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Land and food, women and power, in nineteenth century Kikuyu1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Carolyn M. Clark
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Extract

It has only been in recent years that anthropologists have begun to investigate women as actors with resources important in the political field and to broaden the concept of political system to include the activites of women (see Collier, 1974 and Nelson, 1974 for another statement of the problem). The analysis of the political processes of the nineteenth century Kikuyu (Kenya) presented here lays the framework for the inclusion of women's subsistence activities and domestic decision making with the field of public or political relations.

Résumé

La terre et l'alimentation, les femmes et le pouvoir chez les Kikuyu au 19° siècle

La présente étude met en question deux hypothèses fondamentales de l'anthropologie: la notion qu'il existe, dans les systèmes d'horticulture simple, une division nette entre l'econonie de subsistance (horticulture et traitement des aliments) et l'économie de prestige ou politique; la deuxiéme hypothèse, que nous examinons ici, est que la femme se situe en marge de l'économie politique.

Or, en considérant le cas des Kikuyu au 19° siècle, nous mettons en lumière un modèle propre à leur système d'économie polïtique qui montre par quels processus les activités de production se sont avérées indissociables des rapports politiques. Le pouvoir du ‘grand homme’ kikuyu lui venait en partie de la place qu'il occupait au centre de l'organisation sociale de la main d'œuvre, mais la femme jouait un rôle capital dans le processus de consolidation du pouvoir et de l'influence qu'il était possible d'exercer hors des assembliés délibératives. En effet, une Kikuyu, épouse et mère, tout en assurant la subsistance de sa famille, avait la possibilité de convertir une certaine quantité des denrées qu'elle produisait en resources à caractère politique, afin de recruter des compagnons pour son mari. En revanche, lors des saisons de récoltes peu abondantes, elle pouvait refuser ce genre de prestation. L'autorité dont elle jouissait pour prendre et imposer de telles décisions, juxtaposée au pouvoir socio-économique de son mari—pouvoir qui permettait à celui-ci de prétendre à l'obéissance de son épouse—avait créé une intéressante dynamique de forces parfois génératrices de conflits et qui aboutissaient à des décisions affirmant tantōt l'autorité de la femme, tantôt celle du mari sur cette dernière.

Type
The Interdependence of Women and Men
Information
Africa , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 357 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1980

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