Women's Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Women’s Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique This book tells the history of the changing gendered landscapes of northern Mozambique from the perspective of women who fought in the armed struggle for national independence, diverting from the often-told narrative of women in nationalist wars that emphasizes a linear plot of liberation. Taking a novel approach in focusing on the body, senses, and landscape, Jonna Katto, through a study of the women ex-combatants’ lived landscapes, shows how their life trajectories unfold as nonlinear spatial histories. This brings into focus the women’s shifting and multilayered negotiations for personal space and belonging. This book explores the life memories of the now aging female ex-combatants in the province of Niassa in northern Mozambique, looking at how the female ex-combatants’ experiences of living in these northern landscapes have shaped their sense of socio-spatial belonging and attachment. It builds on the premise that individual embodied memory cannot be separated from social memory; personal lives are culturally shaped. Thus, the book does not only tell the history of a small and rather unique group of women but also speaks about wider cultural histories of body-landscape relations in northern Mozambique and especially changes in those relations. Enriching our understanding of the gendered history of the liberation struggle in Mozambique and informing broader discussions on gender and nationalism, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of African history, especially the colonial and postcolonial history of Lusophone Africa, as well as gender/women’s history and peace and conflict studies. Jonna Katto is Postdoctoral Researcher in African Studies at the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University, Belgium. Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Africa This series includes in-depth research on aspects of economic, political, cultural and social history of individual countries as well as broad-reaching analyses of regional issues. Themes include social and economic change, colonial experiences, inde pendence movements, post-independence governments, globalisation in Africa, nationalism, gender histories, conflict, the Atlantic Slave trade, the environment, health and medicine, ethnicity, urbanisation, and neo-colonialism and aid. Forthcoming titles: Human Rights in Sierra Leone, 1787–2016 The Long Struggle from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Present John Idriss Lahai Miscegenation, Identity and Status in Colonial Africa Intimate Colonial Encounters Lawrence Mbogoni Displaced Mozambicans in Postcolonial Tanzania Refugee Power, Mobility, Education, and Rural Development Joanna T. Tague Africans and the Holocaust Perceptions and Responses of Colonized and Sovereign Peoples Edward Kissi Photography and History in Colonial Southern Africa Shades of Empire Lorena Rizzo Women’s Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique Bodily Memory and the Gendered Aesthetics of Belonging Jonna Katto For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com Women’s Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique Bodily Memory and the Gendered Aesthetics of Belonging Jonna Katto First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park,Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Jonna Katto The right of Jonna Katto to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-25247-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-28935-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC To Helena Contents List of illustrations ix Acknowledgments x Introduction: gendered bodies, moving landscapes, and spatial histories 1 PART I Talking freedom 41 1 FRELIMO nationalism, female bodies, and the language of gender 47 PART II Violent liberation 75 2 Female combatants and gendered styles of being 79 3 Guerrilla life and the haptics of the “bush” 96 4 Body feelings and violent memories 117 PART III Beautiful belonging 125 5 Living landscape 129 6 Rhythmic beauty 181 7 Home, (be)longing, and the beautiful 222 Epilogue: spatial movements, relations, and representations 230 viii Contents Bibliography 235 Glossary and abbreviations 257 Transcription symbols 258 Index 259 Illustrations Maps 0.1a/b Research sites in Niassa/research site in relation to the larger geographic space of southern Africa 10 0.2 The East African region 19 0.3 Nyassa Company 25 3.1 FRELIMO’s principal military bases in Niassa during the war 100 6.1a/b The multiple places of Helena’s and Fátima’s life narratives 183 6.2 Lúcia’s homeplaces after the war 189 6.3a/b City of Lichinga/central bairros of Lichinga 206 Figures 0.1 Orienting 1 2.1a/b Masculine and feminine styles 84 2.1c/d Masculine and feminine styles 85 3.1 The “historical locale” of Base Beira in N’kalapa, Mavago 100 3.2 Retracing old footsteps and making new paths in Mavago 102 3.3 Deadly fruits 109 I.1 Rice harvest time in Macaloge 125 5.1 Tomb of Ce-N’tamila II 132 6.1a/b No street lights are needed/appreciating the fresh air after the rain 186 6.2a/b Undesirable landscape in Macaloge/desirable rhythms of homeplace 195 Acknowledgments Doing and writing this research has been a long and winding journey,and I wish to thank the many people who in different places and at different moments of this project have offered support and encouragement. My sincerest gratitude goes to everyone who participated in the research and so generously shared their time, ideas, and experiences with me. I especially thank all the members of the female detachment (DFs) for their engagement in the project. I also thank my Yaawo language research assistant Bernardo Aubi Silajo for his invaluable help and his whole family in Lichinga for their embracing hospitality and friendship. Moreover, I extend my deepest gratitude to my co-interviewer Helena Baide for her untiring support and dedication to this research and for teaching me so much during our travels around northern Niassa. The book developed out of my doctoral dissertation in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, and I am greatly indebted to Axel Fleisch, Tuija Saresma, and Isabel Maria Casimiro for their encouragement and critical feedback and, especially, for allowing me the freedom and space to think creatively beyond disciplinary boundaries. I also owe a very special thank you to Signe Arnfred, Inge Brinkman, Gerhard Liesegang, and Kathleen Sheldon for their careful and insightful reading of an earlier version of the manuscript. Throughout this research project, I have been inspired, challenged, guided, sup ported, and shown kindness by numerous people in so many different ways. I thank, especially, Henni Alava, Lotta Aunio, Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Liazzat J. K. Bonate, Jan Van den Broeck, Catarina Costa, Lotta Gammelin, Viveca Heden gren, Tobias and Heather Houston, Victor Igreja, Paulo Israel, Lena Kalmelid, Kalle Kananoja, Liisa Korkalo, Ana Leão, Gun Lindberg and Per-Olof Nilsson, Virginia Mariezcurrena, Cubilas Messope, Emilia Miettinen, Lúcia Mustaffa, Geraldina Valerio Mwito, Anu Mäkinen, Armindo Ngunga, Humberto Osse mane, Ritva Parviainen, Pekka Peltola, José Alberto Raimundo, Janne Rantala, Teija Rantala, Thera Crane Ringhofer, Alda Saúte Saide, Nyellett Sarea, Ana Santos Silva, Annika Teppo, Minna Tuominen, and Benigna Zimba. During the very final stage of this manuscript, I began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University, and I thank my colleagues there for their support. Acknowledgments xi The Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA) at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) served as my institutional home in Mozambique, and I thank the staff and faculty for all their support. My research was facilitated by the Centro de Pesquisa da História da Luta de Libertação Nacional at the Ministry of Combat ants and the Association of the Former Combatants of the Liberation Struggle (Associação dos Combatentes da Luta de Libertação Nacional, ACLLN), and I sincerely thank everyone for their very generous hospitality and assistance in Maputo and Lichinga, as well as the districts of Mavago, Muembe, Sanga, Majune, and Lago. This research would not have been possible without the financial support of several institutions. I sincerely thank the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund, the Nordic Africa Institute, and the University of Helsinki. Finally, I thank all my friends and my family for their support and loving care. I especially thank Bartosz Kopczyński for being there through thick and thin, for taking me on excursions to the forest, and for always encouraging, listening, and believing. Some material in this book was originally published elsewhere. I wish to thank the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material: The Oral History Society for short passages from Jonna Katto.“Emotions in Protest: Unset tling the Past in Ex-Combatants’ Personal Accounts in Northern Mozambique,” Oral History 46, no. 2 (2018): 53–62. Hurst & Co. Publishers for the map “Areas of operation of Mozambique concession compa nies” in Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique (London: Hurst and Company, 1994),366. The Regents of the University of California for the map “The East African region” in Edward A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves: Changing Pattern of International Trade in East Central Africa to the Later Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).