Memory of place, the place of memory: Women's narrations of late colonial Lourenco Marques, Mozambique

This dissertation is an analysis of the relations between memory, place, and gender in the narrations of African women about the city of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique, during the late colonial period. It examines the oral histories of forty African women. They are not, however, treated as sources for the construction of an historical narrative, but rather as representations and memories of the colonial occupation of Mozambique and its capital city. This study considers how these oral historians represent Portuguese occupation in the present and examines the role of place in constructing memory, of memory in constructing place, and how these processes are gendered. The dissertation argues that the urban landscape is, like monuments and monumental architecture, a significant site of memory of colonialism and that it not only sparks memory, but also is constantly manipulated to shape it. It goes on to look at the relationships between the past, memory, and identities and, ultimately, how this is tied to structures of power. This study engages with the extensive literatures on memory, space and place, history and memory, oral history, and the interaction of gender, class, and race with all of these. It synthesizes and uses them to examine African women's representations of colonial Lourenço Marques.