Heather D. Switzer is an associate professor of women and gender studies in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University.
Second runner-up, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, African Studies
Association Women's Caucus, 2019
Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award, Comparative and International
Education Society (CIES), 2020
"Switzer's book draws from her empirical research with over 100
Kenyan Maasai schoolgirls. . . .Switzer does a brilliant job of
bringing to light the complexities of the context and the paradox
of what education promises these girls therein. . . . This book is
worth reading." --Feminist Africa
"The book both dispels any misapprehensions about the helplessness,
and the hopelessness, of Maasai girls and directly refutes the
developmentalist discourse that sees girls' empowerment as a
panacea for the developing world's problems." --H-Africa
"One of the only books that I know which draws on and shares the
perspectives and experiences of schoolgirls themselves, thus
challenging dominant ideas that they are especially passive,
vulnerable, or incapable of articulating their complicated and
changing lives. As such, the book directly challenges broad,
abstract claims by development donors and other champions of 'the
girl effect.'"--Dorothy L. Hodgson, author of Being Maasai,
Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal
World
"When the Light is Fire is a book that forces you to confront the
many contradictions, paradoxes and nuances of 'schoolgirl.' What
Valerie Walkerdine set out to explore several decades ago in
Schoolgirl Fictions is now taken up by Heather Switzer in relation
to contemporary Maasai culture. As central to its obvious
contributions to deepening an understanding of girls' education,
Switzer’s rich analysis offers a fascinating critique of global
policy and neoliberalism. The book is compelling reading for
scholars in variety of areas including girlhood studies, feminist
research, and development studies."--Claudia Mitchell, coeditor of
Girlhood and the Politics of Place
"When the Light is Fire captures children and education in Africa .
. . the book exhorts us to critically reexamine our perception of
education in the twenty-first century, especially in transnational
development discourse." --African Studies Review
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