Beyond the Battlefield: Women and the Nation in Twentieth-Century Angola (War and Militarism in African History)

Beyond the Battlefield offers a critical reappraisal of Angola’s nationalist history by centering the experiences and political agency of women during the country’s transition from Portuguese colonial rule to independence.Challenging dominant masculinist narratives that equate anticolonial resistance with armed combat, this study introduces maternalist nationalism as a theoretical framework to illuminate how women engaged in nation building through often-overlooked forms of labor and activism. While men were largely visible on the battlefield, women fought a parallel struggle on the home front-mobilizing care work, reproductive labor, and political engagement in ways that were essential to the liberation movement and the postindependence state.Drawing on archival sources and women’s testimonies, Makana explores how patriotic motherhood - a concept defined as the fusion of nationalist politics with gendered expectations of women’s roles-enabled women to see themselves as vital contribut