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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Production, Property, Prostitution: Sexual Politics in Atu
Author:Bujra, Janet M.ISNI
Year:1977
Periodical:Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:17
Issue:65
Pages:13-39
Language:English
Geographic term:Kenya
Subjects:prostitution
Women's Issues
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1977.2491
Abstract:'Sexual politics' is used here not so much in the sense appropriated by K. Millett (whose study concerns itself mainly with the cultural weapon developed by men to assert male dominance and to denigrate and restrict women to passive and subordinate roles), but is more concerned with 'institutional weapons' forged by women to enlarge their freedom of social manoeuvre, and with the extent to which these are effective. Explored here is one instance where male-female relationships are overtly antagonistic; suggested is that this has its basis in the local political economy and in the dialectical relationship of that economy with broader patterns of changing political and economic power. Atu (a fictional name) is one, populous, of a group of villages on a remote island lying off the northern coasts of Kenya, mainly occupied by Swahili-speaking Muslims. Attempted is to give an understanding of how prostitution is accommodated within the local socio-economic context of Atu, but also to suggest to what extent it is a response, within a wider perspective of historical trends, to the changing politico-economic realities facing this area. Notes, French summary.
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