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- Convenors:
-
Signe Arnfred
(Roskilde University)
Kopano Ratele (University of South Africa)
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- Discussant:
-
Elina Oinas
(University of Helsinki)
- Stream:
- Sociology
- Location:
- Chrystal McMillan, Seminar Room 6
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Recognition of the coloniality of Euro-American knowledge calls for epistemic disruption. This again calls for decolonial connections between feminist African and European scholars. Papers are invited into epistemological dialogues on feminist African Studies and on knowledge of gender itself.
Long Abstract:
A recognition of the coloniality of universalising Euro-American knowledge calls for epistemic disruption and moves toward pluriversal knowledges. Epistemic disruption calls, in turn, for new decolonial connections between feminist African and European scholars to challenge coloniality within and beyond African and European borders.
With colonialism European-centralising thought and models were decanted in Africa, generally as an apparatus of racist patriarchal power. In the post-World War II era of development, with inspiration from Western women's movements, critiques of implicit male bias in development projects was carried to Africa by Western donors, Western feminist thinking also inspired incipient African feminist ideas. Nevertheless, the critical intentions were co-opted by powerful donor institutions, whereby in World Bank contexts 'gender equality' became a tool of economic growth.
Over the last decades African gender scholars have started criticising Western-centred ideas regarding gender. Significantly this critique often moves on an epistemological level. The promise of these epistemic lines of thinking is that they might provide better understandings of economic and social relations and patterns of change in Africa and globally, also providing openings for feminist thinking elsewhere in the world.
In this panel we invite papers - rooted in social activism, interventions, creative work, and research - aimed at delving into and surfacing connecting and disruptive dialogues about feminist African Studies between Europe and Africa on, among others, issues on patriarchy, masculinities, capitalism, activism, femininities, politics, sexualities, violence, activism, and above all, the knowledge of gender itself.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Martina Kopf (University of Vienna) Anke Graness (University of Hildesheim)
Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses epistemic entanglements between Africa, the Middle East and Latin America in feminist debates on gender and religion and eco-feminist thought. We thus argue to open feminist dialogues on decoloniality between Africa and Europe to a polylogue including more regions of the world.
Paper long abstract:
For several years, Anke Graness and Martina Kopf have been teaching courses on feminist theory in intercultural perspective at the University of Vienna. These courses have been designed to introduce students in feminist theories from Africa and the African Diaspora, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East and to help familiarize them with intercultural dimensions of feminist debates. Here it became clear that there are epistemic connections between the different approaches of feminist thought in Africa, Latin America and the Islamic world. These are most obvious in the critical distancing from 'white' feminism and the questioning of terms and concepts developed in Europe or North America, as well as in fundamentally intersectional approaches that understand gender as one aspect among others in oppressive relations women have to face across the globe. Thus, in the analyses of gender relations, global asymmetries in access to resources play an essential role, as do the categories of 'race' and religion.
We would like to address these epistemic entanglements on the basis of two themes: 1. the relation between feminist approaches and gender-conservative values in Muslim thinkers' debates on gender justice; and 2. eco-feminist approaches to environmentalist concerns from Africa and Latin America. In particular, we are interested in the question: What does "decolonial" mean here and for whom? On the basis of selected texts we want to argue for an intercultural opening, i.e. the replacement of a dialogue between Africa and Europe by a polylogue that includes more regions of the world.
Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju (University of Ilorin) Rasaq Ajadi (University of Ilorin)
Paper short abstract:
Representation of gender in the Nigerian film, Nollywood, is reflective of the country's triple ideological and cultural heritage. This paper considers artefacts of connections and disruptions in some Nollywood gendered films, and their epistemic founts in light of western and African scholarship.
Paper long abstract:
The representation of gender in the Nigerian film, popularly referred to as Nollywood, is reflective of the country's triple ideological and cultural heritage. The films' conflicts can often be delineated in terms of these heritages and their inherent connections and disruptions. However, African gendered representations have often generated conflicting perspectives in Western and African gendered scholarship especially regarding the source epistemes of gender in Africa. On the one hand, gender in Africa has appeared as mono discourses prior to the 'disruptive' influence of western colonialism. African gendered tales were largely seen as tales of gendered serenity, blissful hierarchism and unwavering heteronormativity. On the other hand western disruption is seen as liberating latent African ideas of gender whilst contributing a few. This paper is concerned with how practitioners of gender in the arts come into the picture? What do their pictures, and their language, reveal of the epistemic founts of gender as perceived by the practitioners? The paper considers artefacts of connections and disruptions in some of Nollywood's gendered films and the relevant epistemic founts. It attempts to link these artefacts with conflicting western and African thoughts on gender.
Rachel Spronk (University of Amsterdam)
Paper short abstract:
Decolonizing sexuality addresses a problem that confuses the logic of opposing and separated epistemologies as originating from the South and from the North. The notion of the subject that permeates the (global) discourse of human rights sharpens the question of what decolonization needs to do.
Paper long abstract:
In discussions about decolonization I engage in at my university as well as in other academic circles, it is often implicated that the panacea to the flawed production of knowledge is the disentanglement between global Southern scholarship and global Western scholarship. We need to disrupt the hegemonic epistemology so as to clear the way for the decolonized production of knowledge. In this paper I would like to address a problem that confuses the logic of opposing and separated epistemologies: the notion of the subject. Particularly the idea of the subject that permeates the (global) discourse of human rights and with that, the fight for justice with regard to gender and sexual minorities. As Michel Foucault famously stated, "sexuality" is the product of the specific European cultural history: it is not only a specific power/knowledge regime that regulates sex but also its main product or outcome. In other words, it produces subjects for whom "sexuality" constitutes the essential core of their inner self. In contrast, in Africanist scholarship the distinction between sexual practices and identities is often studied, suggesting a foundation for a new epistemology for theorizing sexuality beyond the subject. At the same time, the framework of LGBTQI+ rights is also a crucial engine for the much needed research on queer sexualities, which implicates the entanglement of global Southern and Western sensibilities. Decolonizing sexuality thus presents us with a series of questions and dilemma's rather than straightforward solutions that I would like to bring into view for further reflection.