With a recent coup in Mali and the creation of the new nation of South Sudan, along with multiple contested elections and ongoing civil conflicts throughout the continent, democracy remains fragile and volatile in many parts of Africa; as such, there is an urgent need for scholars, policy makers, NGOs, and other citizens to unpack the tangled webs of power that inform its complexities on the ground. Serving this end, Lisa Gilman’s intimate account of female dancing at political rallies in Malawi offers a deeply nuanced analysis of the relationship between gender, performance, and political democracy. Teeming with ethnographic richness, her work contributes to a growing literature that explores the (musical and dance) performance of politics and nationalism in postcolonial Africa (e.g., Kelly Askew, Thomas Turino, Marissa Moorman, and Bob White). Moreover, augmenting the scholarly critique of “big man” political history in Africa, which has led, in part, to the growing attention to women’s roles in the political process, this study particularly propels larger conversations regarding the “use of women’s performative bodies across the continent” (11).
Gilman’s theoretical framework, which merges aspects of performance studies, folklore, anthropology, political science, history, and gender studies, clearly illustrates the benefits of interdisciplinarity. Her narrative is multidimensional, including interviews from several sectors of Malawian society (politicians, dancers, NGO workers, public officials), displaying the author’s agility to draw together diverse layers of discourse from local, national, and international levels. Circumventing the insular intellectual pedantry that pervades much of African dance scholarship, Gilman laudably examines women’s political dancing in relation to larger discourses on African modernity, democracy, political performance, gender, economy, development, human/civil rights, and postcoloniality. Avoiding a reification of an ethnographic present, Gilman supplements her first-hand fieldwork (conducted from the early 1990s through the early 2000s) with a chronology of women’s political dancing in Malawi, elucidating its continuities and changes from the colonial era through Banda’s autocratic reign (1964-1994) to the more recent shift to a multiparty electoral system.
After a concise and well-written introduction, Gilman’s second chapter explores the ways in which political activists harnessed local Malawian dances in an attempt to galvanize the population against British rule. Focusing on women’s praise-singing traditions, this chapter not only succeeds in shedding new light on the role of women during Malawi’s struggle for autonomy, but also foreshadows and situates Gilman’s subsequent discussion of praise song in postcolonial political rallies. She shows women’s dancing to be a powerful tool for creating the emotionality necessary to engender trans-ethnic unity and political solidarity. Overall, this chapter examines the historical antecedents that inform her more detailed discussion of later periods; primarily, she highlights the continuities between the practices of women’s political dancing during the colonial and post-colonial eras, problematizing such well-worn historical periodization.
Chapter 3 explores the ways in which Banda “hijacked” women’s bodies, forcing them to dance against their will in order to legitimize his power and that of the Malawian state. Thus, dance is shown to be a powerful weapon for social control as well as a vital instrument for ensuring the political viability of the nation. Gilman details how Banda essentialized women and their political views as they became the embodiment of “the traditional.” Nuancing this overarching oppressive situation, the author briefly explores instances of subtle female resistance through dance, highlighting cracks in the national façade that would later burst open, contributing to the end of the Banda regime.
Picking up at the beginning of the 1990s, chapter 4 articulates how women’s political dancing and praise singing helped propel Malawi on a path to multiparty democracy. For example, Gilman explores several instances in which women subversively manipulated song texts, criticizing Banda with the very songs that were once used to praise him. Women’s performances are shown to be a central issue in the movement to a multiparty democracy as candidates campaigned to end this mandatory practice. With the election of Bakili Muluzi in 1994, Gilman notes that the practice did decline. However, subsequently women were urged to participate in rallies. Although participation was voluntary, women were enticed by politicians who offered gifts of cloth and money. Gilman instructively links such gift-giving practices to long-standing local traditions of patronage, highlighting the ways in which patron-client relationships shape African democracy.
Narrowing her focus to a single political rally in 1999, the following chapter illustrates the negotiations of power that pervade such events. Gilman elucidates a dialogical power dynamic, examining both the ways in which politicians harness women’s dancing and singing to build support as well as the converse ways women interpret political rhetoric and symbols, shaping them to suit their interests and molding them to their advantage. In so doing, the author foregrounds the ability of these women to reclaim some degree of agency over a political system that continually marginalizes their voices. Here, Gilman’s background in folklore and performance studies shines through as she offers a thought-provoking analysis of genre and intertextuality (a la Richard Bauman and Bakhtin) within the process of constructing and framing these political performances. While detailing the emergent trajectory of political rallies, Gilman also offers a productive critique of Malawian development policy and its implementation (or lack thereof).
Subsequently, Gilman explores the question: why do women dance? By examining women’s range of motivations, she articulates a nuanced approach to the academic discourse on resistance. Focusing on the social inequities and debates surrounding political dancing in Malawi, she analyzes the rhetoric of “traditionality,” illustrating the ways it is deployed to perpetuate this practice in the face of criticism. Because international human rights organizations have participated in such debates over gender inequities, her text is able to show the limitations and ideological blindness of their abstract approach as they often fail to take into account the voices and experiences of Malawian women themselves. Growing out of a careful ethnography, Gilman’s contention is that there are “multiple agencies” at work, which resist hegemony in various ways according to the uniqueness of an individual’s situation.
The penultimate chapter examines the relationship between women’s political dancing and the status of women more broadly in Malawi. Here, Gilman uncovers the discourse of “maternalism,” which helps to reproduce the patronage model of politics. With her incisive understanding of local politics she is able to point to problematic ways in which NGOs have approached the empowerment of women. She urges NGOs to focus more attention on the status of women within the political party system in conjunction with their continuing efforts to create outward visibility for Malawian women as government representatives.
Lastly, she returns to her ongoing investigation into the discourse of traditionality and “culture,” exploring how these two combine to maintain women’s political dancing in Malawi. Ultimately, she concludes that “women’s political dancing is an effective and culturally empowering avenue for political participation at the same time that it perpetuates the political marginalization of poor women” (24).
In all, Gilman demonstrates a remarkable grasp of the subtleties and complexities surrounding women’s political dancing in Malawi, illustrating the intricate webs of power at work. Readers will appreciate not only her lucid prose and ethnographic detail, but also her ability to place her research in its appropriate historical context and connect it to larger issues in African studies. This book should appeal to scholars, but should equally be read by members of NGOs, human rights groups, and politicians who wish to further their knowledge of gender inequities and democracy in Africa.
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[Review length: 1230 words • Review posted on April 23, 2012]