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Female Initiation Rites As Part Of Gendered Bemba Religion And Culture: Transformations In Women’S Empowerment, Thera Rasing

Zambia Social Science Journal

Since the 1930s, female initiation rites have been a topic of interest for both anthropologists and certain White Fathers like Fr Corbeil and Fr Hinfelaar. Although the rites have been examined from various viewpoints, e.g. structural-functionalist viewpoints in the first half of the 20th century (Richards, 1940, 1956), and later by symbolic anthropologists (Rasing, 1995, 2001, 2004, and Simonsen, 2000a and 2000b), they are now mainly explained in terms of unequal gender relations and sexuality (Kamlongera, 1987; Kalunde, 1992). During my ongoing research (1992–2016), I was inspired by the interpretation of these rites by Hugo Hinfelaar, who, although not the …