Mozambique's liberation struggle was mostly fought on the terrain of the northern provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Tete. Yet, though the rural landscapes of northern Mozambique are intrinsically tied to the country's national history, the public commemoration of the struggle in the present-day context is a state-led narrative more closely linked to the urban experience of the predominantly male political elite. In this article, I explore how female veterans living in the national capital, Maputo, in southern Mozambique, conceptualise national space and belonging, and construct its gendered meanings. Though significant numbers of girls and women were mobilised by the FRELIMO guerrilla army to fight in the struggle, to date little research exists on women's accounts of their experience. This article is based on life-history interviews conducted in Maputo with female war veterans in 2009 and 2011. On the one hand, I show how the abstract space of the nation is made sense of and personalised through the women's experience of the liberation struggle, and further juxtaposed with their current experience of the cityscape. On the other hand, I discuss how the capital city as the spatio- An earlier version of this paper was part of the Space and Place conference proceedings e-Book: D. Kılıçkıran, C. Alegria and C. Haddrell (eds), Space and Place: Exploring Critical Issues (Oxford, Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2013). My thanks to Isabel Maria Casimiro, Axel Fleisch, Tuija Saresma and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. I sincerely thank the Centre of African Studies, Eduardo Mondlane University, for their support during my stay in Mozambique. Many thanks also to the Nordic Africa Institute and the Finnish Cultural Foundation for their financial support for this research.

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This article focuses on the sensory and affective dimension of food, cooking and eating in ex-combatants' life narratives in northern Mozambique. It explores the polytemporality reflected in food memories, and the ways in which the past, present and future are connected in the present experience of remembering. For the ex-combatants, food is strongly linked to their memories of the liberation struggle (1964-74). Drawing on life history research with Ciyaawo-speaking ex-combatants in the northwestern province of Niassa between 2012 and 2014, this article traces the changing ideas and meanings of food and eating in their life narratives from their childhood, through wartime to the period of 'liberation'. After independence, most ex-combatants settled down as subsistence farmers with the expectation that 'finally' they would 'eat well'. Yet, for many, their experience of independent Mozambique has been that of socioeconomic and political marginalisation. While food is crucial to survival, this article looks at how food is so much more than just nutrition. In the ex-combatants' memories, aesthetic aspects of food are closely intertwined with the revolutionary ideas of liberation and socioeconomic justice. The meaning of food in the ex-combatants' narratives, as the article argues, is shaped simultaneously and in complex ways through their personal aesthetic experiences and memories of food as well as the changing political aesthetics.

This article focuses on the oral historical narratives about precolonial women of authority (or rainhas in Portuguese) to explore the deeper history of gendered power in northern Mozambique. History-telling is a gendered practice, and nowadays male elders are usually the ones most knowledgeable in these narratives. Moreover, telling these tales -which in interview situations involves personal interpretations and comments -the men also story gendered temporal worlds. This article looks more closely at two seemingly clashing (and incompatible) storylines that emerge in the oral history material. One tells of women's spiritual-political power in the Yaawo chieftaincies in precolonial times, while the other tells a narrative of masculinised power and woman's subordinate position in relation to male leaders. The article focus's especially on how the male narrators talk about masculinity and how different models of masculinity in turn shape the historical narratives they tell. As the author's analysis demonstrates, these models have different temporal origins; yet they intertwine in present time-space, interacting also with newer notions (e.g. the 'new man' of the socialist period). The article thus shows how various models of masculinity linked to different temporalities and different imaginings of the relationality between femininity and masculinity coexist and shape male gendered identities as well as the histories men tell about the past and gendered power. Introduction: On masculinities, time and the history of women's gendered powerJONNA: And … do you know any names of the rainhas [queens] of the old days? CE-DIKOONDAGA: Aah, the rainha … eeh … [bowing his head he pauses for several seconds to think] … Eeh … CE-NAMWEELA [seated next to Ce-Dikoondaga turns to him and softly suggests]: Ce-Bwana [Sir]: Aku-Nakavale. CE-DIKOONDAGA: Aah. Aku-Nakavale! … She is the rainha. Aku-M'mila! … is the rainha. [Ce-Namweela: in Majune it is Aci-Vaanjila.] And in Majune there is Aci-Vaanjila, that part there, Aci-Vaanjila. She is the rainha. [Others in the group offer the name Ce-Mbuumba.] Ce-Mbuumba