Times Told, Lived, and Remembered: The Multitemporality of the Present in Yaawo Oral Histories of Gendered Power in Northern Mozambique

Abstract

This article explores how multiple gendered times are brought to bear on the present in Yaawo oral history-telling about female leaders and gendered power in a more distant past. The dominant research narratives about gender and power in Africa still often take the shape of unfolding stories of time in which the past is separated from the present. This epistemic imperative of progression also shapes the way that what is termed the ‘precolonial past’ (and especially oral traditions) is often approached as a separate, self-contained area of study. In this article, I turn to oral history to search for female figures of authority in a more distant past. Yet my aim is not merely to add women to the dominant (often masculinized) narratives of power. Rather, building on the idea that “temporality is gendered, and gendering is temporal” (Schèues et al. 2011), I seek to explore how the relationship between gender and temporality is constructed in oral history-telling. This approach, I argue, can help shed light on the past as well as the present, and on the gendered processes of change in women’s authority and leadership. My analysis focuses on the temporal gesturing that takes place in interview situations, and on the ways that the narrators (intentionally and unintentionally) pull different kinds of gendered temporalities into action in the present. Most importantly, this analytical engagement shows the inherent instability of gendered temporality. It shows how time is continuously (re)categorized and (re)organized – and the relationship between gender and temporality continuously (re)constructed – in each present moment of history-telling. I suggest that this kind of analytical engagement can accommodate a more complex understanding of historical time and thus allow for a fuller history of gender and power. Moreover, focusing specifically on Yaawo oral history-telling, this analysis offers us a more nuanced insight into the changing gendered times in a northern Mozambican landscape.

Keywords

• multitemporality
• non-linear history
• gendered time
• oral history
• women leaders