Feminist Africa

Africa’s 21st Century Feminist Struggles: Terrains, Formations and Politics

Dzodzi Tsikata — 2024-08-07

No Abstract

Gendered Boundaries: Feminist Politics and Popular Struggles in South Africa

Camalita Naicker — 2024-08-07

No Abstract

Wango! Women’s Struggles Amidst Privatised and Extractive Models of Salt Mining in Ghana

Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey — 2024-08-07

In this article, we examine the contestations and struggles of women salt miners in Ghana within the context of the increasing privatisation of commons and enclosures. Using a qualitative approach based on both desk reviews and primary data sources, we situate the study within the changing models and scales of salt production along Ghana’s eastern coast as driven by development rhetoric. While the State continues to use a development discourse framed around modernisation and productivity to provide an impetus for such enclosures, the mechanism through which benefits should materialise remains highly contested among different classes and groups of women and between women, the State, traditional authorities and the private sector. We argue that the women’s demand for access to the lagoons and salt fields and sustainable mining practices typifies feminist struggles worldwide against capital and patriarchy. The study also shows that the evolution and class character of the struggles are connected to the divisive roles that the State and traditional authorities have played in the communities. We conclude that the fragmentation of the grassroots women’s organisations results from the strategies deployed by the agents of capital and their neoliberal institutions.

Feminism and Neoliberalism: Women Farmers Rewriting a Gendered Land Tenure Reform in Sidi Kacem

Souad Eddouda — 2024-08-07

This paper addresses the collective land tenure reforms of 2019, specifically from the perspective of local women farmers in the Moroccan Gharb region. One of the questions the paper seeks to answer is how the rhetoric of “women’s rights” interacts with, resists, or supports neoliberal land tenure reforms. This paper relies on participant observation of classes attended by local women farmers about these new land tenure reform laws and policies as well as in-depth interviews with women farmers. The focus is on how a global and local corporate agenda is being implemented, and how it is creating a mainstream discourse on “women’s rights” and “gender inclusion”. The paper explores how local women farmers are negotiating with dominant land tenure policies and feminist rhetoric staged by the government, donors, and women’s rights NGOs regarding the representation of women’s land rights.

Bread or Representation: The Women’s Movement in Post Revolution Sudan

Mayada Hassanain — 2024-08-07

Women’s role in the Sudanese revolution of 2019 was celebrated, and their bravery and strength were commended by political parties as well as the international community. Women were hopeful of change. Popular feminist groups rallied around a representation campaign, demanding that 40% of women’s representation be guaranteed in the constitutional document and transitional government. Examining the effect of the neoliberal wave on feminist movement building, this article aims to assess the representation agenda from two angles: first, how it became the dominant agenda, and second how effective it was in articulating women’s demands and prioritising their economic rights. Through interviews with women’s rights activists in Khartoum and North Kordofan, we find that the strength of the representation agenda is its bare minimum quality that brings together women groups from different political, racial, and economic backgrounds. The support the agenda received from the international community, and the assumption that the representation of women in positions of power brings women’s issues to the forefront, were important factors in its popularisation. However, according to the women activists, the appointment of women into positions of power did not change the direction of the transitional government agenda, nor was it successful in elevating true representatives to these positions. We conclude by arguing that the structural constraints facing the revolutionary movement played a major role in defining the limitations of resistance in economic justice.

The End SARS Women’s Coalition: Exploring the Persistence of Women’s Movements through Feminist Generations

Sharon Adetutu Omotoso — 2024-08-07

This article situates the #EndSARS women’s activism within the broader context of Nigeria’s transgenerational feminist struggles against State repression. We draw on the actions of the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU) of 1947, led by Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, to explore continuities evident in the work of feminists in Nigeria’s protest against police brutality (and other social vices), popularly known as the End SARS Movement in 2020. Using in-depth interviews, a close feminist reading of activists’ documentation, and data from Twitter, which was the major site of #EndSARS digital activism, we explore contemporary feminist activists’ inadvertent or concerted actions that point to transgenerational continuities in Nigerian feminist activism. In doing so, we transcend studies that have investigated differences through the class/gender/generation divide in feminist movements, particularly as we tease out the points of convergence and tensions that have evolved over time in persistent efforts to break the cycle of similar oppressions.

Namibia’s #ShutItAllDown and Contemporary Feminist Tactics: Social Media, Transgressive Practices, and Feminist Collaboration in the 2020 Protests

Martha Ndakalako — 2024-08-07

This article considers how the 2020 #ShutItAllDown feminist protests elucidate contemporary Namibian feminist activist culture in contrast to earlier generations of Namibian feminist activism. The protests sprung up among youth (particularly women) mostly under 25 years old, a demographic with little political influence and traditional cultural power. Thus, the organisers used strategic, transgressive disruption along with social media as fundamental to their activism. Given Namibia’s historically active and varied feminist and gender activist landscape, the absence of older women and feminist activists (with the exception of Sister Namibia) at these protests is noteworthy. This article asks: how does this absence speak to contemporary Namibian feminist activist culture? what role did social media play in facilitating the dynamic movement that #ShutItAllDown became? how is this movement situated in the context of contemporary transnational and global feminist and hashtag protests? I use mixed methodologies for understanding the movement; along with excavating online spaces, I draw from informal discussions and interviews conducted in 2022 with young and older Namibian women activists. I conclude that while the #ShutItAllDown movement is emblematic of a generational divide in protest practices between contemporary feminist activists and those of previous generations, the acts of solidarity and collaboration between this movement and Sister Namibia, facilitated by social media, are reflective of a culture of feminist solidarity practices between Namibia’s early feminist organisations and the contemporary groups, despite the generational divide. Furthermore, the use of social media in conjunction with disruptive protest resonated with contemporary transnational and global hashtag protest practices, effectively drawing attention to the movement nationally and across the continent.

Feminist Organising and Activism in Ghana: Commonalities, Differences, and Challenges

Amanda Odoi — 2024-08-07

Research on digital feminism and feminist activism in Ghana has increased in recent years. Studies that focus on digital spaces such as Facebook and X, previously known as Twitter, have explored and profiled the nature of the activism, the issues it examines, its impact, and public reactions to the movements. A noteworthy aspect of findings from these studies is that these digital spaces have offered feminists distinct audiences and outlets to address issues which may not have been the focus of older movements. While the older feminist movements have focused on policy-oriented issues such as women’s political participation, economic rights, education, and gender-based violence, digital activists have concerned themselves with resistance and protests around bodily autonomy, sexual desires, and orientation. Extending these studies, we explore the connections or commonalities between digital and pioneer forms of feminist organising in Ghana. Engaging digital archives of activism led by older feminists and interviews from young feminists in two digital movements in Ghana, #PepperDemMinistries and #HijabIsanIdentity, we compare the tools and approaches used by feminist activists in the country, analyse the points of convergence and divergence and examine how the two generations respond to the intergenerational shifts in feminist activism in Ghana. We conclude that while feminist organising in Ghana is evolving into digital spaces, digital feminist activism in Ghana is a continuation of the older forms of organising employed by pioneer feminists.

Cleopatra, Egyptology, and Afrocentrism: A Bitter Tripartite

Radwa Saad — 2024-08-07

This essay explores the tensions surrounding Afrocentrism in Egypt, exemplified by recent controversies over depictions of Cleopatra in cinematic productions. It examines the clash between Egyptian nationalist narratives and Afrocentric interpretations of ancient Egypt’s Black heritage and advocates for a more nuanced understanding of race when navigating complex historical legacies.

In Conversation

Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey — 2024-08-07

No Abstract

Prison Notebook V2957/88 by Gertrude Fester, 2022

Desiree Lewis — 2024-08-07

No Abstract

Tahrir’s Youth: Leaders of a Leaderless Revolution, by Rusha Latif. Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2022; pp. 337.

Hala Kamal — 2024-08-07

No Abstract