Cultivating Third Space thinking in (‘African’) feminism through the works of Nandipha Mntambo

abstract

Nandipha Mntambo’s wide corpus of art offers us exciting ways to think through and extend feminist themes. We dwell specifically on Mntambo’s cowhide series, which is an ongoing meditation on, and subversion of different conceptions of subjectivity, the body and identity (common themes within feminist epistemologies). Her installations (re)present a mounted artistic contestation of the un-enunciated ways of viewing the (‘African’) female subject, pointing to non-dualistic revisions of the subject’s conceptions. In this way, Mntambo gives materiality to the cultural theorist Homi Bhabha’s conceptions of the Third Space, her works usher us into ‘the beyond’ – a space for contesting archaic dualism, a site of the re-imagined, and a way of (re)theorising the now. In this regard, it is our contention that Mntambo provides us with unexplored avenues to re-think and re-conceptualise some of the central themes of (‘African’) feminism.

keywords:

• subjectivity
• Third Space
• the body
• ‘African’ feminism
• Nandipha Mntambo

Notes

1 I use the word ‘Africa/n’ in quotation marks as a sign of in-text protest that the baptismal naming (Santos and Ramose, 2016) and memory around ‘Africa/n’ has led to that which is associated with Otherness. It is also a way of highlighting the South-North impasse that is almost always raised when referring to ‘Africa/n’. Lastly, it is in protest of monochromatic thinking that is raised by referring to aspects of a diverse geo-social mass in the singular.

2 The exhibition under review is Nandipha Mntambo’s (2015) at the Stevenson titled Metamorphoses.

3 http://archive.stevenson.info/artists/mntambo/articles/2015_danny_shorkend_capetimes_10_sept_2015.pdf (accessed 17 June 2020).

4 Nandikeshvara is a piece by Mntambo that depicts a towering figure, well defined and seemingly commanding an army [army is translated emabufto in siSwati] (see picture 5). The name can be interpreted as a play on the ancient Indian scholar, Nandi the Zulu queen mother and Nandi the Indian deity, all pointing to a grand persona.

5 Lobola is the tradition of dowry payment done for new brides. It is common in many ‘African’ and non- ‘African’ societies.

6 The authors are grateful to the artist for permission to reproduce the images of the work that are discussed in the article (pictures 1,2 3, 5,6,7).

7 Image 4available online on www.unsplash.com [accessed 17 June 2020] with open source access.

8 See ‘Theorizing African feminism (s)’ (Mekgwe, 2008).

9 Note how easily our eyes ascribe sex to pictures 1,2,3, and 6 even if the artist has not given us that indication as in the naming of Nandikeshvara (picture 5) or indlovukati [siSwati meaning the queen] (picture 7).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Precious Simba

PRECIOUS SIMBA is a third year PhD candidate in the faculty of education at Stellenbosch University and a researcher at the Stellenbosch Centre for Pedagogy (SUNCEP). Her current doctoral research is a feminist critique of Ubuntu as a philosophy of education, centred on education policy in Zimbabwe. Her research interests are in Ubuntu, education policy, feminist theory, intersectionality, and democratic citizenship education. She has an MA from Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies (IDS) where her studies focused on gender and development with a special interest in education. Email: [email protected]

Nuraan Davids

NURAAN DAVIDS is a Professor of Philosophy of Education at Stellenbosch University in the faculty of education. Her research interests include democratic citizenship education, Islamic education, leadership and management inquiry, and feminism. She is an Associate Editor of the South African Journal of Higher Education, and an Editorial Board Member of Ethics and Education. She is the recipient of a number of research and teaching awards, which include the NRF Research Excellence Award for Female Emerging Researcher (2015); the Stellenbosch University Distinguished Teacher Award (2017); and the CHE/HELTASA National Excellence in Teaching and Learning Commendation (2017). Her list of international books include: Women, Cosmopolitanism, and Islamic Education: On The Virtues of Education and Belonging (2013, New York & London: Peter Lang Publishing); Citizenship Education and Violence in Schools: On Disrupted Potentialities and Becoming (with Y. Waghid, 2013, Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers); Universities, Pedagogical Encounters, Openness, and Free Speech: Reconfiguring Democratic Education (with Y. Waghid 2019, New York & London: Lexington Books). Email: [email protected]