Rumour and Innuendo Witchcraft and Women’s Power in the ‘Colonised’ State

Abstract

Women’s voices and actions resonate throughout the African colonial archives, on which this research is based, ever evolving, articulating and resonating in contemporary manifestations of spirituality. This article applies the inside/outsider analogy employed by Trinh Minh Ha in the analysis of both colonial and postcolonial gender relations and demonstrate that irrespective of the ‘location’ of women as the ‘native other’ they were able to have a voice and command respect (Minh Ha 1997). The marginalization of women first by the colonial western outsiders and second by the, usually, male insiders of their ethnic group and cultural communities leaves them as Minh Ha would say ‘not quite insiders and not quite outsiders’(Minh Ha 1997: p. 418). Not voiceless, not powerless but located outside of hub of institutional power women were able to subvert, challenge and resist.