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Social strategies for access to education in southern rural Mozambique during colonial time
| Colonial and Missionary History is mostly done in a pure optic of the occidental world, where little room is done on the African side of the story, and even in recent works, history of the European domination in Africa is done within a framework of political history. My paper therefore challenges this way of seeing colonial and missionary action in trying to describe the complicated relations between European and African society in Southern Mozambique. The paper puts light on the motivations of the Africans to collaborate with the Christian Missions and shows the room of maneuver that this collaboration gives to the natives in order to keep a minimum of control over the destination of theirs lives. The essay that shows how access to education is structured during the colonial time examines as well the complex relationship between education, migrant labor and forced labor in rural society of southern Mozambique. The evidence used to underline the principal arguments is pulled from collections of oral testimonies, such as traditional songs, poetry, etc., from correspondences between Africans and white missionaries, secondary literature about the social action of the Christian missions, demographic evidence and interviews with time testimonies.
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