Beyond the Battlefield: Women and the Nation in Twentieth-Century Angola

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 contributors to the nation’s future.

This study contributes to scholarship in African history, gender studies, and postcolonial theory by offering a nuanced account of the intersections among militarism, nationalism, and gender. It invites readers to reconsider the frameworks through which political subjectivity and historical memory are constructed. Beyond the Battlefield is an essential resource for scholars and students interested in the gendered dimensions of colonialism, war, and state formation in modern Africa.

Selina S. Makana is an assistant professor of history at the University of Memphis. Her research focuses on war and militarism and the experiences of women in Angola. She has published articles in Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism.