Short Abstract

In order to reclaim Africa's power knowledge, and moral sovereignty, this panel examines how feminist ethics and indigenous African women's philosophies might redefine development outside colonial and patriarchal boundaries. It emphasises women's agency, caring ethics, and epistemic justice.

Description

Abstract

African development discourses have long been shaped by Eurocentric frameworks that marginalise indigenous knowledge and underplay women’s intellectual and moral contributions. This imbalance has resulted in the silencing of African women’s voices as knowledge producers, and agents of social transformation. This panel examines how African women's epistemologies and feminist ideologies might reinterpret development beyond its colonial and patriarchal boundaries. In an era characterised by decolonisation, digitisation, and decarbonisation, it emphasises women's agency as essential to regaining Africa's intellectual sovereignty and ethical rejuvenation. The panel encourages contemplation on epistemic justice, knowledge sovereignty, and gendered agency as crucial elements of Africa's development futures by referencing the ethics of care and indigenous relational philosophies. The conversation will cover important topics, such as: How can African women's philosophical thinking reshape the ethics of development? How may indigenous epistemologies and feminist care ethics subvert global power and knowledge hierarchies? What role might women's lived philosophies play in rethinking Africa's future in a way that goes beyond dominance and dependency? As a result, the panel will cover a range of subjects, including but not restricted to:

• Indigenous Knowledge and Gender Equality in Development Futures.

• Oral Traditions, Storytelling, and the Politics of Voice.

• Epistemic Justice and African Feminist Philosophy.

• Rewriting Power, Indigenous Ethics of Care and Decolonising Development.

• Gender, Knowledge, and Resistance in African Development Practice.

• Women’s Everyday Moral Reasoning as Development Ethics.

• African Feminist Philosophies in the Age of Decolonisation and Digitalisation.

This Panel has 4 pending paper proposals.
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