Elasticity in Domesticity: White Women in Rhodesian Zimbabwe, 1890-1979

Book excerpt: In Elasticity in Domesticity: White women in Rhodesian Zimbabwe, 1890-1979 Ushehwedu Kufakurinani examines the colonial experiences of white women in what was later called Rhodesia. He demonstrates the extent to which the state and society appropriated white women’s labour power and the workings of the domestic ideology in shaping white women’s experiences. The author also discusses how and to what extent white women appropriated and deployed the domestic ideology. Institutional as well as personal archives were consulted which include official correspondence, diaries, personal letters, newsletters, magazines, commissions of inquiry, among other sources.