(Un)African women: identity, class and moral geographies in postcolonial times

Abstract

The concrete and abstract geographies of difference on the African continent not only arise from environmental, socio-cultural and religious factors but also from the historical and differential impacts and experiences of colonization and its legacies. In this paper, we use the web series, An African City, as a reference point, to examine the troubling nature of binary depictions of a colonial/traditional Africa and a new/modern/global Africa. Relying on Postcolonial feminist methodologies of critique and deconstruction, we propose that in countering such simplistic narratives, Africa ought to be seen as constructed, abstract, material, plural and confusing in order to account for its complexities. In particular, we focus on the centrality of women to African identity discourses. We argue that while Afropolitan and Africa rising discourses simultaneously challenge and interrupt problematic colonial constructions of Africa as backward and in need of salvation, they also (perhaps more problematically) still re-centre the West as the progenitor of progress, thereby reiterating the colonial tale.

Keywords:

• Postcolonial
• afropolitanism
• Africa rising
• deconstruction
• class
• women

Notes

1. We define Afropolitan and Africa Rising discourses later in the paper.

2. Saartje Bartmann, otherwise known as the Hotentot Venus, was a black South African woman who was paraded through Europe as an oddity from Africa. That she was differently shaped was reason for her exhibition in Europe. For more information on this, see, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sara-saartjie-baartman

3. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/mp-who-called-for-adulterous-women-to-be-stoned-apologises-audio.html

4. Quoted from a comic strip, ‘Nakedness and power’. This comic is based on Terisa Turner’s research. It was originally published in World War 3. The comic was found on Turner’s website http://www.uoguelph.ca/~terisatu/nakedness/nakedness_2.htm.

5. In using FGM here, we mean for it to refer, specifically and narrowly, to Female Genital Mutilation and not the range of other practices of circumcision (that may or may not involve cutting). We also note that, while condemning any mutilation that occurs in this process, we are unaware of any cultural group or people that would set out deliberately to harm a section of its population. Specifically, in its use here, we refer to the common term used in international interventionist discourses. As such, FGM is a problematic term because the term ‘mutilation’ connotes a type of barbarism and value judgement. We thus prefer female circumcision because it has less negative connotations and also enables a range of conversations relating to the practice.

6. See Reaves, M. S. (1997). Alternative Rite to Female Circumcision Spreading in Kenya. Africa News Service, 19. http://allafrica.com/stories/200101080370.html. See also, http://www.ipsnews.net/1998/01/rights-kenya-ending-the-nightmare-passage-to-womanhood/

7. The entire first season of the series is available here http://anafricancity.tv

8. See discussions by Mikell (1997) and Sofola (1998) on Women’s affinity to mothering and pronatalism in Africa.

9. By new, we are by no means suggesting that women have not been sexually active until now.

10. Zainab also participates in the othering of other places that have been historically othered by orientalist discourses.