Book
Women's Voices in a Man's World (1999) by Lidwien Kapteijns: women in northern Somali oral literature
Women's Voices in a Man's World: Women and the Pastoral Tradition in Northern Somali Orature, c. 1899-1980 is a 1999 book by the historian Lidwien Kapteijns, written with Maryan Omar Ali and published by Heinemann. Drawing on a century of oral poetry and popular songs from northern Somalia, it asks what these texts reveal about women and relations between men and women, and how they present 'tradition', first in the colonial period and then in modern love songs.
Women's Voices in a Man's World
- Author
- Lidwien Kapteijns with Maryan Omar Ali
- Year
- 1999
- Publisher
- Heinemann
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780325001364
- Sources
- 6 sources
The book
Women's Voices in a Man's World: Women and the Pastoral Tradition in Northern Somali Orature, c. 1899-1980 is by Lidwien Kapteijns, professor of history at Wellesley College, written with Maryan Omar Ali. It was published by Heinemann in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in September 1999, with xiv and 224 pages, in hardback and paperback (Harvard Book Store; Journal of African History review listing).
What it studies
The book is a study of Somali society through its oral literature, which it calls orature: poems, sayings and songs composed and passed on by voice. It asks two questions (Harvard Book Store):
- What do Somali oral texts reveal about women and about relations between women and men?
- How do these texts present "tradition" and cultural authenticity, especially where they affect women?
Within the large body of Somali orature, Kapteijns picks out texts voiced by women across about a century, from the start of the Dervish period to 1980 (Research in African Literatures review). See Somali poetry.
Its two parts
- The colonial period. The first part uses oral texts from the colonial era to build a critical picture of women's lives and of gender in northern Somali pastoral society.
- Modern love songs. The second part treats the popular love songs of the decades after independence as places where Somalis argued about women and about "tradition" (Harvard Book Store). See Somali music.
The publisher wrote that the book would introduce readers unfamiliar with Somali culture to its "wit and spirit", and that Somali readers would find it useful for reassessing received views of their own past and traditions (Harvard Book Store). The wider subject is on Women in Somali society.
How it was received
The book was reviewed in the Journal of African History, in Research in African Literatures (2002), and by the anthropologist Dorothy L. Hodgson in the International Journal of African Historical Studies (1999) (Journal of African History; Research in African Literatures; Brandeis ScholarWorks).
Where to read it
- Lending copy: Internet Archive
- In a library: WorldCat
Related pages
Sources
- Harvard Book Store · harvard.com
- Journal of African History review listing · cambridge.org
- Research in African Literatures review · muse.jhu.edu
- Brandeis ScholarWorks · scholarworks.brandeis.edu
- Internet Archive · archive.org
- WorldCat · search.worldcat.org
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Where this matters
- Boorama (Borama) and AwdalAwdal is the far north-west region, on the borders with Djibouti and Ethiopia, with Borama (Boorama) as its capital and about 300,000 to 636,000 people.
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Same era
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Keep reading
- Unraveling Somalia (1999) by Catherine Besteman: race, class and the Jubba valleyCatherine Besteman's Unraveling Somalia (1999): her fieldwork in the Jubba valley, her argument about race and class beyond clan, the Gosha farmers, and how reviewers read it.
- A Pastoral Democracy (1961) by I. M. Lewis: politics among the northern SomaliI. M. Lewis's A Pastoral Democracy (1961): his fieldwork in British Somaliland, the diya-paying group and lineage politics, its 1998 reissue, and how it shaped later writing about Somalis.
- Saints and Somalis (1998) by I. M. Lewis: popular Islam in a clan-based societyI. M. Lewis's Saints and Somalis (1998): its essays on Somali saints, Sufi orders and spirit possession, its argument about the cult of saints, and where to read it.
- Renewers of the Age (2008) by Scott S. Reese: Sufi scholars of the Benaadir coastScott S. Reese's Renewers of the Age (2008): its Arabic sources on the Benaadir ulama, its six chapters on Sufi leadership, crisis and the Qadiriyya, and Lidwien Kapteijns's review.
- Culture and Customs of Somalia (2001) by Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi: a guide to Somali daily lifeMohamed Diriye Abdullahi's Culture and Customs of Somalia (2001): who wrote it, what each chapter covers, from faith and poetry to food, dress, camels and music, and how it was reviewed.