부산대학교 도서관

This paper examines how Swazi women use folk songs to depict gendered power relations as they exist in the Swazi society. It goes further to show how the women sing/talk about female sexuality in ways that undercut male-authored discourses about female sexuality, as well as how they subvert and question patriarchal discourses and practices that work to the detriment of women. This is achieved through the reading of a selected body of women's songs performed during Swazi traditional marriage rites such as umtsimba1, kumekeza2 and in various social and communal gatherings. This paper reads the songs as social texts and argues that the song is a political space in which women (re)write the self in ways that oppose patriarchal discourses on female sexuality and a space where power is negotiated. Finally, the paper concludes that the song is a contested, effective and a political space, which women can use to articulate their views [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]