CCWH Prelinger Award Winner

KATHLEEN SHELDON (1999)

Kathleen Sheldon is an independent scholar affiliated with the UCLA Center for the Study of Women in Los Angeles, California. Sheldon will use her award to complete a history of women in Mozambique, which is titled Pounders of Beans: Women, Work and Ideology in Mozambique, 1850 to the 1990s. In this history of women, work, and politics, Sheldon uses local gender ideologies and practices as a starting point to address layers of Portuguese colonial conservatism, independent Mozambique's socialism, and the current position of women in a free-market democratic society. In completing this manuscript, she has set two goals: to bring together information on women in Mozambique, who have suffered intensely yet accomplished much over the decades, and in so doing, have set examples as innovative activists despite the difficulties in their lives. Sheldon also plans this book for use in undergraduate classrooms.

Sheldon began her research on Mozambique in the 1980s only to face problems when the United States broke off relations with that country. Committed to her work, Sheldon and her family, including her fifteen-month old daughter, traveled to Mozambique to find themselves caught in the early stages of an escalating war. With no official recognition as a researcher and no funding, she conducted research for two years under the cacophony of war. She and her family faced food shortages, electric power cuts, and health and safety hazards daily, but despite these and many other obstacles, she managed to collect the data needed to complete a dissertation.

Her interest in Mozambique has not been limited to research. She returned to Mozambique in 1989 as a consultant on women for the U. S. Agency for International Development, and in 1994 as a member of the team of United Nations observers at the first multi-party election. She has published in Signs, Women's Studies International Forum, and History in Africa, edited a text entitled Courtyards, Markets, City Streets: Urban Women in Africa, and is also working on a reader on African women's history. She has served on the Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association, and been a research associate on the Marcus Garvey Papers Project. Her social activism includes service on the Santa Monica Women's Commission on the Status of Women.

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The Coordinating Council for Women in History, an organization for women in the historical profession, is committee to exploring the diverse experiences and histories of all women. Its primary goals are to educate men and women on the status of women in the historical profession and to promote research and interpretation in the areas of women’s history.

Information about the Prelinger Prize and other CCWH awards is available here.