Fugitive Queens: Amakhosikazi and the Continuous Evolution of Gender and Power in KwaZulu-Natal (1816-1889)
| dc.contributor.author | Morrissey, Caellagh | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2016-10-20T16:53:00Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2016-10-20T16:53:00Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2015-12 | |
| dc.description | 165 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of History and International Studies and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Winter 2015. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Amakhosikazi (elite women) played a vital role within the social, economic, and political reality of the Zulu pre-colonial state. However, histories have largely categorized them as accessory to the lives of powerful men. Through close readings of oral traditions, travelogues, and government documentation, this paper discusses the spaces in which the amakhosikazi exhibited power, and tracks changes in the social position of queen mothers, as well as some members of related groups of elite women, from the early years of the Zulu chiefdom in the 1750s up until the 1887 annexation by Britain and their crucial intervention in royal matters in 1889. The amakhosika=i can be seen operating in a complex social space wherein individual women accessed power through association to political clans, biological and economic reproduction, manipulation, and spiritual influence. Women's access to male power sources changed through both internal political shifts and external pressures. but generally increased in the first half of the 1800s, and the declined over time and with the fracturing of Zulu hegemony. As a result. elite women became marginalized in both Zulu and colonial political structures. This study raises questions about the character of women's shared experiences, and those of other categories of women within the Zulu polity. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/20341 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | en_US |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | University of Oregon theses, Dept. of History and International Studies, Honors College, B.A., 2015; | |
| dc.rights | Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-US | en_US |
| dc.subject | History | en_US |
| dc.subject | African Tribes | en_US |
| dc.subject | Amakhosikazi | en_US |
| dc.subject | Zulu | en_US |
| dc.subject | Pre-colonial South Africa | en_US |
| dc.subject | Queen Mothers | en_US |
| dc.subject | African History | en_US |
| dc.subject | Natal | en_US |
| dc.subject | Matriarchy | en_US |
| dc.title | Fugitive Queens: Amakhosikazi and the Continuous Evolution of Gender and Power in KwaZulu-Natal (1816-1889) | en_US |