main point of the book is that streaming gender, or perhaps more accurately these (Euro)African women had more room women, in the teaching of the history of the for manoeuvre within their cassare marriages Danish Atlantic slave trade. That makes the than they would have had in marriages with book a most timely contribution – especially other African men, as the cassare wives often bearing in mind the recent film The Gold lived separately from their husbands with Coast (2015), where these relations are not their extended Ga families along with their described at all. Women in the movie are por - children. The women could therefore contin - trayed as voiceless slaves available for provid - ue being engaged in different trade activities ing different services for the male staff at the independently of their husbands. However, fort, with the sole exception of a female, the book also contains examples from a later Christian teacher. In light of these historical period where husbands and wives lived to - perspectives, the book reviewer wonders what gether in more ‘European’ style marriages. the present day relations look like between The strength of the institution of the cas - Danish men and Ghanaian women, or be - sare marriages – and thus also the importance tween Danish women and Ghanaian men? Or KKFc1-16.qxp_KKF a 3/03 08/08/16 13.19 Side 94 94 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 1 2016 how the micro-politics of intimate relations to learning and material intra-actions in spe - links to present day intersections of gender cific historical-cultural settings, and mostly and race? with an emphasis on the researcher’s perspec - tive. One of the key features of the book is Diana Højlund Madsen, Hasse’s ability to ask good questions in order PhD & Assistant Professor, FREIA to open up the black box of learning; the dif - – Centre for Gender Research, ficult questions of how it is at all possible to Aalborg University. make sense of new experiences, of our em - bodied presence as individuals in social, col - lective, material-discursive spaces, where our actions shape and are shaped by the numer - ous particularities of the space we occupy. MEETING BARAD HALFWAY – How do we actually learn when doing field - HASSE’S BOOK ON LEARNING IS work? How can we understand the processes NOT WITHOUT FRICTION of surprise, friction, and entanglement that happens over time when we encounter (or Cathrine Hasse: An Anthropology of Learning: place ourselves in) a – to us – new cultural On nested Frictions in Cultural Ecologies. setting? What is the role of material cultural Springer, 2015, 320 pages. Price:1119 DKK. markers, from the sound waves we make when we speak to chairs placed in particular et me begin this review by saying that spaces, when learning and doing fieldwork? Lthis is a great book. It is one of those How does meaning change over time with books you can’t read without stopping after new experiences, and what kinds of inclusions almost every paragraph thinking about the and exclusions happen in the practiced space? points just made and how it relates to your How can learning be thought of as an intra- own research and teaching experiences. How - active, material-discursive process creating ever, I also admit to becoming increasingly particular agential cuts – learning with instead dissatisfied with the book as I proceeded of from the context you find yourself in as a through its nine, densely written chapters, for researcher? reasons I will get back to later. The book is primarily written for an an - As a book about learning in which Hasse thropological audience, presumably as a text - tries to combine new materialism (drawing book, but it is also relevant to fieldworkers in particularly on Karen Barad and Tim Ingold), general. It addresses participant observation cultural theory (particularly Clifford Geertz), as a particular process in which learning hap - and cultural-historical psychology (Lev Vy - pens, draws on a range of literature and ana - gotsky and followers) the scope of the book is lytical concepts from or relevant to this field, already larger than ‘just’ the practices of an - and tells tales from a variety of fieldwork set - thropological/ethnographic fieldwork, from tings, spanning from the gendered spaces of which it draws most of its examples. This is the physics education, to a village on an Ital - about being-in-the-world as embodied sub - ian island, fieldwork in Cameroon, and more. jects, trying to figure out what is going on.