The renown historian Basil Davidson was apt in his assertion that “if you had been living in the 1920s you would think that Africans would never again be free to run their own countries.” Davidson was not referring to Africans’ ability to organize politically. That was not in question. His assertion stemmed from the fact that by the 1920s, imperial grip on the continent appeared to be so firm that one could not imagine that in few decades the colonial project would collapse, and that European powers would be hurrying out of African states that they had masterfully designed as adjuncts of their metropoles. In the settler societies of East and Southern Africa, for instance, such “imperial grip” was expressed through stifling labor policies designed to control the movement of indigenous people within colonial boundaries. Scholars hold varying views on the nature of colonial rule, the impetus for decolonization, and the role of Africans in the colonial bureaucracy. One thing that they seem to agree on, however, is the common understanding that African mobility was the cornerstone of the colonial economy. The freedom to move within and across colonized landscapes and across occupational hierarchies struck at the heart of the colonial economy in some contexts, especially in settler societies where local communities were converted to ready pools of cheap labor through systematic land alienation and the demand for migrant labor in bourgeoning cities.
Women and men experienced this mobility crunch differently. While men were attracted to new opportunities in emerging industrial complexes across major cities and even promised fair wages and better treatment by colonial officials to encourage large influx of the much-needed migrant labor, African women faced a different but unique kind of mobility problem. They were not expected to be regular residents in the cities. Their place was in the village where they were expected to remain and contribute to household economies by fetching huge dowry for their fathers and male relatives and providing “the comforts of home” for their husbands when they returned from the city. They were restricted from crossing the imaginary – and sometimes actual lines – between their homesteads and the cities. Their presence in urban areas was considered a violation of official protocol on labor and migration in colonial Zimbabwe as Theresa Barnes has shown in her influential study of the gendered nature of colonial labor policies in the country. Barnes’ study illuminates the understated fact of women’s major challenge in colonial Africa – the struggle with patriarchy and its impact on female mobility.
The colonial state was a patriarchy headed by officials socialized in Victorian values. According to Judith van Allen, the Victorian concept of ideal womanhood refers to the view that a woman was a sensitive, morally superior being who was the hearthside guardian of Christian virtues and sentiments absent in the outside world. Her place was besides the man, and she must play second fiddle at home to maintain her place in society. Colonial Africa was varyingly patriarchal, and places like Barnes’ Zimbabwe fit the colonial expectations of male dominance. So, for women, colonialism meant navigating multiple layers of male-dominated power structures, both local and colonial. How did women respond to this phenomenon? Were they able to upset this status quo? Did they move to the cities against local and colonial gender codes? Were they successful if they did? What challenges did they encounter, and what opportunities did they exploit in the process? How did women’s mobility impact the colonial economy and household income in rural areas? The questions are unending. But they are critical in understanding the gendered nature of colonial labor policies and how women confronted them.
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