Debating Ideas aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books.
To speak of feminism in Africa is to speak of feminisms in the plural within Africa and between Africa and other continents in recognition of the multiplicity of perspectives.[1]
Introduction
Discourses and debates about movement historiographies form essential resources in conceptualizing the present. For rich theorizing, there is a need to study and document the rendering of debates and discourses over time for various reasons - political or otherwise.[2] This article shines a spotlight on African feminism(s) and its relation to development aid as an illustration for the co-optation agenda.
It is impossible to speak about African feminism(s) without reference to colonialism and decolonization. African literature on the pre-colonial period[3] hasillustrated women's key roles in political, economic, and social spaces. Historically, women have played critical roles in independence struggles, nationalist movements, labour movements, and civil society organizations, among others. The introduction of colonialism denigrated not only African cultures through religion and education but also imposed patriarchal practices.[4] Foreign entities in the colonial period did not find a tabula rasa; African epistemologies existed. Foreign influence upheaved those epistemologies and fronted Western epistemologies, particularly on feminism and equality. Historical documentation on African women's participation in resistance and struggle for rights did not fit the Western epistemic hegemony of feminism that has othered non-Western feminisms. This history, however, remains pivotal in shaping African feminism(s) while centering discourses on decoloniality and advocacy for feminist interventions and policies in Africa. The colonial approach to denigrating African epistemologies did not only continue post-colonialism but has reinvented itself through globalization and development aid.
Development aid is a form of investment used to promote global developmentPost World War II to date. It is difficult to find a single definition of development aid as it takes a range of definitions depending on the disbursement methodology and the source. Development aid has been present in Africa since colonial times and continues to shape policy and development. Its presence in the colonial period, among other documents, is evidenced by Adeyeri's analysis[5] of the antecedents of the donor space in Nigeria. Over the past decades, development funders have indicated an interest in equality. From this, major bilateral and multilateral funders launched several projects and programs to end inequalities, especially in low-income countries.
This has led to a proliferation of funding and has also implied a multiplicity of interests and the imposition of varied agendas. Foreign funding has been documented to play a critical role in entrenching neocolonialism through the imposition of foreign agenda on African states by using local organizations in Africa. The design of development funding has its roots in capitalism through a pro-poor growth agenda. Ideally, the pro-poor growth agenda was meant to focus on policy and institutional change, recognizing the importance of country and local contexts in identifying the binding constraints to pro-poor growth.[6] However, the practice has been the use of development funding to push agendas based on the funders' experiences elsewhere or priorities developed by their governments and head offices, primarily based in the global North.[7] Most agendas are not fit for purpose in the countries they are replicated in as they do not consider the nuances of culture, social norms, environment and lived experiences.
Moreover, the pro-poor growth agenda has its antecedents in exclusionism. The approach by development funders to pro-poor strategies is predicated upon inclusion and strengthening the voices of the excluded groups. For such strategies to work, it would mean that change cannot be imposed from the outside. It must be homegrown and home responsive. It would also mean centring excluded voices. African intellectuals such as Mahmood Mamdani have been at pains to point out that the problems of inequality in postcolonial African societies are deeply structural and impervious to band-aid attempts at integration into international markets and politics.
Feminism presents a solution to exclusionism and offers approaches that centre the excluded groups while providing various local solutions through intersectionality. Indeed, feminist movements have grown globally and become prominent in demanding inclusion and calling for dismantling and restructuring patriarchal systems. Not to take away from the positive outcomes of feminism, the nature of feminism is that it is a power-infused field which produces its own inclusions and exclusions.[8] Feminism is also a contested field; different groups, political and theoretical alignments, generations, and contexts produce diverse perspectives and arguments on feminism(s).[9] The multiplicity of perspectives and, at times, conflicting interpretations have made feminism vulnerable to co-optation by international funders, development and state actors, as it creates space for rhetoric.
Over the last decade, feminist narratives as the premise for inclusion have made inroads in state and international policies and projects, providing an evolving political rhetoric on feminism. Discussions about the relationship between feminism(s) and institutions of power are crystallizing around neoliberalism and economic and political reforms. African feminisms and ways of knowing are systematically wiped out through the preference for funding feminism as has been practiced in most Global North countries. The direct agitation for specific approaches to the feminist agenda by funders and international organizations has occasioned the emergence of a practice of feminism that fits into the dominant problematic ideologies perpetuated by the holders of power nationally and internationally.[10] These approaches can be said to have contributed to the contestation of feminism as an ideology and an approach in Africa. A simple example of this imposition would be the insistence on education as is defined in countries in the global North; not only has this single definition of education been used to wipe out the numerous African education approaches and systems, but it has also created a class distinction between the 'educated and elite women seen as ideologically far more advanced (and therefore feminist) and rural/ordinary African women seen as parochial and pre-feminist.'[11]
Since the late 1990s, concerns have been expressed about the 'NGO-ization' of the women's movement, which was seen to deradicalize feminist claims as the women's movement started orienting itself toward mainstream politics and its funding logic. Further, the NGO-ization of women's movements served to restructure the local agenda and priorities to an agenda that could fit into funders' structures.[12] The trend of subsuming the local feminist agenda by imposing a foreign agenda through establishing funder priority areas that are imposed on local feminist organisations and movements, leads to the argument that the elimination of African feminism(s) and the co-optation of feminism are by design and not by effect. The design and intention are made more apparent by active attempts by funding organizations to integrate and push non-localized feminist agenda into state policies and regional instruments. Using names like state feminism, transnational business feminism etc., without local nuance and consideration for local feminist priorities and lived experiences, only serves to show the co-optation of feminism towards a neoliberal and imperialistic agenda. Sara de Jong and Susanne Kimm opine that:
'Co-optation is the outcome where the hegemonic institution "receives credit" for a particular reform (for example, being more women-friendly) "without altering its actions in any way," thereby staying in control and in the position to relinquish its relation with the co-opted agent at the point where it is no longer of use.'[13]
These days feminism, or at least the label 'feminist', seems to be having its day in the sun. In fact, in 2022, feminism is more popular now as a term and discourse than ever before. It is no longer whispered in hushed tones. Instead, feminism has managed to occupy even those long embattled holy grounds of the patriarchies of days gone by - universities, statecraft and even churches. Thus, it is not a shock when governments and international aid organizations clamour to claim feminism as grounds for their policy decisions. In 2014, Margot Wallstrom, the then-Swedish Foreign Minister, announced her plan for a feminist foreign policy. While looked upon with much confusion and scepticism at the time, this move marked a tipping point in the articulation of state and international policy on gender questions. Since then, several other countries, including Canada, France, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and Libya have either adopted a feminist foreign policy or pledged to adopt it. These foreign policies are not only meant for their own countries but also speak to the relationships and interventions in other countries, including Africa.
For Africans, these ostensibly radical ambitions have borne uncertain fruits. It has been convincingly argued through literature that the structure of foreign aid and foreign policies in the global South in general, and Africa in particular, runs contrary to building sustainable societies. At its most extreme, foreign aid and foreign interventions have visibly done more harm to those it sought to 'assist'. The cause for this has been documented as the lack of locally contextualized priorities but also, glaringly, the absence of locals leading, participating and contributing to policies and interventions, a situation that renders the policies and interventions a foreign imposition. Even more pervasive are the changes in way of being and doing that are occasioned by the foreign interventions that destabilize societies, all the while projecting an illusion of progress. It is against this backdrop that my argument against the co-optation of feminism is anchored.
Most feminist foreign policies and interventions directed at and implemented in Africa target women. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, these women are not a homogenous monolith characterized by their subjection to misogynistic local customs and attitudes with undertones of barbarism.[14] They are, in fact, differentiated on various axes, including, race, ethnicity, class, economic activity, geographical location, education, etc. To note this, however, is not simply to describe an intersection of 'identities' that contribute to further marginalising women as a group. Instead, what must be insisted upon is the materiality and lived reality of the position of African women. While the realities of African women are invisible in feminism as is practiced in Western countries, the collusion of those countries with local patriarchs and the imposition of their feminism makes African feminisms doubly invisible and brings their very existence into doubt. When African women are considered the objects of policy, to be spoken of, about, for, and to, but never with, it is easy to assume that they cannot speak and lack a conception of their own interests and welfare.
The idea of feminist interventions and policies at the national, regional, and international levels is welcomed. However, the fundamental tenets of feminism, including recognition and redistribution of power and inclusion, should reflect in the said interventions and policies. Further, state and foreign interventions should recognize the existence of feminism(s) and not assume a homogeneity to feminism. Co-optation of feminism goes hand in hand with the neo-colonialist agenda. It would defeat the purpose if this article did not speak to decolonisation, particularly the decolonization of aid. Foreign interventions and aid in Africa need to stop operating with the missionary zeal of 'saving' Africans and focus on seeking homegrown solutions that are contextual and led by Africans.
Further, there is a need to rebrand the image of feminism in scholarship and policies through the documentation of the various African feminist epistemologies grounded in healthy respect for cultural differences rather than mere exoticism. African feminisms can serve as a critical de-colonial framework to de-centre Western epistemic hegemony in feminist strategies, policies and interventions and centre African epistemologies at the core of strategy, research and policies produced on and about Africa.[15] Expounding and centring discourses on decolonization through African feminisms will redefine the feminist approach by states and international bodies, as Sylvia Tamale puts it, 'by getting rid of those parts of Western feminism that were uncritically adopted and reconceptualising the struggle for more meaningful and contextually relevant ways of addressing the marginalisation of women.'[16]
EndNotes
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[1]Olabisi Aina, "African Women at the Grassroots: The Silent Partners of the Women's Move- ment," in Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power: From Africa to the Diaspora, ed. Obioma Nnae- meka (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 1998), 74.
[2]Gloria Nziba Pindi (2021) 'Promoting African knowledge in communication studies: African feminisms as critical decolonial praxis', Review of Communication21 (4): 327-344.
[3]Sudarkasa, N. (1986). "The Status of Women" in Indigenous African Societies. Feminist Studies, 12(1), 91-103. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177985
[4]Kanogo, Tabitha. African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005.
[5]Adeyeri, J., Adeniji, S. (2021), Decolonization, Foreign Aid and Post-Independence Nigerian Underdevelopment. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(4) pp. 884 - 891.
[6]OECD (2007) 'The Role of Donors', in Promoting Pro-Poor Growth: Policy Guidance for Donors, OECD Publishing, Paris.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Sara de Jong and Susanne Kimm (2017) 'The co-optation of feminisms: a research agenda', International Feminist Journal of Politics, 19 (2): 185-200.
[9]Ibid.
[10]Ibid.
[11]Mikell, G. (1995). African Feminism: Toward a New Politics of Representation. Feminist Studies, 21(2), 405-424. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178274
[12]Ibid.
[13]Ibid.
[14]Mohanty, C. (1988). Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. Feminist Review, 30(1), 61-88. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.1988.42[15]Gloria Nziba Pindi (2021) 'Promoting African knowledge in communication studies: African feminisms as critical decolonial praxis', Review of Communication21 (4): 327-344.
[16]Wabuke, E.K.S. Sylvia Tamale: Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Fem Leg Stud 30, 121-123 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-021-09470-6
Caroline Kioko is a human rights lawyer working on gender, inclusion and development. Her work focuses on human rights, gender equality and social inclusion, and social policy. An accredited professional mediator, Caroline has a keen interest in the development and application of civil, political, and social rights in Africa. She has authored several articles on sexual minority rights, feminism and women's rights. She is co-editor of the book Challenging Patriarchy: The Role of Patriarchy in the Roll-back of Democracy, published in 2020 by Heinrich Böll Stiftung, and she has also co-edited and co-authored the book Decentralisation and Inclusion in Kenya: From pre-colonial times to the first decade of devolution, published in 2022 by Kabarak University Press. Caroline currently works as a Gender Equity and Social Inclusion Manager for Porticus. Her current work and interest are in developing inclusive structures through policies, strategies, and operational frameworks that enable equity for all genders and the socially excluded.
