‘Money has More Weight than the Man’: Masculinities in the Marriages of Angolan War Veterans

Abstract

This article discusses how male Angolan war veterans navigated the sudden shift from the rigours of military discipline to life in a civilian society they no longer recognised, where money had become a dominant social value. Based on a year of participant observation and interviews with war veterans in the city of Huambo, it traces their life histories and their post-war struggles to develop the necessary creativity and initiative to make a profit in a disordered, war-torn economy, where masculine status and authority had come to depend crucially on monetary income. I analyse their reaction to the crumbling of the relative certainties of the patriarchal orders of both pre-war society and military life, and the associated anxieties around living up to a senior masculine archetype of the wise, authoritative provider whilst attempting to ensure that their wives' behaviour conformed to the family model that accompanies this archetype.

Working through resistance in engaging boys and men towards gender equality and progressive masculinities

“…Literature from around the world has supported the contention that economic issues such employment, decent work, poverty and income inequality are central to a sense of manhood. The generation of monetary income has been shown to be important in the subject position taken by Angolan male war veterans particularly vis-à-vis their wives (Spall 2014 ). Financial independence and gainful employment is said to central to a sense of manhood in Africa (Barker and Ricardo 2005 ).…”

Tradição, masculinidades e posições de sujeito: uma etnografia entre homens em Cabinda

“…A análise do processo de construção de masculinidades entre veteranos de guerra do MPLA mostra como esses sujeitos se veem preteridos por valores e comportamentos que consideram moralmente reprováveis, sobretudo relativos à exacerbação da importância do dinheiro, porém supostamente muito cultivados pelas novas gerações. Enquanto os veteranos de guerra indicam a origem de sua crise de masculinidade nos processos de desmobilização de combatentes no pós-guerra que os destituiu da autoridade moral associada à hierarquia militar em tempos de guerra, homens mais novos teriam construído novas posições de autoridade a partir dos bens econômicos e de consumo que são capazes de obter (Spall, 2014;Spall e Abranches, 2021). Tal dinâmica aparece, de modo geral, em reflexões etnográficas sobre contextos pós-guerra que mostram o quanto o "tempo de guerra" incide sobre a construção de identidades de gênero e as sexualidades contemporâneas, embasando movimentos de "resgate" de valores considerados perdidos com as transformações sociais e políticas protagonizadas pelas gerações mais jovens (Duncanson, 2015).…”

Dynamics of change in a ‘female farming system’, Mbanza Kongo/Northern Angola

“…Power was taken by the MPLA party alone and, even before independence, a war started between the former anti-colonial movements FNLA, UNITA and MPLA (e.g. Waals 2011;Spall 2014). Some FNLA soldiers retreated again to their base in DRC (only demobilizing in 1980), some adhered to either MPLA or UNITA armies, and some gave up military life.…”

“…In the villages, smallholders maintained their houses near the roads where they would come during the day, but used to sleep in shelters located in the agricultural fields. Most of their stored crops and livestock were also kept there to reduce confiscation by soldiers, who used to come during harvest time (see Spall [2014], for the case of Huambo province). In sum, if during the anti-colonial war agricultural production in Zaire was nonexistent (with the exception of a few settlements to which the Portuguese brought smallholders from southern regions), during the civil war the area under production was also small.…”

“…Another driver of changeknown to have a direct negative impact on both food and cash crop productionis armed conflicts; when only men are recruited as soldiers it is foreseeable, even in the so-called 'male farming systems', that women will become the sole/main people responsible for feeding household members (e.g. Spall 2014). But what happens when the war is over?…”