Accord<strong>in</strong>g to Swai, these knowledges make themselves available <strong>for</strong> both transcend<strong>in</strong>g and reproduc<strong>in</strong>g women’s current socialposion.Beyond Women’s Empowerment <strong>in</strong> Africa is a richly detailed argument <strong>for</strong> reconsider<strong>in</strong>g what we, as scholars and as acvists,mean by “women’s empowerment.” Rather than tak<strong>in</strong>g economic, social, and educaonal <strong>in</strong>tervenon <strong>in</strong>iaves at face value,Swai <strong>in</strong>terrogates these programs <strong>for</strong> their complexies to underscore how outside <strong>in</strong>tervenons are never just imposed; theyalways meet local pracces to produce un<strong>in</strong>tended consequences. By comb<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g archival and ethnographic material, Swai showswhat “women’s empowerment” means to various actors <strong>in</strong> variegated sites and queries its putave benefits. Swai comb<strong>in</strong>es the<strong>in</strong>sights of western social theorists (e.g. Foucault, Bourdieu, and Vygotsky) with those of African and Africanist fem<strong>in</strong>ists (e.g.Hunt, Kanogo, Oyewumi) to produce an argument equally <strong>in</strong>fluenced by fem<strong>in</strong>ist and sociological theory. As such, this text will beof <strong>in</strong>terest to those <strong>in</strong> many fields <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g development studies, gender studies, and African studies.Throughout the text, Swai is also refresh<strong>in</strong>gly self-reflexive, which is especially important given her own subject-posion as aneducated Tanzanian woman gives her paradoxically both great closeness to and an impassable distance from her <strong>in</strong><strong>for</strong>mants.In this way, she pays homage to the fem<strong>in</strong>ist <strong>in</strong>sistence that one must situate herself <strong>in</strong> order to tell the most authenc story.In Swai’s own words: “The strength of this endeavor is to help us understand that ‘African woman’ is a cultural-historicalconstrucon, which scholars have taken as truthful and real” (11).ReferencesAllman, Jean, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, Eds. (2002). Women <strong>in</strong> African Colonial Histories. Bloom<strong>in</strong>gton: Indiana University Press.Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff (1991). Of Revoluon and Revelaon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Gilligan, Carol (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Hodgson, Dorothy (2005). The Church of Women: <strong>Gender</strong>ed Encounters between Maasai and Missionaries. Bloom<strong>in</strong>gton: Indiana UniversityPress.Hunt, Nancy Rose (1990). “Domescity and Colonialism <strong>in</strong> Belgian Africa: Usumbura’s Foyer Social, 1946-1960.” Signs 15(3): 447-74. Spr<strong>in</strong>g.Kanogo, Tabitha (2005). African Womanhood <strong>in</strong> Colonial Kenya 1900-1950. Athens: Ohio University Press.Odora-Hoppers, Cather<strong>in</strong>e, Ed. (2002). Indigenous Knowledge and the Integraon of Knowledge Systems: Towards a Philosophy ofArculaon. Claremonth, South Africa: New Africa Educaon.Oyewumi, Oyeronke (2003). “Abiyamo: Theoriz<strong>in</strong>g African Motherhood.” Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women’s Studies (4).Thomas, Lynn (2003). Polics of the Womb: Women, Reproducon, and the State <strong>in</strong> Kenya. Berkeley: University of Cali<strong>for</strong>nia Press.BOOK REVIEW29
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