Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction, and the State in Kenya
In more than a metaphorical sense, the womb has proven to be an important site of political struggle in and about Africa. By examining the political significance--and complex ramifications--of reproductive controversies in twentieth-century Kenya, this book explores why and how control of female initiation, abortion, childbirth, and premarital pregnancy have been crucial to the exercise of colonial and postcolonial power. This innovative book enriches the study of gender, reproduction,...
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"In Thomas's skilled hands, and in her unabashed love of story-telling, intimate events in Kenya help us think more clearly and more critically about Africa in the twentieth century. The politics of the womb are at the core of the colonial experience and of colonial politics. . .. Africans struggled amongst themselves over the regulation of reproduction, and these layers of intimate strife, and the policies and protests emanating from London and mission hospitals and African homesteads, give us something we haven't had before— a gendered and transnational colonial history."—Luise White, author of Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa
AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsMapsIntroduction11Imperial Populations and "Women's Affairs"212Colonial Uplift and Girl-Midwives523Mau Mau and the Girls Who "Circumcised Themselves"794Late Colonial Customs and Wayward Schoolgirls1035Postcolonial Nationalism and "Modern" Single Mothers135Conclusion173Notes187Bibliography235Index289
