African Gender Studies: A Reader

Edited by Oyeronke Oyewumi

Palgrave Macmillan

Pub date: Aug 2005/448 pages

$26.95 - Paperback (1-4039-6283-9)/$85.00 - Hardcover (1-4039-6282-0)

This is the first comprehensive reader that brings African experiences to bear on the ongoing global discussions of women, gender, and society. Bringing together the essential writing on this topic from the last 25 years, these essays discuss gender in Africa from a multi-disciplinary perspective. With a theoretical and conceptual focus, African Gender Studies will inform debate in African Studies, Women?s Studies, History, Sociology and Anthropology.

Author Bio: Oyeronke Oyewumi is Associate Professor of Sociology, SUNY Stony Brook.

Praise for African Gender Studies

"This book is a must read for scholars and activists, interested in the post-modern debate on Gender Studies in Africa. The multi-disciplinary essays provide timely, refreshing and provocative illustrations of the philosophical and epistemological complexities, challenges and dilemmas endemic to universal theory building. It is a constructive critique of the flaws, inherent in Eurocentric and androcentric scholarship that have dominated studies of gender in Africa and represents a culmination of the process of deconstruction and revision. The contributors successfully interject African-based concepts, explanatory paradigms and experiential knowledge into the various strands of the dominant feminist discourse."--Filomina Steady, Wellesley College

"For the diversity and renown of its authors as well as the breadth of its topical coverage, this book deserves a wide reading. Its subject matter, African gender studies, is important not only for Africa but also for its ability to affect both the discourse about and action on global issues dealing with gender, 'development,' and social and economic justice. " -- Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Dean, School of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Columbia College, Chicago and author of For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria.

"This collection should be read by all interested in a truly international gender analysis and feminist theory and scholarship."--Rhoda Reddock, The University of the West Indies and author of Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago: A History

"[African Gender Studies] is a timely addition to the growing literature on the subject and will be a welcome addition to scholars, activists, students and a wider public, particularly across Africa "--Takyiwaa Manuh, University of Ghana, Legon

Table of contents

Introduction--Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond * Visualizing the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects--Oyeronke Oyewumi * Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History--Emmanuel Akyeampong and Pashington Obeng * Bringing African Women into the Classroom: Rethinking Pedagogy and Epistemology--Obioma Nnaemeka * Theorizing Matriarchy in Africa: Kinship Ideologies and Systems in Africa and Europe--Ifi Amadiume * Decolonizing Feminism--Marria Lazreg * (Re)constituting the Cosmology and Sociocultural Institutions of Oyó Yórubá * Women's Roles and Existential Identities--Igor Kopytoff * Revisiting 'Woman-Woman Marriage': Notes on Gikuyu Women--Warimu Ngaruiya Njambi and William E. O'Brien * Making History, Creating Gender: Some Methodological and Interpretive Questions in the Writing of Oyo Oral Traditions--Oyeronke Oyewumi * Gender Biases in African Historiograph--Paul Tiyambe Zeleza * Senegalese Women in Politics: A Portrait of Two Female Leaders, Arame Dièand Thrioumbè Samb, 1945-1996--Babacar Fall * Miscegenation as Metonymy: Sexuality and Power in the Colonial Novel--Abena P. A. Busia * Gender, Feminist Theory, and Post-Colonial (Women's) Writing--Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi * The Hidden Hisotry of Women in Chanaian Print Culture--Dr. Audrey Gadzekpo * Definitions of Women and Development: An African Perspective--Achola O. Pala * An Investigative Framework for Gender Research in Africa in the New Millennium--Filomina Chioma Steady * The Yum: An Indigenous Model for Sustainable Development--Dr. Bertrade B. Ngo-Ngijol Banoum * Questions of Identity and Inheritance: A Critical Review of Kwame Anthony Appiah's In My Father's House--Nkiru Nzegwu * African Gender Research and Postcoloniality: Legacies and Challenges--Desiree Lewis * African Women in the Academy and Beyond: Review Essay--Godwin Rapanda Murunga