Texts on Swahili cultural artefacts in Tanzania and the representation of women’s voice (original) (raw)
Related papers
Imaging the Woman through Tanzanian Women’s Maxims
Journal of international women's studies, 2018
Women’s maxims, as well as other forms of oral literature in Tanzania, are a popular genre. They are verbal arts that can be self-addressed or addressed to a fellow woman among womenfolk. This paper intends to examine the role of these maxims in imaging women in Tanzania. This study was prompted by the findings of previous studies regarding the portrayal of women in Kiswahili3 literature where, generally, women are depicted as inferior beings compared to men, partly due to the fact that most authors are men. Hence, we found it imperative to investigate women’s maxims that are created and uttered by women themselves. The study was also prompted by other studies worldwide on language and gender. The questions to be addressed in this paper are: What is generally portrayed in such maxims? Why do women create, use and perpetuate such maxims? How do women consider themselves in relation to men? The data of this study was collected in Dar es Salaam through interviews and observation techni...
Feminist discourses on utu and heshima in selected works by Tanzanian women writers
2022
'My Honor' by Penina Muhando Mlama) and a novel (Mungu Hakopeshwi 'God Doesn't Borrow Time' by Zainab Alwi Baharoon). Applying feminist critical analysis, Izabela Romańczuk argues that the two works by Tanzanian women writers reconstruct the discourse on key moral concepts of Swahili ethics: utu (humanity, morality) and heshima (honor, respect, dignity). The Author shows how these concepts are intertwined with socio-cultural constructions of gender and patriarchal order, as well as with class hierarchies. The following text likewise touches upon literary issues, this time from the perspective of the lexicon characteristic of traditional Swahili poetry. Thomas J. Hinnebusch presents a report on a digitized, web-based project conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, devoted to documenting the vocabulary used in the canon of classical Swahili poetry. The database contains a glossary, textual citations, bibliographic notes on Swahili poets, information on Swahili poetry, including annotated references, and other useful data. The Author's discussion of this ongoing project provides not only its detailed description but also encouragement for anyone interested in continuing the work. The subsequent two articles focus on specific aspects of the Swahili language usage. Beata Wójtowicz looks at the recent problem of the coronavirus pandemic and the terminological challenges associated with it. A list of COVID-19-related terms proposed by the Tanzanian National Kiswahili Council (BAKITA) is discussed and contrasted with the lexicon used in Swahili-language Kenyan and Tanzanian journalistic texts. After analyzing selected keywords and collocations, the Author finds a number of discrepancies between the official recommendations and actual language usage.
The Swahili language became one of the cornerstones of the project of creating a Tanzanian national consciousness. At the same time, however, “traditional” and frequently ethnic cultural systems are brought into play by expressive artists in order to renegotiate senses of identity and to record, display, and debate the ways in which apparently traditional and non-traditional practices of power perpetrate traumatizing violence in communities where they are carried out. Euphrase Kezilahabi and Saida Karoli are two artists whose works, created in different media, provide compelling commentaries on the role of systems of authoritative force and how their deployment has and continues to promulgate traumatic memories in both perpetrators and victims.
Over centuries the history of women representation in media is a plethora of stereotypes and stigmatisation. Findings from studies confirm that media do produce and reproduce ways of seeing our culture. In this light, this study sets out to critically analyse the representation of women in selected Tanzanian newspapers. The study particularly interrogates ways in which media discourse serves as avenue to construct women gendered stereotypes and stigmatisation to the community. Two selected newspapers namely, Ijumaa and HabariLeo were analysed through Critical Discourse Analysis and Semiotics Frameworks. Through analysis and interpretations of the selected newspapers it can be argued women representation is ideologically representative of the existing power relations that affects the women subgroup in the Tanzanian society. Thus, women representation in the selected newspaper is ascribed with gendered stereotyped and appendage roles compared to their counterparts to appeal men consumers and those with male-defined interest. However, with increasing efforts to impart awareness on equality and women rights today significant progress in ascribing women with positive roles is underway in the same way to appeal taste of the consumers of the service and products.
UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2018
Feminist writers have over the years portrayed patriarchy as the major and real source of female exploitation and subjugation and have highlighted the concept in their creative works. African female experiences, problems and yearnings are examined through the female character in the selected literary texts. Certain practices in the various cultural milieus, which not only demean women but also debar them from having a say in the daily affairs of the society are also exposed. The study interrogated some oppressive forces that marginalize women to determine if the factors are only inter gender. The paper revealed at the end of the study that truly women are subjected to discrimination, oppression and humiliation all through their lives and that these are both inter-gender and intra-gender. Patriarchy, as generally accepted, is not the sole source of female oppression because women seem to suffer oppression in the hands of fellow women especially in the African cultural milieu. The study employed the theories of Focu feminism, Snail Sense Feminism and Womanism in critical evaluations. To make adequate judgements, critical opinions of some scholars were reviewed. The study recommends love and empathy amongst women. It concludes that the oppression of women by the male gender will greatly be countered by women's collective activism, which can only be possible when they close ranks and unite.
Journal of Pragmatics, 2021
In this study, we compare gendered proverbs in the Akan society of Ghana and Swahili society of Tanzania, focusing on convergences and divergences in their worldviews on conceptualisation of gender roles and functions. Our analyses of data from written and oral sources within the theoretical concepts of gender ideology and intertextuality establish that largely, gendered proverbs in Akan and Swahili are convergent and express similar gender ideologies. Gendered proverbs in the two societies typically refer to females, and even when they mention males, they often critically expose the subjugation of women in relation to male superiority. The main divergent feature between gendered proverbs in Akan and Swahili societies is the perception of females as sex objects and the use of explicit expressions of sex organs and sexual acts by Akan proverbs. In contrast, Swahili gendered proverbs rarely address sexuality, and when they do, they do so discreetly by implication.
Gender is not a straightforward concept to research and write about, not least because it is so wide-ranging. In terms of language use-which is what this collection is concerned with-gender pertains to both talk and written text. Conceptually, we can talk about gender relations, gender identities and gendered practices, always remembering that gender and sexuality are closely related. And while the term gender is often used in relation to the social construction of female and male people, it may be more useful to see gender as a set of ideas, i.e. what is thought, said and written about women, men, girls and boys: what they are like and do, what they should be like and should do. These ideas are often expressed through gendered discourses. Such ideas are, of course, highly contingent: they vary with context. The broad geographical context in question here is sub-Saharan Africa, although this consists of a huge diversity of smaller, shifting contexts and Communities of Practice. Sub-Saharan Africa is an important epistemological site for the study of language and gender: while gender is relevant across the globe, empirical studies of gender and language have to date been carried out largely in the USA, Canada, Australasia and Europe, the 'global North'. While this imbalance is changing, but published sociolinguistic and discourse analytical work on gender and language in relation to African contexts remains scarce and scattered. It is, however, by no means non-existent, as contributions to seminars on the topic (see below) and our 'Gender, sexuality and language in African contexts' Bibliography (pp. 317-325) show. Internationally-published contributions to the gender, language and sexuality field include those from