Embodied Engineering: Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali

This pioneering case study highlights how women in rural Mali have used technology to ensure food security, challenging the image of African women as subjects without technological knowledge or access. It demonstrates how women used modest technologies and organized female labor to create, maintain, and reengineer a complex and adaptive food production system, emphasizing the importance of womens embodied techniques and knowledge in transforming a development project into an environmental resource.

Format: Hardback
Length: 344 pages
Publication date: 03 August 2021
Publisher: Ohio University Press

This groundbreaking case study highlights the ingenuity and labor of African women in rural Mali, showcasing how they have utilized technology to secure food security throughout the colonial period, environmental crises, and postcolonial rule. By advocating for a recognition of rural Malian women as engineers, Laura Ann Twagira challenges the persistent portrayal of African women as subjects lacking technological knowledge or access. Instead, she unveils a concealed history of gender, development, and improvisation. Through her analysis of the Office du Niger agricultural project, Twagira demonstrates how women employed modest technologies, such as mortars and pestles or metal pots, alongside organized female labor, to establish, sustain, and reengineer a complex and highly adaptable food production system. While women often integrated labor-saving technologies into their work practices, they did not perceive their physical labor as the primary obstacle, as it is often portrayed in development narratives. Instead, women's embodied techniques and knowledge played a pivotal role in their ability to transform a development project focused on export production into an environmental resource that catered to local taste and consumption needs.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780821424414