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Abstract
This essay suggests metaphors of selfhood and techniques for remembrance as useful interpretive frameworks for engaging the particularities that characterize women writers' representation of their African political womanhood in autobiography. The hybridity of the narrators and of some techniques like orality interwoven in these texts are spaces in which African women politicians negotiate their multiple selves.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Dove, “African Womanism,” 515.
2 See Were, “Negotiating.”
3 Despite invoking hybridity, in foregrounding an African womanist oral paradigm, I realize that I run the risk of seeming to reduce all African female political autobiographies to fit a single preferred approach. However, I work with selected texts and acknowledge variations in the field, where the female political autobiographers have been shaped by many divergent cultural and religious influences. Among these writers one could identify Sophia Mustafa, of Kashmiri Indian descent, and Nawaal El Saadawi, who is influenced by Arab cultures.
4 Alabi, Telling Our Stories, 2.
5 See Were, “Negotiating.”
6 Dove, “African Womanism,” 515.
7 McCaskie, “The Life,” 158.
8 Jaques, “Genealogy,” 377.
9 Dove, “African Womanism,” 515. See also Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women; James, “Mothering”; Mikell, African Feminism; and Radhakrishnan, “Nationalism.”
10 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 240. Ramphele is a South African woman politician, academic, and medical doctor. She was a member of the Black Consciousness Movement, which spearheaded students’ resistance against apartheid, and is the founder of the political party Agang (a Sotho word meaning build).
11 See Dove, “African Womanism,” 515.
12 Walker, In Search, xi.
13 Hudson-Weems, Africana Womanist Literary Theory.
14 Kolawole, Womanism and African Consciousness; Ogunyemi, Africa Wo/Man Palava.
15 Ogunyemi, “Womanism”, 63–64.
16 The scope of this essay does not allow for in-depth elaboration on related debates to womanism such as African feminism. However, for further information, see Mikell, African Feminism; Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands; and Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women.
17 Dove “African Womanism,” 515.
18 Ogunyemi, “Womanism,” 64.
19 Mudimbe, “African Gnosis Philosophy,” 206.
20 Alabi, Telling Our Stories, 12.
21 Ogot, Days of My Life, 2
22 Johnson Sirleaf, This Child, 59.
23 Smith and Watson, “Introduction,” 12.
24 Kemdirim, “African Culture and Womanhood,” 454.
25 Ogot, Days of My Life, 253.
26 Johnson Sirleaf, This Child, 209.
27 Nnaemeka, The Politics of (M)othering, 8.
28 Johnson Sirleaf, This Child, 33.
29 James, “Mothering,” 47.
30 Andrade, “Gender.”
31 Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women, 31.
32 Kolawole, Womanism and African Consciousness, 3.
33 Mandela, Part of My Soul, 83–84.
34 Mikell, African Feminism, 3.
35 Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 66, 120, 142.
36 Gilkes, “Church and Community Mothers,” 44.
37 See Jaques, “Genealogy”; McKissack and Miles, Nzingha; Sheldon, Historical Dictionary.
38 Nyabongo, Elizabeth of Toro, 24.
39 Nyabongo, Elizabeth of Toro, 267.
40 Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 201.
41 Keita, Femme d'Afrique.
42 See Jaques, “Genealogy”; McKissack and Miles, Nzingha; and Sheldon, Historical Dictionary.
43 Nnaemeka, The Politics of (M)othering, 6.
44 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 18.
45 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 18.
46 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 19.
47 Thornton, “Legitimacy and Political Power,” 25.
48 See McKissack and Miles, Nzingha, 7; and Sheldon, Historical Dictionary, 181.
49 Miller, “Nzinga of Matamba,” 205–209.
50 Ogot, Days of My Life, 125. See also Maathai, Unbowed.
51 Pollock, Remembering, 1.
52 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 56, 5.
53 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 7.
54 The exception may be Xhosa culture, where iintsomi, a storytelling tradition performed by women, especially grandmothers, is not relegated to the domestic sphere. See Mackenzie, “The Use of Orality,” 349.
55 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 7.
56 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 24.
57 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 24. The praise song, according Ramphele, is difficult to translate.
58 Gunner, “Remaking the Warrior?” 11.
59 Gunner, “Remaking the Warrior?” 20.
60 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 8.
61 Ramphele, A Passion for Freedom, 24.
62 Kolawole, “Re-conceptualizing African Gender Theory,” 253.
63 Olney, Metaphors of Self; Marcus, Auto/biographical Discourses.
64 Mandela, Part of My Soul, 27.
65 Mandela, Part of My Soul, 7.
66 Mandela, Part of My Soul, 83.
67 Olney, Memory and Narrative; Smith and Watson, Reading Autobiography.
68 Maathai, Unbowed, 147.