Paper short abstract:

A study on the impact of studying Women and Gender Studies on past/present students found participants unintentionally exhibiting 'negofeminism' resulting from negotiating informational influence and normative influence. Results show need for more applicability/intentionality of African feminisms.

Paper long abstract:

Since their establishment in the 1970's, Women Studies programs have been investigated for their potential impact on students, particularly their capacity to rouse feminist awareness and identity. The majority of studies being American-centric (Musil, 1992; Stakes, Roades, Ross & Ellis, 1994; Stake & Rose, 1994; Buschman & Lenart, 1996; Harris, Melaas & Rodacker, 1999); Jackson, 2000) often report remarkable impact of Women Studies programs in raising Western liberal feminist consciousness. Possibilities of recording similar findings in a more traditional African context and determining the programs capacity to inspire other types of feminism, particularly African feminist thought, have barely been investigated.

This paper shall outline a study which explored the potential of the pioneer Women and Gender Studies department in Cameroon to have such influence on its students. The research involved interviewing a group of twelve participants, six graduates and six third-year students of this University of Buea department between April and May 2015. Employing an African feminist theoretical lens, the study analyzed data generated through semi-structured interviews and found that the informational influence of the department's undergraduate program though significant, was compromised by the normative influence of the Cameroonian context in which it is taught. This compromise is witnessed in responses which show the participants' struggle to negotiate between what they have studied and what they have been socialized to believe. In these negotiations participants often demonstrated African Feminist leanings (Nnaemeka, 2004) proving that this program with very little African feminist content unintentionally contributes to producing recognizably African feminists.

Paper short abstract:

Using the #RUreferenceList student protest as a case study, this paper aims to uncover the drivers of rape culture in universities, with a particular focus on the distinct South African context, in order to inform sexual assault policy reform.

Paper long abstract:

This paper uses the #RUreferenceList student-led protests in South Africa as a case study to understand how students, faculty and administration perceive, contest and address 'rape culture' on South African campuses. 'Rape culture' refers to the normalisation of sexual violence and the way in which these abuses are then addressed. The #RUreferenceList protests called for the transformation of university policy concerning sexual assault.

An important feminist aspect of the movement was the use of the body as a 'site' of resistance through the utilisation of nakedness as a form of protest. The protest itself was situated against the back drop of overlapping student movements, in particular #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall, which were responses to the slow pace of transformation in higher education and reflected broader societal concerns of South Africa's democracy post-Apartheid.

Rape culture in South African universities is a particularly challenging issue; in addition to universities being spaces that foster rape culture, South African universities are situated in a country that has one of the highest global rape statistics for a country that is not at war. Extensive research has been done on rape culture in universities worldwide, however little has given focus to the distinct South African context. This often means that our understanding of the problem is not sufficiently contextually grounded to the unique South African setting. My research thus aims to uncover the drivers of rape culture in universities with a particular focus on the distinct South African context, in order to inform sexual assault policy reform.

Paper short abstract:

The Global imagination has been seduced by Feminist ideology. In Africa feminism has been appropriated and naturalized with little regard to indigenous modes of being. This paper critiques universalism &traveling ideologies.Instead presenting womanism as an alternative framework for African feminism

Paper long abstract:

The global feminist movement is undoubtedly experiencing a historical moment. Now, more than ever, feminism and feminist principles have become mainstream. Worldwide more people have begun to identify as feminist irrespective of their embodied identity structures.

In fact, the statement " I am a feminist" has become as much a form of weaponized identity as it is an indication of an allegiance to a political ideology.In the West this has produced divisive societal ruptures. Yet, in spite of this, Africans have appropriated and naturalized the ideology in its various manifestations.

Behind this phenomenon might be the universal appeal of feminist rhetoric. Particularly its promise to dismantle patriarchal structures (arguably established and entrenched by the colonial mission) and its potential impact for an individual's journey(s) of auto-decolonization.

However, how compatible is this ideology with notions of self and society in Africa where African humanism or "ubuntu", as it is known in South Africa, is the primary organizing principle? Where does rabid individualism intersect with communitarian values and what does an "us against them" mentality mean for the future of African societies?

This paper unpacks some of the inherited and synthesized tenets of modern African feminist ideology in light of notions of self and society emerging from African knowledge systems. It critiques the idea of universalism and travelling terms. Ultimately proposing womanism as a more authentic, accessible, intuitive and sustainable social justice framework for responding to and transforming the lives of African individuals and communities as a whole.

Paper long abstract:

The paper stems from my PhD thesis which was a comparative analysis of representations of black womanhood in Ousmane Sembene and Tyler Perry's films. The impetus for the research was the 'fluidity' of African feminist theories which posits black women's race and sex in racial and gendered political discourses of power that render black womanhood's identities and subjectivities as more homogenous than heterogeneous. Through Hudson-Weems' Africana womanism, I argued that there are various nuances in the black woman experience wherein African feminist theory can coalesce to institute a semblance of a unity of concerns in diversity. The research concluded that the main challenge in the African feminist canon is that theories by their nature resist centring and closure and Africana womanist theory on its own cannot fully account for the diverse global black woman experience. In essence, black women's experiences are grounded in intersections that need to be engaged further as a way of re-discoursing and re-theorising the black woman experience. Through the tag 'communion of black womanhood' I conflate black womanhood as an imagined community, with the continuous shifts in the canon, paying particular attention to the wide reaching affective cords and social struggles represented by African feminist theorisation. I seek to deconstruct the African feminist corpus with a view to reconfiguring it into a 'new' theoretical perspective that attempts to institute a holistic trajectory for African feminist theorisation that would necessarily speak more to a communion of African feminist solidarities than a number of competing theoretical postulations - Africa centred womanist theory.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores Njeri Kinyanjui's concept-Utu Feminism( Kinyanjui 2019). The concept addresses the lack of an African feminist epistemology in Kenya that speaks to the lived reality of many. My paper will interrogate her proposed concept as an analytical framework for African feminist research.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores Njeri Kinyanjui's concept of Utu Feminism( Kinyanjui 2019). Njeri Kinyanjui is a Kenyan feminist geographer at the University of Nairobi who has been researching and writing on everyday African women's agency. She argues that lack of a literary body of theory that addresses issues of origin, nature, and structure of African feminist epistemology in Kenya has ensured that feminist scholarship in Kenya and indeed Africa is largely informed by western theoretical concepts as analytical frameworks.

Kinyanjui argues that African indigenous women's movement are as old as humanity yet African feminist theory is rarely informed by these movements. She argues that African women in the city are constantly resisting exploitation by the market system, coloniality, sexism, sexual exploitation from city authorities and oppression at an everyday level yet these resistances have not been researched as African feminist realities.

In resisting these forms of exploitation small scale women traders in the city build solidarity networks known as chamas in Kenya which provide safety nets and healing in the harsh masculine city. This self-determination and desire for economic sovereignty through resilience and solidarity with other women in the harsh city is what Kinyanjui argues is Utu Feminism based on human-ness.

In this paper, I analyse her proposed concept as an analytical framework for African feminist research and as a contribution to African feminist theory.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which South African art activist Zanele Muholi unravels gendered expectations through digital performance. By turning to her body to stage such visual autobiographies Muholi deconstructs the historical gaze of hegemonic whiteness which is both gendered and racialized.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed project will use the writing of Laura Mulvey and Mary Douglas to explore the ways in which the art activist Zanele Muholi unravels gendered expectations through digital performance, most recently on Sonyama Ngonyama where she turns the lens back on herself. Delivered via photographs and moving image, I will argue that these performances become elaborate self-portraits, or visual autobiographies. Francis Borzello (1998) considers women's self-portraits to be "painted versions of autobiography" (1998: 19) that allow an artist to control her public presentation. While Borzello speaks specifically of such portraiture in Europe, this interpretation remains apt in a South African context, perhaps even more so considering the complication of the male/female binary by a history of legalised racial segregation.

One possible conclusion may be that, by turning to her body to stage these autobiographical performances, the artist begins to deconstruct the historical gaze of hegemonic whiteness, which is both gendered and racialised. This proposed paper will ask whether Muholi's exploration of hybrid identities, and her own body as a contested site, immeasurably complicates the Racialized / gendered / colonial gaze and in doing so, accesses the language of the body in an attempt to subvert patriarchal white privilege and explore the cultural layerings and historical clashes of the South African socio-political context.

Paper short abstract:

The work explores the body as a landscape. Despite being lived in and altering in time, it remains recognisable and familiar. When that feeling is disrupted from outside or within, the landscape evolves.

Paper long abstract:

The work explores the body as a landscape. Despite being lived in and altering in time, it remains recognisable and familiar. When that feeling is disrupted from outside or within, the landscape evolves. The black female body has been and continues to be subjected to various disruptions. Through mixed media on barkcloth, 'It's Not You, It's Me' is a record of the artists recent disruptions.

Paper short abstract:

This paper studies the variants of African Feminisms as they accommodate the peculiar social realities facing women in Africa, through the study of the novels, Amina, A Question of Marriage and The Travails of a First Wife. These novels peculiarly examine the female image in Northern Nigeria.

Paper long abstract:

The peculiarity of the oppressive social conditions of women in Africa gave birth to the various strands of African feminism. This paper examines the different strands of African Feminisms Each of these '…isms'; African Womanism, Stiwanism, Motherism, Femalism, Nego-Feminism, Snail-Sense Feminism, etc., all respectively present their view points from the angle or cultural context of the people oriented theory, and attempt a detachment from Western Feminism. In the selected novels, Mohammed Umar's Amina, Auwalu Yusufu Hamza's A Question of Marriage and Razinat T. Mohammed's The Travails of a First Wife, it is established that the authors' major pre-occupation (themes) are women-centered and are voices in search of a comfort zone for women in the patriarchal Northern Nigerian society. This, the authors achieve through the enactment of formidable female characters, especially the protagonists, adequately equipped to tackle emergent challenges and negotiate their survival. This is in contrast to the docile/passive female characters created by early male writers and the sympathetic characters created by early female writers. This new female construct is suggestive of the fact that, the Northern Nigerian woman stands the chance of self-actualization and being socially relevant, if availed certain social privileges like the male, through education and career fulfillment. The paper therefore concludes that Afrocentric understanding of female issues gave birth to the various faces of African Feminism, as viable tools for tackling the challenges confronting women in Africa, Nigeria and Norther Nigeria specifically.