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Conclusions: Theorizing and Strategizing about African Women and State Crisis Our case studies demonstrate that within transitional and crisis-ridden polities such asAfrican states, women's roles often display numerous contradictions , partially reflecting the disjuncture with other political, economic, and social processes.1 Because of the pressures that African women experience , they now seek to bring their domestic and public roles into some coherent alignment. It should not surprise us that this alignment emphasizes cultural approaches that they anticipate may empower women. Nor should it surprise us that most African governments have proven unable or unwilling to listen, although it is troubling. In general, African state leaders have resisted pressures to involve women in political decision making, partially because they reject the ideological premise of women's requests for public involvement.2 They reject the assumption that women have an objective right to participate in shaping public policies and processes—a right which, if ignored, fosters gender inequality and harms other aspects of local culture. Voicing a call for unity that transcends gender and the new "feminism ," most African politicians have either remained absorbed in other problems and interests of the state, or assumed an adversarial stance toward women. The focus on state interests above local and gender interests not only alienates the public and contributes to active avoidance of state control, but it also contributes to women's skepticism about the state and national politics .3 Glazer's chapter shows how easily Zambian male politicians reinterpreted women's economic activities to be negative, primitive, and illegal when it suited their interests. In the political arena, African women are aware that in adopting Western forms that emphasize patriarchal control, male leaders have moved away from legitimate cultural models that would Gwendolyn Mikell have allowed more female inclusion. Emphasizing state interests becomes a way of ignoring the ideological models that support women's arguments, and it allows the gender differentials of the numerous state crises to continue to disproportionately affect women, children, and local communities. All these contradictions, many of which come through in the case studies, advance our understanding of how intricately interwoven are issues of global, national, and local politicswith models of gender relations. These case studies also show us African women's perceptions of the myriad issues that confront them, and reveal women's understanding that these problems derive notjust from patriarchal positions taken bymen, but partially from a nationalist stance taken by state leaders faced with hegemonic global demands. In many cases, women differ with male leaders on what the appropriate stance should be, although they would be no less nationalistic if they were policymakers themselves. By examining what the women in these case studies are saying about significant issues of gender and state, we stand to learn much: we can glean important insights into sociopolitical dynamics of the present period, we can begin to shape a more sophisticated methodology and analytical framework for the integration of gender into sociopolitical analysis, and we can identify new areas for further research. To date, we have used much of the basic information that came out of early anthropological studies on African women within culture, but wehave often refused to integrate that into our analytical models. Some earlier promising analyses have been the outcome of syntheses between gender and feminist theory on the one hand, and concerns with class and state political economy on the other—particularly the feminist scholarship on women's historical and contemporary roles in production and reproduction .4 Yetthese have not gone far enough in integrating indigenous realities and behavior into an analytical model because Westernwritershave not had in-depth field experience or the long-standing lived experiences that would inform their interpretations of African patriarchy. We have often overlooked women's "local knowledge," something that can only be obtained by methodologies that emphasize ongoing field studies, often using indigenous researchers. In overlooking local knowledge,we have left unaddressed the important relationships between local cultural dynamics and gender ideology, as well as African models of state politics and gender interests. This collection seeks to correct some of these oversights and to investigate some of these important epistemological intersections. One central question that educated African women sometimes verbalize, and that scholars have debated, is why the African state has encountered such deep and persisting problems. Are these structural problems, or problems of misguided processes and groups? Following Skocpol's (1979) lead, many theorists went back to consider whether problems in state organizations or in the component groups...

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