Description
Women’s history and experience of life on Gozo, Malta
Interviews, essays, pictures, stories and songs
This book is entirely based on 33 years of intensive cultural anthropological fieldwork on Gozo, the greener and more feminine sister island of Malta. All that time the author was after women’s history and experience of life in this still relatively authentic island culture, where women retained much of their former power in this mainly agrarian existence. Up to recently they were the ‘mistress of the house’ and the house was the centre of the world.
Due to the long research period, the book could clearly demonstrate the drastic changes in those crucial decades of “westernization”, as the Maltese themselves called it.
As a cultural anthropologist dra. Veronica Veen always favoured a form of “participant observation”, so not at a distance, but personally present and dedicated, now already exactly half her life. Moreover, as an art historian she is able to tackle visual and historical information. This is how the book could develop into a true kaleidoscopic view of the feminine on Gozo. The 8 interviews with Luċija, made over more than 30 years, but actually spanning some 90 years, run through the book like a continuous thread. Together they form an impressive oral history of change.
All this is intertwined with little essays and reflections, including flashbacks to Malta’s rich Neolithic Era, many original pictures, traditional stories ranging from hilarious to tragic, and songs.
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