King Ahebi Ugbabe: Sex, Gender, and Power in Colonial Nigeria скачать в хорошем качестве

King Ahebi Ugbabe: Sex, Gender, and Power in Colonial Nigeria

http://www.digpodcast.org King Ahebi Ugbabe was unique among the men of Igboland in colonial Nigeria. There weren’t many kings in Igboland at all. But the infrequency of kingship is not what set Ugbabe apart: more importantly, in a world dominated by councils of old men, where political, social, economic, and spiritual roles were meted out in a complimentary but rigid dual-sex system, King Ahebi Ugbabe was a female who “became a man.” We know about Ahebi Ugbabe because of the work of historian Nwando Achebe, who found a reference to this female king in the records of British colonial administrators. Achebe points out that Ugbabe is anomalous; female kings weren’t common in West Africa by any means. But the fluidity of gender in Igbo society meant that females could perform typically male roles, both temporarily and permanently. Ugbabe successfully manipulated the loopholes and soft spots in the system to take on increasingly more powerful roles in her community, culminating in her position as eze. But as Achebe shows, Ugbabe also ultimately overstepped the boundaries of gender fluidity, and was knocked from power by the very colonial system she used to seize power in the first place.