Sticks and Scones

This chapter examines the Homecraft movement in colonial Zimbabwe and the ways it encouraged women to move beyond the confines of their homes, to join in common cause with non-kin, and to name their desires. Colonial white women who were members of the Federation of Women's Institutes of Southern Rhodesia (FWI) turned to political activism with the founding of Homecraft Clubs for black women. The FWI's systematization of knowledge about home economics was concomitant with the white women's heightened sense of Rhodesian nationalism. As white women taught domesticity and community service to black women, the latter began to assert themselves in the public sphere. The chapter also considers how events such as Kitchen Teas mobilize women's cultural knowledge about who should participate with whom on which occasions in order to bring women together for a celebratory event in honor of a bride. The chapter concludes by describing the decline of Homecraft and suggests that the movement was rife with cruel optimism.