‘We will not be pacified’: From freedom fighters to feminists

Abstract

Whether hailed for transitioning to the ballot box, or condemned for failing to hold elections, Africa’s postcolonial states exhibit profound contradictions in the arena of gender politics. Where reforms have been achieved, implementation remains minimal, as undemocratic state structures and uncivil societies alike lack the political will to change. This article addresses the emergence of feminism as an intellectual and political force for freedom that radically challenges the ongoing exploitation and oppression of women in Africa. It focuses on the contribution of radical intellectuals to the theory and practice of women’s movements, arguing that the research, analysis, and activism they carry out defines them as a radical public intellectual cadre that continuously mobilizes with, by, and for women to pursue liberation for themselves as much as others.

Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Black Feminist Geographies

“…Unlike Black Geographies, which elsewhere I have argued globalises from an African-American epicentre (Noxolo, 2022), albeit one that is strongly informed by flows from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa (Hawthorne, 2019) – Black Feminist Geographies are always already spatially extensive. Translocal connections between continents are key starting points for the collectivist ethos of Black Feminist Geographies: Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Canada have produced key Black feminist writers whose cross-disciplinary influence informs Black Feminist Geographies globally (see, for example, Mama, 2020; McKittrick, 2006; Nascimento and Gerber, 1989; Wynter, 2003). This is not of course to say that writers from the United States, Europe and Asia are unimportant, but it does mean that, in the spatialities of Black Feminist Geographies, the centrality of histories of Blackness that route through transatlantic enslavement and plantation culture cannot be entirely assumed.…”

“…Black Feminist Geographies have a long history, particularly when understood as sometimes unmarked but very often interdisciplinary and expansive (Barriteau, 2003; Bryan et al, 2018; Fanon, 1968; Mama, 2020; McKittrick, 2006; Mohammed, 2003). This report focuses on the most recent iterations of Black Feminist Geographies which, particularly as more of us live more of our lives online (Oyosoro et al, 2022; Richard and Gray, 2018), often feature flexible, sometimes transient, translocal collectivities, whilst they also highlight and connect very small-scale, localised protests and practices.…”

Reimagining African womanhood in an unjust world order: exploring the writings of Ghanaian women’s rights advocates, 1970s–1980s

“…Mainstream African historiography has been critiqued for its androcentrism, privileging male representation, and its focus on 'great male narratives'. This has resulted in women remaining largely invisible in what Malawian historian Paul Tiyambe Zeleza has called 'malestream' African history (Zeleza 2005: 207; see also Allman et al 2002;Falola and Amponsah 2012;Bouka 2020;Mama 2020). In a Ghanaian context, Allman (2009) has shown how Hannah Kudjo, one of Ghana's leading woman nationalists in the struggle for independence during the 1940s and 1950s, was written out of history.…”