The “Bargains” of African Women’s Cooperation

Abstract

Grounded in a wide range of empirical examples from Mozambique, Angola, Western Sahara, and Equatorial Guinea, this chapter analyzes the complex modalities of so-called indigenous cooperation and collaboration within imperial formations. In particular, the exploration of a set of personal letters from Guinean teenagers and women enrolled at educational facilities in Spain offers new insights into the hitherto unknown self-understanding of a female cooperative elite in its process of formation during a significant historical period: the years before and after Equatorial Guinea gained independence in October 1968. By unpacking the process of forming a subordinated African female elite in the Iberian empires, this chapter not only highlights the ambiguous in-between spaces beyond the binary, black-and-white views on “collaboration” and “resistance.” It also shifts the focus to actors that all too often have been ignored: local women.