From Black Lives Matter to EndSARS: Women’s Socio-Political Power and the Transnational Movement for Black Lives

Abstract

The relationship between Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti-police brutality movements abroad reveals the variety of ways in which Black feminist theories of justice have taken root in public discourse. The EndSARS movement in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and the world’s largest Black nation, illustrates the influence of BLM transnationally and some of the continuities and discontinuities between anti-police brutality movements across contexts. I examine these two movements in tandem and develop a theory of political behaviour that builds on transnational Black and African feminist insights. More specifically, I consider how Black feminist articulations of intersectionality, personal politics, and Black liberation have informed the language and organizational praxis of two of the largest anti-police brutality movements to have taken place in the midst of a global pandemic. Here, I argue that organizers, many of whom were women, leveraged social power, in the form of embeddedness in politically active communities, to effectively organize protests and demand for justice. Through this comparative analysis, I contribute substantively to our understanding of how social power engenders political empowerment for individuals and communities in spite of patriarchal systems of exclusion.

I’m Not Habesha, I’m Oromo: Immigration, Ethnic Identity, and the Transnationality of Blackness

“…Is it the case that prior to George Floyd's murder, heterogeneity within the Black community was becoming more salient and now, following his murder, heterogeneity within the Black community is becoming less salient? Similarly, future research addressing topics such as the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) movement (Stockman 2019), parallels between the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and the #EndSARS movement in Nigeria against police brutality (Nwakanma 2022), and many other issues can help shed light on how Blackness is being defined and debated more than two decades into the twentyfirst century. nOTES 1.…”

‘It will never be well with SARS’: A discourse analytic study of the #EndSARS protests on social media

“…The sentiment analysis of tweets revealed that while trust was most frequent before the protests, anger was prominent during the actual protest period and joy was the most common sentiment after the government announced reforms. Drawing on a feminist perspective, Nwakanma (2022) examined women’s roles during the protest and concluded that by joining the protests, women countered their systematic exclusion from political participation and leadership roles in Nigeria. While these studies provide political, emotional, legal and feminist perspectives on #EndSARS, there is limited evidence of protesters’ discursive strategies on social media to advance the movement and their demands.…”

“…Social media has provided a platform for digital activism, as evidenced by the protests in Nigeria in October 2020, which demanded the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) (Uwalaka, 2022). Research on the #EndSARS protest aimed at highlighting the impact of the protest on people in the Niger Delta region (Okpalaeke and Aboh, 2022), the emotions exhibited before, during and after the protest (Eniayejuni, 2023), the political, economic and social factors that contributed to the protest (Aniche and Iwuoha, 2022), the legal issues surrounding the protest (Aidonojie et al, 2022; Richards and Eboibi, 2022) and the role of women during the protest (Nwakanma, 2022). These studies illustrate how social media helped mobilise and manage the protest and how protesters formed solidarity.…”

Review on Effect of Medicinal Plants on Female Reproductive System

“…6,7 Women, who account for 51% of Africa's population, continue to be the backbones of the continent's economic development. [8][9][10] Unfortunately, many women face health issues, including infertility. This is evident in women who are unable to conceive after l2 months of continuous sexual intercourse without the use of contraceptives.…”