Kwaio Women Speak: The Micropolitics of Autobiography in a Solomon Island Society

Abstract

Attempts to elicit women's autobiographies among the Kwaio (Malaita, Solomon Islands) yielded little, seemingly confirming views that women's voices in tribal societies are “muted,” women's views perspectival and partial. Further efforts yielded rich, insightful, self‐accounts from 15 Kwaio women. The historical, ethnographic, and sexual‐political contexts of these self‐accounts are examined. What women can and will say about themselves and their society can never, I conclude, be taken as direct evidence of what they know and don't know, or of “women's status.”