Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South 1800711719, 9781800711716

Citation preview

PRODUCING INCLUSIVE FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE

ADVANCES IN GENDER RESEARCH Series Editors: Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos Recent Volumes: Volume 14: Interactions and Intersections of Gendered Bodies at Work, at Home, and at Play – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal, 2010 Volume 15: Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts – Edited by Esther Ngan‐Ling Chow, Marcia Texler Segal and Lin Tan, 2011 Volume 16: Social Production and Reproduction at the Interface of Public and Private Spheres – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal, Esther Ngan‐Ling Chow and Vasilikie Demos, 2012 Volume 17: Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives – Edited by Marla H. Kohlman, Dana B. Krieg and Bette J. Dickerson, 2013 Volume 18 A: Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part A—Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2013 Volume 18 B: Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part B – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2014 Volume 19: Gender Transformation in the Academy – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2014 Volume 20: At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge – Edited by Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal, 2015 Volume 21: Gender and Race Matter: Global Perspectives on Being a Woman – Edited by Shaminder Takhar, 2016 Volume 22: Gender and Food: From Production to Consumption and After – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2016 Volume 23: Discourses of Gender and sexual inequality: The Legacy of Sanra L. Bem – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos, 2016 Volume 24: Gender Panic, Gender Policy – Edited By Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal Volume 25: Marginalized Mothers, Mothering from the Margins – Edited by: Tiffany L. Taylor and Katrina R. Bloch Volume 26: Gender and the Media: Women’s Places – Edited by Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos Volume 27: Gender and Practice: Insights from the Field – Edited by Vasilikie Demos, Marcia Texler Segal, and Kristy Kelly Volume 28:  Gender and Practice: Knowledge, Policy, Organizations – Edited by Vasilikie Demos, Marcia Texler Segal, and Kristy Kelly Volume 29: Advances in Women’s Empowerment: Critical Insight from Asia, Africa and Latin America – Edited by Araceli Ortega Diaz and Marta Barbara Ochman Volume 30: Gender and Generations: Continuity and Change – Edited by Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Miriam Adelman Universidade do Paraná Brazil

Chika Shinohara Momoyama Gakuin University (St Andrew’s University), Japan

Franca Bimbi University of Padua Italy

Shaminder Takhar London South Bank University UK

Max Greenberg Boston University USA

Tiffany Taylor Kent State University USA

Marla Kohlman Kenyon College USA

This page intentionally left blank

ADVANCES IN GENDER RESEARCH  VOLUME 31

PRODUCING INCLUSIVE FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE: POSITIONALITIES AND DISCOURSES IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH EDITED BY

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO University of Ghana, Ghana AND

JOSEPHINE BEOKU‐BETTS Florida Atlantic University, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2021 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978‐1‐80071‐171‐6 (Print) ISBN: 978‐1‐80071‐170‐9 (Online) ISBN: 978‐1‐80071‐172‐3 (Epub) ISSN: 1529‐2126 (Series)

CONTENTS About the Contributors

ix

List of Contributors

xiii

Series Editors’ Preface

xv

Editor Preface 

xvii

Acknowledgmentsxxi Introduction: Positioning Feminist Voices in the Global South Josephine Beoku‐Betts and Akosua Adomako Ampofo

1

PART 1 PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINISMS AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION Chapter 1  Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas: Contexts, Assemblages, Voices, and Silences Bandana Purkayastha

23

Chapter 2  African Feminist and Gender Scholarship: Contemporary Standpoints and Sites of Activism Josephine Beoku‐Betts

43

Chapter 3  Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India Manisha Desai

65

Chapter 4  What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist? Brazilian Activists’ Definitions and Praxis of Emancipatory Intersectional Feminism Solange Simões

79

Chapter 5  Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America Marlise Matos and Avelin Buniacá Kambiwá

vii

103

viii Contents

PART 2 YOUNG FEMINISTS AND DIGITAL APPROACHES TO SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVISM Chapter 6  Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?): Feminist Challenges in Iranian Social Media Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi

125

Chapter 7  Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style Akosua K. Darkwah

147

Chapter 8  Are We There Yet? Contemporary Struggles for Gender Justice and the Legacy of Caribbean Feminisms Sue Ann Barratt

167

PART 3 FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN APPLIED CONTEXTS Chapter 9  “I Can Weep But Not Wail”: Contemporary Young African Masculinities Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Akosua‐Asamoabea Ampofo

185

Chapter 10  Working Toward Global Feminist Knowledges and Practices Marcia Texler Segal

211

Chapter 11  Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women: Feminist Scholarship and Activism in Southern Africa Mary Johnson Osirim

229

Index249

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Akosua Adomako Ampofo is a Professor of African and Gender Studies at the Institute of African Studies, and the President of the African Studies Association of Africa. Her research interests include African knowledge systems, identity politics; gender relations; masculinities; and popular culture. In 2010, she was awarded the Feminist Activism Award by Sociologists for Women and Society. She is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. Akosua‐Asamoabea Ampofo received her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College where she majored in Film. At Bryn Mawr College, she also worked for the Office of Communications, taking videos and pictures to highlight school pride. In 2018, she was awarded a prize for her short documentary, Living Legends, at the Trico‐Film Festival. She currently works as an independent researcher and film maker and with an advertising agency in Accra, Ghana. Sue Ann Barratt is a Lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. She is a graduate of the University of the West Indies, holding a BA in Media and Communication Studies with Political Science, MA Communication Studies, and PhD in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. Her research areas are interpersonal interaction, human communication conflict, social media use and its implications, gender and ethnic identities, mental health and gender‐based violence, and Carnival and cultural studies. She is dedicated to gender awareness and sensitivity training through face‐to‐face sessions and mass media outreach. Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi is Associate Professor for the Study of Modern Iran in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on discourses of sexuality, government morality, and women’s activism in the contemporary Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran. Josephine Beoku‐Betts is Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Sociology at Florida Atlantic University. Her research focuses on women’s political activism in Post‐War Sierra Leone and African women in academic scientific careers. She is President of Sociologists for Women in Society and former Co‐ President for Research Committee 32 of the International Sociological Association. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Sierra Leone (2018–2019). She is the recipient of several awards, including the Florida Commission on the Status of Women: Florida Achievement Award.

ix

x

About the Contributors

Akosua K. Darkwah is Associate Professor of Sociology and Head, Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. Her research focuses on the ways in which global economic policies and practices reconfigure women’s work. As part of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium she explores the gendered ways in which households are reconfigured as a result of migration. Her work has been published in Ghana Studies, Women’s Studies International Forum and the International Development Planning Review. Manisha Desai is Head of Sociology Department and Professor of Sociology and Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut. Her areas of research and teaching include, transnational feminisms, gender and globalization, and contemporary Indian society. She’s the author of two books and editor/ co‐editor of three others and recipient of national awards for her research, teaching, and mentoring. Avelin Buniacá Kambiwá is a Brazilian indigenous woman of the Kambiwá ethnic group and a Sociologist and Speaker on the themes of indigenous and women’s rights. She is the Founder of the Minas Gerais Committee to support indigenous causes. Marlise Matos is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology (UFMG) and a Master’s degree in Psychoanalytical Theory from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and received her PhD in Sociology from the University Institute of Research from Rio de Janeiro. She directs NEPEM, the Center for Studies and Research on Women (UFMG). Her main research and publication interests include gender and politics, feminist critical theory, identity politics, gender and public policy, sexual and reproductive rights, women, democracy, and citizenship. She is the Co‐president elected of RC 32 “Gender and Society” from International Sociological Association (2020–2021), Member of Sociologists for Women in Society Organization as Latin America Coordinator on SWS Global Feminist Partnership, and Research member from WIEGO – Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing. She held a Fulbright Chair of Brazilian Studies at UMass‐Amherst during 2019 Fall Term. In Brazil, she was twice a member of Civil Society Advisory Board from UN Women in Brazil, and is Coordinator of the Thematic Area “Gender, Democracy and Public Polies” from Brazilian Political Science Association. Mary Johnson Osirim is Provost and Professor of Sociology at Bryn Mawr College, USA. Her research focuses on women and entrepreneurship in Nigeria and Zimbabwe, African gender studies, and African immigrants in the United States. She is the author of Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe: Gender, Microbusiness and Globalization and Co‐editor of Global Philadelphia: Immigrant Communities, Old and New and many articles. She received the Distinguished Feminist Lecturer Award from SWS in 2017.

About the Contributors

xi

Bandana Purkayastha is Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut, USA. She has over 75 publications on migration, transnationalism, violence and peace, and human rights. She has received many local, national, and international honors and awards, including the Jessie Bernard award from American Sociological Association. Solange Simões is a Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at Eastern Michigan University. She has a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics and was a Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Her areas of research and publications include gender and globalization, political participation, and public policy; racial identity; class structure; environmental values and attitudes; and cross‐national survey methodology. Marcia Texler Segal is Professor of Sociology and Dean for Research Emerita, Indiana University Southeast, USA. She is Series Co‐editor of Advances in Gender Research and Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class: Readings for a Changing Landscape and Past President of North Central Sociological Association. Her professional experience includes assignments in Sub‐Saharan Africa.

This page intentionally left blank

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Akosua Adomako Ampofo Akosua‐Asamoabea Ampofo Sue Ann Barratt Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi Josephine Beoku‐Betts Akosua K. Darkwah Manisha Desai Avelin Buniacá Kambiwá Marlise Matos Mary Johnson Osirim Bandana Purkayastha Solange Simões Marcia Texler Segal

University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana Independent Researcher, Accra, Ghana University of the West Indies, Jamaica University of Oslo, Norway Florida Atlantic University, USA University of Ghana, Ghana University of Connecticut, USA Minas Gerais Committee, Brazil Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil Bryn Mawr College, USA University of Connecticut, USA Eastern Michigan University, USA Indiana University Southeast, USA

xiii

This page intentionally left blank

SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal

As editors of the Advances in Gender Research series we are pleased to include Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South, edited by Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Josephine Beoku‐Betts in the series. The idea for this volume grew out of the desire to develop a genuine global feminist scholarship that acknowledges power imbalances, does not oversimply, recolonize or stereotype, and that incorporates counterdiscourses as well as dominant ones. Discussion for a volume like this one began at the 2016 International Sociological Association (ISA) Forum held in Vienna and continued through the years to the ISA World Congress of Sociology held in Toronto in 2018 and beyond. While a series co‐editor (Segal) is one of the contributors and the guest editors are well‐known to us, there are new voices here and colleagues we know offer new data and themes. The volume demonstrates the progress in the development of feminist knowledge that has been made since our 2001 volume, (Demos & Segal) An International Feminist Challenge to Theory, and how much more there is to accomplish. Adomako Ampofo and Beoku‐Betts have developed a volume based on rigorous scholarly examination and energized by activist commitment and in the process have presented a liberated feminism. Contributing authors identify problems in much existing work beginning with that of terminology and the dual concepts of polar South versus polar North. They use these terms, though they point to issues these concepts raise including the fact that their geographical meaning does not entirely coincide with actual power imbalances. Associated with this issue is the power imbalance represented by feminists of the global North theorizing about global South realities noting that key issues such as the importance of land distribution and use and the role of the state may be missed because they are largely absent from Northern paradigms. They also warn about simplifying the legacy of colonialism and focusing on such practices as Sati, thereby digressing, as well as engaging in voyeuristic attention to the bodies of African women. Contributing authors use and argue for a variety of methodologies – both qualitative and quantitative – in producing feminist knowledge. These include surveys and interviews and critical content analysis as well historical structural analysis and critical review of literature. The importance of cyber analysis and the examination of social media messages is highlighted.

REFERENCE Demos, V., & Segal, M. T. (Eds.). (2001). An international feminist challenge to theory. Amsterdam: JAI. xv

This page intentionally left blank

EDITOR PREFACE Josephine Beoku‐Betts and Akosua Adomako Ampofo

This book is in many ways a culmination of the intersection of our personal and professional journeys as Black, African feminist scholars – one of us located in the global South and the other in the global North. Our conversations began in 1994, when we first met at a training workshop on Qualitative Research Methods at the University of Georgia, where Josephine was on the faculty in Sociology and Women’s studies. At the time, Akosua was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Ghana, and a Ph.D. student in Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Although our professional journeys were dissimilar in some ways (location and trajectory), we found shared points of connection through conversations about our personal and political journeys with feminist scholarship, our relationships with students and the curricular, and our experiences in the academy. Over the years these discussions developed into writing projects, co‐authored publications, and co‐leadership professional roles. More specifically, this volume emerged out of two conferences of the International Sociological Association (ISA) held in 2016 (Vienna) and 2018 (Toronto), and has also been shaped by multiple shared opportunities for additional scholarship and reflection since then, including many other feminist gatherings. Around 2004, Margaret Abraham and Esther Ngan‐Ling Chow, then co‐presidents of the ISA’s Research Committee on Women, Gender and Society (RC32)1 and both feminist colleagues with whom we had worked closely within Sociologists for Women and Society (SWS), encouraged us to join RC32. They subsequently also encouraged us to run as co‐presidents of RC32, which we did successfully in 2012, beginning our term in 2014. One of the most important reasons why we responded to this call to leadership was to further highlight the work of feminist scholars from the global South. Our goal as co‐presidents of RC32 was to increase the presence and participation of women and men from Africa specifically, and the global South2 more generally.3 During the 2016 ISA Forum held in Vienna and the 2018 World Congress of Sociology held in Toronto, we organized two sessions to discuss feminist epistemology issues in the global South, which eventually went through a long and exhausting labor to give birth to this book. The 2016 session, entitled “Knowledge Production: Feminist Perspectives in the 21st Century,” included Akosua K. Darkwah, Bandana Purkayastha, and Marcia Texler Segal, all of whom have chapters in this volume, as well as presentations by Margaret Abraham and Evangelia Tastsoglou, and Consuelo Corradi and Maria Carmela Agodi. The 2018 session, entitled “Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Voices from the Global South,” included Manisha Desai, Sue Ann Barratt, Solange Simões, Marlise Matos, and Josephine Beoku‐Betts, all of whom have chapters in this xvii

xviii

Editor Preface

volume. Akosua was the discussant for both sessions, as well as a speaker for the Closing Plenary Session of the 2016 Forum, where her presentation was titled, “Black Lives Matter and the Status of the Africana World.”4 At that same Forum, Rhoda Redock, herself a former president of the RC32, was our selected invited speaker for a common session, where she spoke on “Sociology, Feminisms and the Global South: Back to the Future.”5 In 2016, Josephine was invited as a keynote speaker to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA)6 at the University of Ghana, where she spoke on the topic “Ghanaian Women Scientists: Innovators and Knowledge Producers for the Nation State.” In 2017, she was an invited panelist at a session organized by the ISA and Criminologists without Borders on “Women’s Empowerment, Sustainable Development, and Strategies to Eliminate Violence against Women and Girls: Sociological Contributions” at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women NGO Forum in New York. As part of our goal to bring Southern feminist voices to global feminist dialogues in the academy, we initiated the idea for a workshop on publishing in peer reviewed feminist journals at the 2018 ISA Congress in Toronto. The workshop was organized by the editor of Gender & Society, Jo Reger, with participation from the editors of Current Sociology and the Canadian Women’s Studies Journal, and was well received by RC32 members, including several from the global South. As we reflected on the issues raised by the speakers and session participants in these various sessions and workshops, an important common thread that resonated with us quite forcefully was the politics of knowledge production, especially feminist knowledge in the global South. The following section explains our social location as co‐editors of this anthology. I (Josephine) approach this book and my chapter from a social location as a global South Black feminist immigrant scholar activist based in the United States but with strong and ongoing connections to my West African roots, particularly Sierra Leone. I work from the vantage point of transnational feminist, critical African feminist, and Black feminist epistemologies. All three lenses are interdisciplinary and intersect contextually and they have singularly or on multiple levels informed my scholarship, pedagogy, activism, and engagement in feminist dialogues in both global North and South spaces. In keeping with this commitment, I have taught, developed curricula, and conducted training and Study Abroad in my field in the United States as well as in Sierra Leone and Ghana. I train my students to appreciate that they are meaningful sources of knowledge and must nurture their ability to question and reinterpret conventional knowledge about power structures and social relations, beginning in the classroom. My research is in the field of African feminist studies, and my current work focuses on post‐ conflict Sierra Leone and women’s mobilizations for rights of full citizenship. I’m interested in how women’s organizations have leveraged political transformations in the state to support capacity building and policy reforms to promote gender equality and women’s rights. I also conduct research on African women in science, examining how women scientists in Africa position themselves in relation to the politics and practice of scientific knowledge production.

xix

Editor Preface

While I (Akosua) consider feminist scholarship to be inherently disruptive of hegemonies, I appreciate that not everyone feels the need to bring their scholarship directly into non‐academic spaces, something that I seek to do consciously and critically. I consider myself an activist scholar addressing questions of identity and power within families, institutions, political and religious spaces, and the knowledge industry; I aim to bring these conversations into “public spaces” such as pre‐university schools and churches, onto radio, TV and other electronic media, and through public lectures for a “lay audience.” I am passionate about knowledge production in and on Global Africa by people of African descent. Decolonizing the academy/curriculum has almost become a catch phrase today; however, guided by my intellectual ancestors and seniors, my commitment to changing inaccurate and damaging narratives about Black and African women through gendered sociological enquiries and coverage of historical accounts by African women was established early in my DNA. I am currently involved in a project with Kate Skinner7 conducting filmed oral history interviews with Ghanaian gender activists and “political women” of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to create a publicly accessible archive of gender activism in postcolonial Ghana. In my work on black masculinities, I explore the shifting nature of identities among young men in Africa and the diaspora and how this may be associated with (possibilities for) transformations in gender relations.

NOTES 1. 2006–2010. 2.  We discuss the politics of naming later in this Introduction. 3.  While we cannot claim that the numbers of African members increased significantly during our tenure, we did see a slight increase. 4.  The theme for the Forum was “The Futures We Want: Global Sociology and the Struggles for a Better World.” 5.  The Common Sessions present distinguished speakers from the ISA’s Research Committees, Working Groups, and Thematic Groups who reflect on the Forum’s common theme. 6.  Akosua served as the foundation Director of CEGENSA from 2005 to 2010. 7.  University of Birmingham and with funding from the British Academy.

This page intentionally left blank

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Most of the chapters in this collection were birthed out of panels of the Research Committee on Women, Gender and Society (RC32) of the International Sociology Association at a Forum (Vienna, 2016) or Congress (Toronto 2018) during our tenure as Co‐Presidents. We are extremely grateful for the support of the entire Research Committee, and would like to express our thanks, especially, to former and current Presidents Margaret Abraham, Esther Chow, Evie Tastsoglou, and Melanie Heath for their work on behalf of RC32, and especially for the support and encouragement they extended to the two of us during our term as Co‐ Presidents. Our work over the years has been strengthened and refined by many other collaborations, and we would like to express our gratitude in particular to Sociologists for Women and Society (SWS), and the Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association for their homes of intellectual sisterhood and friendship. We are grateful for our students over the years – they questioned us, encouraged us, and thus contributed to, as well as validated our work. We also wish to acknowledge our institutions where we found homes in which to nurture our intellectual work – the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, and the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic university. To the authors whose works are represented here and who either participated in an RC32 panel at an ISA Congress or Forum, or who graciously submitted a paper at our invitation, we say a very big “thank you.” Finally, we thank the series editors of this volume, Marcia Segal and Vicky Demos for entrusting this very pleasurable task to us, for their patience as Covid‐19 threw us off‐kilter, and for traveling the journey of this volume with us. – Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Josephine Beoku‐Betts

xxi

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION: POSITIONING FEMINIST VOICES IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH Josephine Beoku‐Betts and Akosua Adomako Ampofo

Scholarship in the field of feminist theory and praxis has significantly expanded over the past two decades as the complex and interlocking conditions that produce oppression, opportunity, and privilege (e.g., race, ethnicity, class, nationality, sexuality, disability, and age) have generated new questions, issues, and interpretations of women’s lives. There are concerns about the nature of knowledge itself, such as the pathways of formation and the hegemonies of dominant forms and voices that continue to determine global politics and marginalize the diverse voices and perspectives of subaltern communities in the global South (e.g., women, the poor, young people, and LGBTQI). It is now clearly understood that feminist theorizing that complicates analysis of contextual, historical, geo‐ economic, political, and cultural processes shaping women’s differentiated lives is necessary to generate new interdisciplinary feminist theories and praxis. For example, studies by feminist scholars in the global South and its diaspora have rejected hegemonic Western feminism, effectively criticizing homogenized conceptions of gender in feminist theory and putting more emphasis on the impact that global economic processes such as colonialism and neoliberal capitalism have on the oppression of women and marginalized communities in the global South (e.g., Alexander & Mohanty, 1997, Grewal & Kaplan, 1994; Mohanty, 1997; Steady, 1981, 2004). These studies and others have challenged feminist theory to explore the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality, but to also more broadly interrogate the particularities of other structures of power that impact women’s lived experiences in the global South, such as patriarchal nationalisms, religion, and local structures of legal‐juridical oppression (Desai, 2015; Mama, 2009; Moghadam, 2015; Mohanty, 2003). As a result, it is now commonplace for feminist scholarship and pedagogy in the global North to take a global, transnational, and intersectional approach. Such developments have enhanced intellectual exchanges among scholars and activists regionally and transnationally. Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 1–19 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031001

1

2

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

This book examines new and ongoing feminist dialogues addressing feminist knowledge production in the global South and ways in which feminist scholars and activists from these regions may break with dominant epistemologies to frame their own sites of feminist theory and praxis. Issues and concerns explored by contributing authors in their varying contexts are reflective of alternative intellectual traditions which in the present moment are informing and reconfiguring dominant epistemologies and methodologies in fundamental ways, not only in the so‐called “post colonies” but also in countries of former colonial powers, perspectives influence each other and alliances are formed. This introductory chapter and the book as a whole aim to show ways in which feminist scholarship and praxis in the global South offer possibilities for new insights that reflect multiple and shifting conditions in their societies and regions and how these changes are shaping understandings and interpretations of global and transnational feminist agendas. This chapter will address these issues by first exploring the politics of feminist knowledge production and some of the issues and contestations raised by feminist scholars in the global South and its diaspora regarding knowledge production and its pathways of formation, as well as its implications for women’s lives in the global South. The next section discusses ways in which global South feminists and those in the diaspora are shaping their own positionalities and identities by framing new sites of feminist theory and praxis. The penultimate section addresses the methodological approaches that the authors in this volume bring to their chapters, and the final section presents the thematic organization of the book’s chapters.

THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION In our quest for liberating feminist scholarship and generating new conceptual, theoretical, and empirical discourses based on critical understandings and interpretations of women’s lives and structures of gender relations in and from global South contexts, it is important to understand the methodological approaches (which will be further discussed in the section on methodology), including the concepts and terms used by contributing authors in this book. This provides the context for our self‐reflexivity and positions us in what Naples (2002) describes as “our political orientation, disciplinary assumptions, and cross‐cultural sensibility” (p. 5). One of the terms we use and which comes up in discourses throughout this book is “global South.” Over the past two decades, the term “Third World” has increasingly been viewed as obsolete, controversial, and misunderstood and has been largely replaced by more commonly used terms such as “global South” and more recently “One Third World versus Two Thirds World.” The term “Third World” originally indicated a positioning of particular countries amidst the geopolitical and ideological divisions between the advanced capitalist economies of Europe and North America (First World) and the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Second World) during the Cold War. Countries that identified as “Third World,” including the former Yugoslavia, adopted a position of non‐alignment, arguing the need for a third, alternative world grouping. Many of these countries shared the historical experiences of slavery, racism, and colonial

Introduction

3

domination by Western Capitalist societies, as well as decolonization and unequal development in the global economy. They came to be seen as economically underdeveloped. Some scholars have argued that people living in Third World countries are marginalized as “other” and unequally positioned in relation to their counterparts in First World countries who are depicted as privileged and advanced. This binary representation of the First and Third World, furthermore, overlooks minoritized communities of color who live under similar circumstances in the First World (Mohanty, 2003). The term “postcolonial” is a similarly contested term applied to formerly colonized nations. Some scholars who object to the use of this term “emphasize that it may mask continuing colonial relations that shape the lives of people in these nations” (Naples, 2002, p. 5). The term “global South” has therefore become the most commonly used term. This designation developed in the 1980s is from the Brandt Commission Report, an independent commission on international development issues. The term emphasizes the unequal economic and political power relations between rich nations (North) and poor nations (South). It cannot be applied in purely geographical terms, as not all countries in the South are poor or formerly colonized countries and some countries in the North are quite poor (e.g., Eastern and Southern Europe) and do not share much in common with prominent Western Capitalist economies. Another term increasingly used to categorize social minorities and social majorities based on the quality of life of people in the global North and South is “One Third World versus Two Thirds World.” Mohanty (2003) explains that one advantage of this term is that it avoids misleading binary oppositions, whether geographical or ideological, and draws attention to the differences and fluidities in quality of life, power relations, and agency between the advantaged and disadvantaged within and between national boundaries, including native or indigenous communities whose struggles cannot necessarily be explained under the colonial experience (p. 42). Finally, another set of commonly used terms are “Eurocentric” or “West‐Centric.” These are ideological terms used in postcolonial critiques of European exceptionalism or the privileging of the West and its knowledge systems over “non‐Western” or “global South” societies. Both terms are typically used in postcolonial discourses on decolonization and development. As co‐editors and contributing authors to this book, we are sensitive to the ongoing debates and contestations underlying the use of these terms, and we express our positionalities on the use or non‐use of terms used in our respective chapters. All but one of us are from world regions associated with the term “global South,” such as South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East, and we identify accordingly, regardless of where we currently reside. We use the terms “global North and South” or “One Third World and Two Thirds World” or “Southern” or “Eurocentric” or “West‐Centric” either on their own or in a variety of formats informed by our geographical or political positionalities or our self‐identities as feminist scholars from the global South and global North. For example, Purkayastha (Chapter 1) argues against the use of “global North and South” because such terms are framed as binaries denoting global hierarchies. These hierarchies, she argues, also exist in various forms within

4

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

regions, nation states, and localities both in the global North and South and are manifested in disparities between those who are privileged and marginalized. As such, these complexities should be reflected in the use of these terms and in discourses to which they are applied.

CHALLENGING HEGEMONIC DISCOURSES AND EPISTEMOLOGIES Feminist scholars in the global South have for a long time criticized the privileging of Western knowledge systems over those of counterparts in the global South (e.g., Grewal & Kaplan, 2006; Mohanty, 1991; Spivak, 1988; Steady, 2004). Underlying much of this discourse regarding the privileging of Western knowledge systems are notions of racial difference embedded in Eurocentric beliefs about the biological, intellectual, and cultural inferiority of formerly colonized non‐White societies. While there is no scientific validity to these beliefs, representations of racial difference based on binary divisions were used by Western scientists, particularly in the nineteenth century, to legitimize Western colonization of non‐White societies; these notions are still prevalent today in representations of these societies in popular culture and social media, in racial and cultural biases inherent in measurements used for intelligence testing, and in the discrimination experienced by men and women of color in the global North and global South. Racial protests in the United States in 2020 against police brutality and killings of Black Americans, and the echoing anti‐racist mobilizations by Black communities in former colonial metropoles worldwide demanding an end to systemic racism and symbolic icons of racism, are situated in this historical context through which Eurocentric knowledge is produced and articulated. A noted example of scientific racism is the case of Saartjie Bartmaan, a South African woman of Khoi descent whose body was denigrated by display of her genitals and buttocks in numerous exhibition events in Europe during the nineteenth century. The dehumanization and objectification of this woman served as an example of the perceived racial, sexual, and physical inferiority of African races and as a means to normalize the White female body. Under slavery and colonialism, Black women were represented as sexually promiscuous, as beasts of burden, or as a‐ sexual, in order to justify their exploitation as productive and reproductive labor and their physical and sexual abuse. Similar oppressive experiences were shared by indigenous women in Latin America, Asia, and North America and are well accounted for in feminist scholarship (e.g., Smith, 2005; Stoler, 2002). Southern feminist scholars have also challenged the privileging of Western feminism over other feminisms, viewing this as a replication of colonial hegemony. They express frustration in having to conform to and be excluded from the dictates of shared intellectual space in feminist theoretical works, some of which cannot adequately explain situated differences or complex social arrangements that shape women’s experiences and concerns about gender equality in the global South. A consequent result is that much of what is known about women in these

Introduction

5

regions is based on essentialized notions of the “Third World Woman” as a monolithic analytical category (Mohanty, 1991). White middle class feminist scholars in the global North were similarly criticized by feminist scholars of color in the global North (e.g., Anzaldua, 1987; Crenshaw, 1991; Hill Collins, 1990) for their inattentiveness to the gendered dimensions of race, class, and sexuality issues as well as the ways in which these factors intersect. Feminist scholars in the global South and diaspora (e.g., Mohanty, 1997, 2003; Nayaran, 1997; Spivak, 1988; Steady, 1981, 2004) interrogated these issues further to incorporate other power structures such as colonialism, nationalisms, religion, ethnicity, and globalization, in their analyses of how these processes shaped the experiences of women in colonized and postcolonial societies. Indeed, during the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995, women of color in the United States formed alliances with their counterparts in the South to draft language for the Platform for Action that incorporated the multiple forms of oppression regularly experienced by women (Basu, 2003, p. 70). Western feminists were also criticized for ignoring or overlooking culturally and politically distinctive struggles of colonized women to resist, overcome, and transform patriarchal practices in their societies. Gayatri Spivak (1988), in her renowned essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” described as “epistemic violence” the subjugation and disqualification of women’s situated knowledge under colonialism because of race and class oppression, as well as indigenous and colonial state patriarchy which deny women access to education, the law, and a voice of authority to represent themselves. Although Spivak suggested that postcolonial feminist intellectuals could represent the voice of the subaltern, she is aware that it is a difficult and dangerous exercise to presume to speak on behalf of those you are writing about (Riach, 2017). Chandra Talpady Mohanty’s (1991) “Under Western Eyes” also challenged Western feminist constructs of gender and patriarchy as universal and a‐historical as well as the objectification of global South women as a homogenous and unitary category, irrespective of diversities of race, ethnicity, class, and nationality. She deconstructed the objectification of global South women as poor, uneducated, traditional, and powerless in contrast to their White middle‐class counterparts. She also exposed the political underpinnings of these analytical categories by showing historical continuities in Western hegemonic control over global economic, political, scientific, and cultural knowledge production and analyzed the exploitative effects of this process on women from the global South. Uma Nayaran (1997) similarly criticized as inaccurate and politically dangerous Western feminist depictions of global South women as “backward” and “unchanging.” She argued that such representations reinforced contemporary fundamentalist religious and nationalist states in the global South, situating women in traditional contexts as a means to validate the preservation of their cultural traditions. She argued that if meaningful alliances are to be fostered among feminists transnationally and across race, class, ethnicity, and nationality, feminists in the global North must exercise caution in how they represent women

6

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

in the global South. Nayaran applied this analysis to Mary Daly’s discussion of Sati, as an illustration of how understandings of such practices are misinformed by colonialist notions of cultural traditions that oppress and devalue women. She argued that Daly was indifferent to the complex and unequal race and class relations that are embedded in the institution of colonialism.

DILEMMAS AND CONTESTATIONS IN BRINGING SOUTHERN VOICES TO THE TABLE Though feminists in the global South have produced and transferred theoretical scholarship prior to and alongside that of Northern counterparts (Tripp, 2006; Weber, 2002), it is generally perceived that the development of feminism and struggle for gender equality was transmitted from the global North to the global South. Tripp (2006) argues, however, that this was a parallel development that often followed different paths, with each learning from and influencing one another. Many Southern feminist scholars are concerned that they are trapped in “a double bind” when producing feminist knowledge, in the sense that they are not supported by their male colleagues who do not find their work scientifically objective and at the same time are treated by their Northern counterparts as less knowledgeable and short of resources (Gouws, 2012). Such perceptions effectively marginalize the positionality of Southern feminist scholarship from the mainstream in the geopolitics of knowledge production. While this is not necessarily an intentional exclusion or oversight of what alternative insights this work brings to mainstream discourses, it reflects what Milani and Lazar (2017) describe as “a normative erasure that is symptomatic of a broader structural asymmetry in the geopolitics of knowledge across disciplines” (p. 308). Thus, in order for Southern feminist scholars to be professionally competitive and for their works to be published in international peer reviewed journals, they must be well‐versed in dominant feminist paradigms in the global North, their research and theorizing should be competitive with that of their global North counterparts, and they should attend conferences and network with colleagues in the global North. The lack of funding for research and travel as well as heavy teaching and administrative workloads in universities in the global South puts a heavy burden and state of dependence on the ability of Southern feminist scholars to maintain that level of competition. Their disadvantage translates into a striking imbalance in production and circulation of feminist knowledge from their regions, which is then viewed as empirical and descriptive or for policy purposes, whereas what is produced and circulated in the global North is then typically viewed as conceptual, methodological, and is perceived to hold authority (Connell, 2015). But, as Steady (2004) draws to our attention, privileging theory building is usually done at the expense of pragmatism and relevance to the lived experiences of those being studied and to the advantage of the researcher’s professional career interests. She cites Galtung (1967), who described this process as “scientific colonialism,” tracing a

Introduction

7

parallel between colonialists who extracted African labor and resources for profit and researchers who extract data from countries in the global South which they then process into publications that are reimported as received knowledge in these countries. “What happens to us when we cannot find ourselves, our historical and present‐day realities, or our ideas in research on Africa? What happens to us when what we do find is distorted by the perspectives and the positionalities of others?” are questions African feminist scholar Amina Mama alerts us to ask (Mama, 2017, p. 2). Unless we address these imbalances by redefining and reconceptualizing the received concepts, theories, and methodologies we use in more inclusive ways that reflect the specificities of our historical, economic, political, and social contexts, feminist knowledge production in the global South will continue to be marginalized. In Africa, for example, although there are differences among the feminist intellectual community, there is a shared approach to feminism as a combined theoretical and practical project critically reflecting our historical contexts and viewing “feminist theory as most relevant when it is rooted in activism” (Mama, 2017, p. 4). Grewal and Kaplan’s (1994) groundbreaking Scattered Hegemonies contributes to understandings of how we problematize the challenges of producing feminist work across cultural divides and the possibilities of incorporating postmodern theory into feminist theory, so as to avoid the homogenizing and universalized westernized conceptions of gender which underlie much of feminist theory. Locating feminist practices from a transnational and comparative lens contextualizes the varied and historically specific effects of the relationship of women and gender to hegemonic structures such as globalization, patriarchal nationalisms, and legal‐juridical oppression. Grewal and Kaplan (1994) argue that such an approach is imperative if analysis of women in the global South is to move beyond the relativistic thinking of mainstream feminism. African feminist scholars, however, caution against over dependency on theoretical approaches that are fragmented and not integrated into wider political struggles and public debates that unify and create space for dialogue on historical, political, and economic realities underpinning women and gender issues in the contemporary African experience. (Nzomo, 1998, p. 13).

They also argue that postmodernist and Marxist paradigms are imported knowledge that, although useful in terms of class analysis, tend to overlook gender, producing biased and borrowed knowledge which masks existing gender subordination (Adomako Ampofo, Beoku‐Betts, & Osirim, 2008).

FEMINIST DISCOURSES IN GLOBAL SOUTH CONTEXTS Over the past 30 years, Southern feminists have made significant progress in dismantling dominant approaches in feminist knowledge production in local and transnational contexts, through what Amina Mama (2011) describes as

8

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

“a politics of critical engagement with activism using scholarly resources” (p. 11). Although much of Southern feminist discourse is still largely informed by West‐centric epistemologies, including Marxism, post‐structuralism, and post‐modernism, it has become more nuanced as its voice develops autonomy in its conceptual and methodological tools of analysis and in its prioritization of critical agenda issues. For example, while the loss of land rights to promote commercial farming was central to the colonial project, with adverse implications for the colonized and structure of gender relations, even in the contemporary period this topic is virtually absent in feminist and gender theories in the global North (Connell, 2015). Similarly, while “the state” is considered a critical issue in feminist analysis of women and gender relations in the global South, it remains of marginal interest in feminist theories in the global North (Connell, 2014). In this section, we will highlight some ways in which Southern feminist scholars are shifting feminist discourses and agendas in local, regional, and transnational contexts and the possibilities for producing more inclusive knowledge that will balance production and circulation of feminist knowledge and praxis in more transformative ways. Citizenship Rights: Questions of citizenship have historically been important markers of women’s status and gender equality in most countries, as masculinist constructions of politics and citizenship have excluded, marginalized, or made ambiguous interpretations and practices of women’s rights as full citizens. In liberal democracies, women have been denied full citizenship by their construction as dependents or as mothers who need protection, and by their perceived unsuitability to bear arms and guard the state under warfare conditions (Pettman, 2006). Even where women are granted full citizenship rights, it has not led to equal participation or representation. Many have argued that the underlying division between public and private has prevented women from enjoying the privileges of citizenship; in most Southern contexts, this dichotomy does not necessarily reflect the historical and cultural realities of those societies (e.g., Beoku‐Betts & Njambi, 2005). Also, in the contemporary period of transnationalism, questions regarding the rights of citizens go beyond the realms of the nation state due to high rates of mobility across borders, including many women and children traveling as migrants, immigrants, or refugees. In this regard, discourses about citizenship take into account discrimination and oppressive practices against marginalized communities based on the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality and other forms of inequality, and extend to consider “‘universal rights’ regardless of national citizenship” (Grewal, 2005, p. 11). In South Asia, Amrita Chhachhi and Sunila Abeysekera (2015) are part of a political project that explores the possibility of a denationalized/regional identity to broaden understandings of South Asian regional transnational feminisms beyond relations between the global North and South. As a result of legacies of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 into two nation states, along with further divisions of Pakistan into Bangladesh and a civil war in Sri Lanka, the promise of full citizenship was denied to many due to their religion, ethnicity, language, and indigenous locations together with the deep structures of nationalism and external geopolitical dynamics in the region. Chhachhi and Abeysekera (2015)

Introduction

9

argue that these factors have impeded solidarity across borders and hindered the potential development of a Southasian Feminist identity. Therefore, producing new epistemic knowledge requires critical intersectional regional analysis of the internal contradictions and external geopolitical dynamics within countries and across the region. It involves recognition of multiple patriarchies that impact gender, caste, class, ethnicity, state, and nation within each of these countries. Identifying the structures of this multilayered process makes it possible to understand how critical issues such as the rights to inheritance, divorce, and child custody, as well as other laws governing the private sphere, have impacted women in these communities and created tensions among Southasian feminists. An intersectional regional analysis makes space to articulate a new epistemic frame for Southasian citizenship and build a Southasian women’s movement within and across countries in the region. African feminist scholar Patricia McFadden (2007) similarly views the notion of citizenship as an important challenge facing African feminists in their efforts to develop transformative epistemologies that reflect an activist culture which demands restructuring of the state and key social institutions. She argues that Eurocentric understandings of citizenship must be reconceptualized to be more transgressive and socially inclusive, taking into account race, class, sexuality, gender, and locational inequalities, from which would emerge new expressions of social and national inclusion (McFadden, 2007, p. 42). This would entail posing complex questions and contesting meanings and expressions of citizenship as well as critically examining the connections among citizenship, private property, and the commodification of rights as market based. In most capitalist societies, there is a direct link between those who own property and those who control the regulation and distribution of property, wealth, and entitlements. In Zimbabwe, even after independence, White settlers controlled the wealth and the individual freedoms of African communities. However, recent land reform processes have enabled Africans to reposition themselves to question and redefine understandings of citizenship in gendered and class terms. The ability to exercise individual autonomy and to confront the state about rights and entitlements is related to ownership of property, which Zimbabwean women were largely denied. McFadden asserts that this is an urgent matter for feminist analysis and activism. She states that the women’s movement’s response to this challenge will be largely determined by the class interests of its leadership and “a nuanced understanding of the intersectionality between social reproduction and the class struggles that are defining who becomes a citizen and what that status implies in the long term” (McFadden, 2007, p. 40). The strength of indigenous movements and indigenous women’s mobilizations also demonstrates how citizenship is being redefined and articulated in global South contexts. Stephanie Rousseau and Christina Ewig’s (2017) article, “Latin America’s Left‐Turn and the Political Empowerment of Indigenous Women,” assesses how the success of leftist parties across Latin America was not just because of the failure of right wing market‐oriented economic policies to meet the needs of the economically and socially marginalized, but was also due to new coalitions between leftist parties and indigenous peoples who historically had been

10

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

marginalized from formal politics. Indigenous women played a significant role in this process by demanding recognition and political inclusion in decisions affecting their lives, especially regarding land, territories, natural resources, and the right to food, health, and education (Rousseau & Ewig, 2017, p. 426). Rousseau and Ewig (2017) apply intersectional analysis to show how the positioning of indigenous women at the intersection of race and gender oppression gave them leverage to exercise their constitutional citizenship rights, achieve political representation in their parliaments, and secure commitment of the state through policy machineries set up by indigenous women’s movements. Other factors undergirding the political empowerment of indigenous women included the strength of indigenous movements in national politics and the capacity of indigenous women activists to create their own space and leadership roles within the indigenous movements. Indigenous women also promoted their own agendas with specific concerns about domestic and state violence, the adverse impact of extractive industries on their livelihoods, and the need for guaranteed gender equality in the decision‐making process. This study revealed that the political empowerment of indigenous women was more likely where the agendas of leftwing parties coincided with the collective rights demands of indigenous movements, such as the right to self‐determination on their ancestral territories. Incorporating the specific demands of indigenous women within these movements was also of critical importance to leftwing party agendas in terms of gaining votes because the women had their own autonomous bases within the wider indigenous movements. Since electoral victory is determined by voter turnout, indigenous women leveraged the opportunities open to them and strategically exercised their citizenship rights to achieve political empowerment in countries such as Bolivia. Counterpublics: The term “subaltern counterpublic” was coined by Nancy Frazer (1997) who described it as: “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs” (p. 81). Among current generations of feminists, for example, counterpublics may be expressed through oral tradition and popular culture (e.g., music, literature, the spoken word, and art, including artwork on the body). In addition, the exponential growth and use of cyberspace has provided opportunities for feminist scholars and activists working within their own defined paradigms of feminism to reconceptualize and redefine feminist dialogues beyond hegemonic and mainstream channels. For example, young feminists around the world are using social media on and offline as a political tool to organize campaigns such as the #FeesMustFall Movement (South Africa), the #IWillGoOut Protest (India), and the Actua, deten la Violencia campaign (Latin America) as part of wider social justice movements “demanding an end to all forms of oppression experienced by women, lesbians and transpeople – from extreme violence to unpaid care work, and from unsafe abortions to daily street harassment” (Davies & Sweetman, 2018, p. 388). While recognizing the opportunities and possibilities for feminist knowledge production through these spaces, it is important to note that cyberspace is predominantly male‐centered in terms of volume of participants, agenda setting – even on feminist topics – and gendered experience in this public space. Also,

Introduction

11

most of the women who participate in cyberspace are privileged White academic professionals (Travers, 2003). In this section, we explore some of the ways in which Southern feminists engage in the counterpublics sphere and how this contributes to the decolonization of dominant feminist theoretical and empirical practices and opens spaces for new dialogues from the perspective of Southern feminists working from different cultural, political, and economic contexts. In Brazil, the neglect of knowledge production both theoretical and political by Afro‐Brazilian women is attributed to the history of oppression and exclusion of Black Brazilians based on their race and other intersections of inequality. In constructing an identity and political autonomy based on their historical realities, Afro‐Brazilian women’s movements approach their vision of feminism from alternative intellectual traditions based on Afro‐Brazilian civilizational values and a politics of decolonial epistemologies and methodologies based on an ethics of social justice rather than an essentialist interpretation of being Black African (Pons Cardoso, 2016). Pons Cardoso’s (2016) scholarship on “Feminisms from the Perspective of Afro‐Brazilian Women” delves into life histories based on African oral traditions where “orality is a value, a skill, and a way to guarantee and perpetuate ancestral wisdom” (p. 5). She explores from an intersectional perspective how Afro‐Brazilian women view their experiences of inequality based on class, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as how they theorize and exercise agency in struggles to build a Black women’s movement and activist identities in Brazil. Pons Cardoso’s use of oral testimonies to build theory in the absence of written texts is an approach to liberate feminism in Brazil, opening new spaces for dialogues that are inclusive of indigenous and Black feminisms in Latin America and the Caribbean. Elizabeth Friedman’s (2016) Interpreting the Internet: Feminist and Queer Counterpublics in Latin America similarly examines how feminist and Queer activist communities in Latin America have responded to exclusionary social hierarchies and economic and political institutions by taking advantage of opportunities provided by the internet “to strengthen their communities and achieve world renowned successes in political representation, legal reform, and identity recognition” (Friedman, 2016, p. 1). She argues that new innovations and applications of the internet irrespective of place or time (i.e., emails, distribution lists, websites, blog technology, etc.) will not transform the identities or objectives of the users but will be used to suit their own specific needs and according to their own standards. Friedman’s study shows how Latin American Feminist and Queer communities use the internet to promote an agenda for social justice by bringing in a new and younger generation of leaders and developing broader national and international campaigns. For example, she illustrates how in Mexico local activists have reached out for urgent transnational support to protect the human rights of indigenous peoples, while national organizations have built cyberactivist coalitions to defend reproductive rights against a tidal wave of conservative legislation. (Friedman, 2016, p. 188)

Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi’s “Beh tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?): Feminist Challenges in Iranian Social Media” (Chapter 6) provides a similar example of how the use of the internet in Iran has opened new spaces for online activism,

12

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

networking, and sharing of ideas among people who were not familiar with the political activism, names, and past achievements of Iranian feminists prior to the post‐revolutionary period of the Islamic Republic. She posits that this has created a new kind of feminist consciousness where women are becoming more overt in their defense of individual rights, without relying on religious doctrine to claim their rights to privacy. She concludes that the dividing line between feminist activists is generational, not ideological, and that the transition from on‐the‐ground activism to cyberactivist feminist projects which lean toward individualism, has been both uneven and stunted, posing challenges and potential vulnerabilities for Iranian women activists.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES The work of feminist scholars from the global South is, by default of our locations in relation to the colonial divide, overtly decolonial and anti‐oppression in our methodological approaches. Decolonizing methodologies, as noted by Purkayastha (Chapter 1), is the conscious rejection of imperial frames when conducting our research – from the theoretical framing, through the entry into the field site or reading of secondary documents, including the questions asked and not asked, to the analyses and ways in which the “findings” are reported. Further, as we noted in a 2004 piece on African gender studies for which we were two of the co‐authors, decolonial feminist research continues to take a multidisciplinary approach, while integrating theory and practice with an explicit view to restructuring power relations (Adomako Ampofo, Beoku‐Betts, Njambi, & Osirim, 2004, p. 688). Alvarez et al. (2003) have documented the attention paid to diverse and multiple oppressions related to class, racial, and ethnic differences as well as rural–urban divisions within Latin American feminist activism and scholarship. This acknowledgement of intersecting and differently experienced realities can be found in the methodological and self‐reflexive approaches that the authors in this volume bring to their work and remains at the core of global South feminist work and among Black and Brown feminists globally. The authors in this volume are sensitive to the multiple and shifting conditions in their societies. Thus, they seek to provide insights that offer emancipatory approaches by interrogating received methodologies and suggesting categories for enquiry and analyses that can better order knowledge about women’s lives in the contexts that they study. Desai (Chapter 3), puts it aptly: “Reflexivity, the hallmark of feminisms everywhere, has opened new avenues of theorizing and organizing for gender justice around the world.” Thus, an important contribution that the authors bring is in defining, naming, conceptualizing, and measuring what “is.” Purkayastha and Matos and Kambiwá (Chapters 1 and 5, respectively) establish the frame for this conversation as they surface methodological dilemmas through an examination of efforts to include indigenous knowledge that questions the power of West‐centric epistemologies and methodologies for understanding the world. Purkayastha (Chapter 1) warns of the potential pitfall of failing to acknowledge heterogeneities within indigeneity:

Introduction

13

We need to become sufficiently knowledgeable so that we can better specify which group’s knowledge is the focus of our discussion, and our location in a long history of knowledge making. We should be able to describe clearly our understanding of social location of indigenous groups within multiple hierarchies, that is, what do we know and what we do not know about groups whose knowledge we wish to include.

Desai (Chapter 3) unmasks the false homogenizing that is often accomplished with over‐arching categories such as global South feminisms. In her (re)examination of debates about feminism in the context of contemporary Dalit and Savarna feminist activism, she points out that Adivasi, Bahujan, Muslim, and LGBTQ feminisms are among the ways in which feminist scholar activists in India have articulated their theories and praxis. Simões (Chapter 4) shows that even quantitative survey techniques in the tradition of a so‐called “objective” approach to research can, in fact, be employed to explore the very core of what it means to be a feminist – in this case, to define what feminism is and how it is received. The authors in this volume complicate conceptual approaches. Osirim’s work (Chapter 11) emphasizes the need to acknowledge the historical structural foundations of sexual assault and domestic violence in the liberation war in Zimbabwe and the anti‐apartheid struggles in South Africa. She illustrates the importance of thus contextualizing women’s voices in her descriptions of the complications around “real” (criminal) and not‐illegal rape, where the perpetrators are freedom fighters. Darkwah (Chapter 7), Barratt (Chapter 8), Batmanghelichi (Chapter 6) and Adomako Ampofo and Ampofo (Chapter 9) very deliberately bring young voices to an unpacking of the tensions between feminists and society. Surfacing the voices of the researched is of course part of a long tradition of feminist scholarship. Darkwah goes beyond a mere content analysis of Ghanaian feminists’ social media sites (blogs and Facebook) to interview the authors, comparing and contrasting both their approach and content. Barratt takes a similar approach, examining the perspectives of undergraduate feminist theory students and online feminist activists to establish how contemporary Caribbean feminist advocacy is situated. Batmanghelichi (Chapter 6) surveys the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women (online) activists. Like Desai, the authors of these chapters unmask the false homogenizing of activist voices. Adomako Ampofo and Ampofo (Chapter 9) also brings feminist activist voices into the conversation, however, they do this vicariously through conversations with young men, allowing the men to speak for themselves while simultaneously critically examining the men’s narratives. The review as a method, concurrently invested with the author’s positionality, is also important – exemplified especially in the chapters by Segal (Chapter 10) and Beoku‐Betts (Chapter 2). Both authors provide critical reflections as road maps for the issues they subsequently explore. Beoku‐Betts interrogates past and current trajectories in the praxis of African feminist and gender standpoints, thereby bridging feminist thought and methodological approaches between the different generations of feminists, while Segal includes narratives of personal learning experiences.

14

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

THE CHAPTERS In this final section, we briefly introduce the chapters in this volume under three themes that are in conversation with each other: perspectives on feminisms and knowledge production; young feminists and digital approaches to feminist scholarship and activism; and feminist knowledge production in applied contexts. Several threads run through these mainly empirical chapters – the surfacing of feminist intellectual and activist work that occurs outside the academy; the power and contradictions of digital (online) feminisms; the rearticulation of earlier feminist theorizing among contemporary scholars – sometimes without awareness or acknowledgement; and of course the politics of knowledge production mediated by the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, language, age, location and, importantly, indigeneity. In the first chapter of the section on Perspectives on Feminisms and Knowledge Production, aptly titled “Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas: Contexts, Assemblages, Voices, and Silences,” Purkayastha problematizes the very notion of indigeneity, but importantly – as Matos and Kambiwá do as well in a later chapter – locates its problematic contemporary validity in the experience of power imbalances, namely colonialism and the devaluing, erasures, silencing, and co‐optation that occurs both within but also outside the academy (Adomako Ampofo, 2019). As we have discussed above, the “global North versus global South”, modern and traditional, indigenous and non‐indigenous (read scientific), and other such binaries fail to take into account knowledge hierarchies within and across geopolitical spaces that are a function of gender, race, ethnicity, and other intersections of identities and experiences. Recognizing that scholars are only one set of actors in what Purkayastha calls “transnational assemblages” of knowledge systems, her chapter examines the power dynamics of knowledge production outside academic spaces such as the media, grant‐making organizations, and other actors. Purkayastha also cautions against the ways in which the very language and project of decoloniality is being, ironically, taken over by Western scholars. Beoku‐Betts’ chapter provides a comprehensive review of African feminist knowledge production and sites of activism, with a focus on the Women and Gender Studies programs on the continent and the contexts in which African feminist standpoints have emerged since the 2000s. She illuminates ways in which African feminist scholars have stimulated intellectual engagement, theory building, and activism not just for an African context, but globally, and pays attention to African feminist research and publishing, collaborative scholarship, and conscious policy influencing work such as gender and commercial land acquisition and the political activism of the current generation of young african feminists who are responding to the urgencies of their historical moment – something also reflected in the chapters in the second part of the book. Desai’s chapter on feminisms in India discusses the historical divisions and asymmetries of power within the women’s movement, which, upon close examination, reveal fractures along caste lines but also with regards to the social capital

Introduction

15

that derives from formal Western education and English fluency, among other markers of social difference. This chapter highlights and links what is happening locally to what is happening globally in different moments and different contexts inside and outside the academy. While so much feminist work focuses on the common context of oppression, Desai’s chapter, especially her attention to Dalit women’s activism, is firm in underlining the need to recognize difference. Bringing a survey method approach to understanding Brazilian activists’ definitions and praxis of feminism, Simões, explores women’s identification with feminism and what feminism means to them in their specific contexts, reminding us to avoid the pitfalls of a homogenizing narrative. In discussing answers to these questions, she provides an interesting empirical evaluation of the notion of multiple feminisms. This is an especially useful insight given that Brazil is one of the most racially diverse but also unequal societies in the world. The final chapter in the first section of this book, by Matos and Kambiwá, provides joint reflections by a feminist within the academy and a self‐described Indigenous feminist outside the academy that suggest some of the possibilities for reciprocal learning through dialogues among diverse feminists. In particular, the chapter opens up specific opportunities to employ indigenous epistemologies to construct social scientific knowledge with wide‐reaching significance. The second set of chapters by Barratt, Batmanghelichi, and Darkwah speak to a very specific and topical subject: Young Feminists and Digital Approaches to Scholarship and Activism in the Caribbean, Iran, and Ghana. All three chapters examine the generational shift to the use of social media for feminist activism and knowledge building. We are also confronted with the popular knowledge that feminist work must contend with, and the powerful ways in which young feminists use social media to enable the percolation of feminist ideas between academic and non‐academic spaces. These three authors, as Adomako Ampofo and Ampofo also do in the next section, signpost the collaborations and contestations between the local and the diasporic, as well as the elite and grassroots, which can no longer be dismissed as merely differences between small groups of women. The authors point to the importance of messaging and the need for training around this, as well as managing networks and expectations. All three authors also alert us to the question of how a younger generation of feminist activists manage their space within the nation state. In possibly the most cynical of the three chapters – not unexpected given the title – Batmanghelichi’s discussion of feminist challenges in Iranian Social Media identifies an interruption between the personalities and ideologies that fueled earlier waves of feminist theorizing and activism, and today’s cyber activists. Indeed, given the examples she cites and the narratives she weaves, Batmanghelichi appears to be doubtful about the possibilities of the current cyber‐feminist projects to effect structural or lasting transformation, describing them as “individualized” and “stunted” and even questioning their feminist principles. Darkwah’s chapter on social media activism exposes us to the diversities of African feminist identities with particular attention to sexualities and the subject of women’s bodies, and thereby also to broader issues of inequality. Her chapter

16

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

in particular echoes an earlier debate in the journal Feminist Africa between Charmaine Pereira (2003) and Patricia McFadden (2003) about the self‐imposed silences by African feminists around African women’s bodies and sexualities in response to the voyeurism of white scholars, including white feminists. Barratt considers the legacy of Caribbean feminisms and struggles for gender justice through the reflections of today’s generation of young women. Her chapter, like many of the chapters in this book and especially Batmanghelichi’s and Darkwah’s in this section, reveals the tensions between different groups or cohorts of feminists, in this case between elite and grassroots women in particular. As noted by Purkayastha, tensions are built on language that articulates power for some groups more than others, as well as disconnections between feminist legacies (albeit recognized) and preoccupations with what Barratt sees as individualistic concerns, particularly in terms of the body. The final three chapters address the theme of Feminist Knowledge Production in Applied Contexts. In the only chapter to use young African men’s perspectives as a window into the ideologies and practices of masculinities, Adomako Ampofo and Ampofo invoke young African men’s voices to explore the persistence of particular notions of masculinity that do not augur well for just gender relations, particularly the notion of the male provider. Adomako Ampofo and Ampofo argue that these notions are deeply implicated in the tenacity of male dominance. Segal’s chapter provides a review of “the southern challenge to hegemonic Western scholarship” by raising important questions about research methodology, ethics, and pedagogy. Citing examples from her work with colleagues from other cultural locations, Segal’s clear recognition of her positionality and privilege as a white scholar in the American academy is linked to larger questions of our responsibilities to share the knowledge that exists outside hegemonic spaces and also to unsettle these spaces. Her chapter is also important in that it makes clear that knowledge transmission moves in multiple directions, back and forth, from global South to North, and that this travel empowers the scholars through its diversity. In the final chapter, Osirim explores a subject that remains troubling and painful: violence against women, in this case in Southern Africa. She illustrates how the contributions of Zimbabwean and South African gender scholars and activists have served to place this subject firmly within academic discourse, enabling our understanding of its unique socio‐historical context in southern Africa. Osirim also outlines how these scholars and activists have further made this a political issue in resisting state power and patriarchy.

CONCLUSIONS This book seeks to offer a space within which feminist voices in and on the global South can find expression in conversation. We are women located severally, and our identities intersecting, from Africa and her diaspora, as well as Asia, South America, and North America. These multiple locations have enabled us to interrogate and understand the complex ways in which women’s lives are impacted by

17

Introduction

a multitude of social, political, and historical factors. It is evident from the issues raised in this volume that knowledge from the perspective of Southern feminist scholars is still limited in terms of availability and accessibility. Furthermore, there is still much work to be done in explaining the interplay between theory, praxis, and research practice from the perspectives of these feminist scholars working within their own defined paradigms of feminism, intersectionality, and transnationalism. Some of the perspectives shared by contributing authors are important reassertions of old but important calls to action, while others offer insights into evolving sites of intellectual engagement and advocacy. We have explored three major themes in this book: perspectives on feminisms and knowledge production, young Feminists and digital approaches to scholarship and activism, and feminist knowledge production in applied contexts. So, we ask, how can the epistemological and methodological issues discussed by the authors impact global feminist scholarship, as well as social science more broadly and feminist activism? We feel that we can, and indeed must, push for these perspectives to be included in university courses and for the issues raised to become part of the agenda at professional and other association meetings. The excuse that scholarship on and from the global South is not accessible is no longer tenable. Feminist scholars and mainstream social scientists in both the global North and South should cite these works in their scholarship and should also share snippets of the lessons learned on social media sites. In the final analysis, we continue to believe in the power of accounts such as those in this book to redefine, reconfigure, and envision knowledge production from our standpoints in ways that positively impact the lives of Black and Brown women and women from the global South, especially in an era when we disproportionately embody many of the challenges brought about by COVID‐19, police brutalities, and backlash from authoritarian political ideologies and practices.

REFERENCES Achebe, N., & Robertson, C. (Eds.). (2019). Holding the world together: African women in changing perspective. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Adomako Ampofo, A. (2019). Me san aba: The Africa we want and an African‐centered approach to knowledge production. In M. Schulz (Ed.), Global sociology and the struggles for a better world (pp. 58–73). London: Sage. Adomako Ampofo, A., & Arnfred, S. (Eds.). (2009). African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges, and possibilities. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstituet. Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J., Njambi, W. N., & Osirim, M. (2004). Women’s and gender studies in english‐speaking sub‐Saharan Africa: A review of research in the social sciences. Gender & Society, 18(6), 685–714. Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J., & Osirim, M. (2008). Researching African women and gender studies: New social science perspectives. African and Asian Studies, 7, 327–341. Alexander, M. J., & Mohanty, C. (Eds.). (1997). Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures. New York, NY: Routledge. Alvarez, S. E., Friedman, E. J., Beckman, E., Blackwell, M., Chinchilla, N. S., Lebon, N., … Tobar, M. R. (2003). Encountering Latin American and Caribbean feminisms, Signs, 28(2), pp. 537–579. Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Baksh, R., & Harcourt, W. (Eds.). (2015). The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

18

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS AND AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO

Basu, A. (2003). Globalization of the local/localization of the global: mapping transnational women’s movements. In C. R. McCann & K. Seung‐Kyung (Eds.), Feminist theory reader: Local and global perspectives (pp. 68–77). New York, NY: Routledge. Batmanghelichi, K. S. (Chapter 6). Beh tou cheh? (What’s it to you?): Feminist challenges in Iranian social media. In A. Adomako Ampofo & J. Beoku‐Betts (Eds.), Producing inclusive feminist knowledge: Positionalities and discourses in the Global South (pp. 125–146). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Beoku‐Betts, J., & Njambi, W. N. (2005). African feminist scholars in women’s studies: Negotiating spaces of dislocation and transformation in the study of women. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 6(1), 113–132. Bose, C., & Kim, M. (Eds.). (2009). Global gender research: Transnational perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge. Chhachhi, A., & Abeysekera, S. (2015). Forging a new political imaginary: Transnational Southasian feminisms. In R. Baksh & W. Harcourt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements (pp. 553–577). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Cambridge: Polity. Connell, R. (2014). Rethinking gender from the south. Feminist Studies, 40(3), 518–539. Connell, R. (2015). Meeting at the edge of fear: Theory on a world scale. Feminist Theory, 16(1), 49–66. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity, politics and violence against women. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. Davies, I., & Sweetman, C. (2018). Introduction: Development and young feminisms. Gender and Development, 26(3), 387–401. Desai, M. (2015). Critical cartography, theories, and praxis of transnational feminisms. In R. Baksh & W. Harcourt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements (pp. 116–130). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Frazer, N. (1997). Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the “postsocialist condition” (p. 81). New York, NY: Routledge. Friedman, E. (2016). Interpreting the internet: Feminist and queer counterpublics in Latin America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Galtung, J. (1967). After Camelot. In I. Horowitz (Ed.), The rise and fall of Project Camelot (pp. 281–312). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gouws, A. (2012). Reflections on being a feminist academic/academic feminism in South Africa. Equality, Diversity, Inclusion: An International Journal, 31(5–6), 526‐541. Grewal, I. (2005). Transnational America: Feminisms, diasporas, neoliberalisms. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Grewal, I., & Kaplan, C. (Eds.). (1994). Scattered hegemonies: Postmodernity and transnational feminist practices. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press. Grewal, I., & Kaplan, C. (2006). An introduction to women’s studies: Gender in a transnational world. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Hill Collins, P. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Mama, A. (2009). Demythologizing gender in development: Feminist studies in African contexts. IDS Bulletin, 35(4), 121–124. Mama, A. (2011). What does it mean to do feminist research in African contexts?. Feminist Review Proceedings, 98(1), e4–e20. Mama, A. (2017). The power of the feminist pan‐African intellect. Feminist Africa, 22, 1–15. McFadden, P. (2003). Sexual pleasure as feminist choice. Feminist Africa, 2, 1–8. McFadden, P. (2007). African feminist perspectives of postcoloniality. The Black Scholar, 37(1), 36–42. Milani, T. M., & Lazar, M. M. (2017). Seeing from the south: Discourse, gender and sexuality from southern perspectives. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 21(3), 307–319. Moghadam, V. (2015). Transnational feminist activism and movement building. In R. Baksh & W. Harcourt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements (pp. 53–81). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Mohanty, C. (1991). Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. In C. Mohanty, A. Russo, & L. Torres (Eds.), Third world women and the politics of feminism (pp. 51–79), Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Introduction

19

Mohanty, C. (1997). Women workers and capitalist scripts: Ideologies of domination, common interests, and the politics of solidarity. In M. J. Alexander & C. Mohanty (Eds.), Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures (pp. 3–29). New York, NY: Routledge. Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminism without borders. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Naples, N. (2002). Changing the terms: Community activism, globalization, and the dilemmas of transnational feminist praxis. In N. A. Naples & M. Desai (Eds.), Women’s activism and globalization: Linking local struggles and transnational politics (pp. 3–14). New York, NY: Routledge. Nayaran, U. (1997). Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions, and third world feminism. New York, NY: Routledge. Nzomo, M. (1998). Gender studies in Africa at crossroads? Some reflections. Paper presented at the International symposium on social sciences and the challenges of globalization in Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa, 14–18 September. Pereira, C. (2003). “Where angels fear to tread”: Some thoughts on Patricia McFadden’s “Sexual pleasure as feminist choice”. Feminist Africa, 2, 1–4. Pettman, J. J. (2006). Women and citizenship. In I. Grewal & C. Kaplan (Eds.), An introduction to women’s studies: Gender in a transnational world (pp. 167–170). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Pons Cardoso, C. (2016). Feminisms from the perspective of Afro‐Brazilian women. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 14(1), 1–29. Purkayastha, B. (Chapter 1). Knowledge hierarchies and feminist dilemmas: Contexts, assemblages, voices, and silences. In A. Adomako Ampofo & J. Beoku‐Betts (Eds.), Producing inclusive feminist knowledge: Positionalities and discourses in the Global South (pp. 23–42). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Riach, G. K. (2017). An analysis of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s can the subaltern speak?. London: Routledge. Rodriguez, C., Tsikata, D., & Adomako Ampofo, A. (Eds.). (2015). Transatlantic feminisms: Women and gender studies in Africa and the diaspora. London: Lexington Books. Rousseau, S., & Ewig, C. (2017). Latin America’s left‐turn and the political empowerment of indigenous women. Social Politics, 24(4), 425–451. Smith, A. (2005). Native American feminism, sovereignty, and social change. Feminist Studies, 31(1), 116–132. Spivak, G. (1988). Can the subaltern speak?. In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Steady, F. C. (Ed.). (1981). The black woman cross‐culturally. Rochester, VT: Schenkman Books. Steady, F. C. (2004). An investigative framework for gender research in Africa in the new millennium. In S. Arnfred, B. Bakare‐Yusuf, E. W. Kisiangami, D. Lewis, O. Oyewumi, & F. Steady (Eds.) African gender scholarship: Concepts, methodologies and paradigms (pp. 42–60). Dakar: CODESRIA. Stoler, A. L. (2002). Carnal knowledge and imperial power: Race and the intimate in colonial rule. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Travers, A. (2003). Parallel subaltern feminist counterpublics in cyberspace. Sociological Perspectives, 66(2), 223–237. Tripp, A. M. (2006). The evolution of transnational feminisms: Consensus, conflict, and new dynamics. In M. M. Ferree & A. M. Tripp (Eds.), Global feminism: Transnational women’s activism, organizing, and human rights (pp. 51–75). New York, NY: New York University Press. Weber, C. (2002). Women to women: Dissident citizen diplomacy in Nicaragua. In N.A. Naples & M. Desai (Eds.), Women’s activism and globalization: Linking local struggles and transnational politics (pp. 45–63). New York, NY: Routledge.

This page intentionally left blank

PART 1 PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINISMS AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 1 KNOWLEDGE HIERARCHIES AND FEMINIST DILEMMAS: CONTEXTS, ASSEMBLAGES, VOICES, AND SILENCES Bandana Purkayastha

ABSTRACT Many feminist scholars have challenged West-centric epistemologies and offered concepts such as multiple modernities and decoloniality as appropriate frames for understanding and challenging knowledge hierarchies. Much of these challenges have come from the two-thirds world, though some emanated from scholars located in the one-third world. This chapter presents two related discussions. First, the challenge of moving beyond binaries such as the Global North and South, or one- and two-thirds worlds, even though every region, nation-state, and locale is marked by many discussions, debates, and challenges between the privileged and marginalized within the realms, currently and historically. Second, our scholarly ability to consider a broader knowledge production process, especially evident through the productions through virtual spaces. I examine efforts to include indigenous knowledge by feminists, and reflect on the continuing challenges of dismantling knowledge hierarchies. Keywords: Transnational feminism; knowledge hierarchies; transnational assemblages; indigeneity; global binaries; marginalization (ideally processes of marginalization)

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 23–41 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031002

23

24

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

This chapter is located within the debates that challenge West‐centric epistemologies and offer frames such as decoloniality for understanding and dismantling knowledge hierarchies. These challenges have mostly come from the two‐thirds world, though some of the critiques have also emanated from scholars located in the one‐third world. The debates have taken many turns as scholars try to develop inclusive scholarship and minimize hierarchies of knowledge within and across the disciplines. The arguments about dismantling knowledge hierarchies – identifying structures, actors, and challenges that need to be addressed to meet our wish to be inclusive scholarship is part of the larger conversations taking place across the world. I use two interwoven discussions, one on decolonizing knowledge and the other about our wish to include indigenous knowledge, as a way of discussing the contexts, assemblages, voices and silences relevant to this discussion. The chapter is written from my social location as a critical transnational feminist scholar who works in a research‐focused university in the USA, and as one of the few immigrant women in this space (see Purkayastha & Abraham, 2019 for a longer discussion). My particular vantage point is based on my work, interrogating intersectional processes emanating across, through and within transnational social realms across global through the local, and through tangible geographies and web‐based spatialities. A starting point of this discussion is the need to decolonize the work scholars located in the Global North whose ideas are widely circulated as “theory” or new insights. This starting point is consistent with much of the feminist critique of knowledge hierarchies. At the same time, much of the discussion about knowledge hierarchies continues to be framed in binaries such as the Global North and South even though we are aware that, along with global hierarchies, every region, nation‐state, and locale is marked by many discussions, debates, and challenges between the privileged and marginalized within the realms, currently and historically. Hierarchies that emerge across countries – through transnational relations – add further complexities (Purkayastha, 2012). Building inclusive knowledge suggests that we have to take on the methodological challenge to reflect these complexities. However, a second, related problem is to examine the use of this knowledge, not simply as a discussion between groups of academics. Many other actors disseminate knowledge to wider publics so that the knowledge we produce flows beyond the spaces we normally inhabit. As Vrushali Patil and I have argued before, many feminist scholars may have devoted their lives to make their knowledge useful for causes of social justice, but our academic knowledge production systems – even if these are inclusive – often occur at the margins of a vast transnational assemblage in which multiple actors are engaged in knowledge creation (see Patil & Purkayastha, 2018); these actors enhance selective voices and silence others. Drawing upon the study on the representations of sexual violence (Patil & Purkayastha, 2015, 2018), I represent this underlying structure that sustains knowledge hierarchies through vast transnational assemblages that are purposively linked to each other, building on systems of privilege developed for the purpose of profit and power. Turning to the question of indigeneity, which is being discussed as part of the broader reflections on decoloniality, I use the methods used in the 2018 study to examine the actors who are engaged in discussions of indigenous scholarship.

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

25

I identify some ongoing challenges that feminist scholars must attempt to resolve in order to highlight hitherto silenced in a transnational context. Decolonizing methodologies, to borrow a phrase from Tuhiwai Smith (2012), is central to my critical transnational feminist approach as I discuss some aspects of an uneasy co‐existence, or, perhaps, yet‐unresolved dilemmas, of our current collective quest for including indigenous knowledge to dismantle hierarchies.

REFLECTIONS ON KNOWLEDGE HIERARCHIES, ITS STRUCTURES, AND PRACTICES Ideas and Practices within Scholarly Spaces Many scholars around the world have pointed to methodological nationalisms that shape Global North theories. Adomako Ampofo and Arnfred (2010), Abraham (2018), Bulbeck (1998), Chaudhuri (2012), Connell (2007), Desai (2016), Patel (2010, 2018), and Reddock (2014) contribute centrally to the persistence of knowledge hierarchies. Others have pointed to multiple modernities, diverse knowledge traditions, and the ways in which the interpenetration of colonial and traditional knowledge practices have shaped each other (e.g. Baxi, 2002; Bhamra, 2014; Kannabiran, 1990, 2012, 2016; Nandy, 1983, 2002, 2005; Patel, 2006, 2010, 2014). Debates about power and the production and maintenance of hierarchies have emerged through diverse discussions within countries based on their histories and contemporary challenges. Within the USA, where I am located, many gender, sexuality, and intersectionality scholars insisted we pay heed to complex structures of marginalization and the axes of power that maintain social and knowledge hierarchies (for instance, see Hill Collins, 1990). This focus continues to be widely discussed in order to correctly identify the matrices of power that lead to the structures of marginalization. There are additional discussions on how this framework might be made more globally relevant. Some of these discussions simply assume that the US specific version can be exported to any corner of the globe. Moving beyond the boundaries of intersectionality as it has been developed in the USA, critical transnational feminist scholars – among whom I would located myself – have criticized the hegemony of the North, especially the ways which scholars in the North write “theory” while the South is seen as the region that, through data, corroborate these theories (see e.g. Grewal & Kaplan, 1994, Mohanty, 2003; Patil, 2008; Puri, 2016; Purkayastha, 2012) for discussions of theories or see Purkayastha, Subramaniam, Desai, and Bose (2003) or Adomako Ampofo, Beoku‐Betts, Njambi, and Osirim (2004) as attempts to present Southern theoretical views to Northern feminist audiences. A specific strand of this work also insists that scholars need to go further: there is an urgent need to use decolonial methodologies that question the continuing imperial frames that we use, explicitly and implicitly, to conduct research (see Das Gupta, 2008; Falcon, 2016; Narayan & Smith, 2019; Pascale, 2018). In essence, decolonial approaches question both the power and appropriateness of West‐centric epistemologies and methodologies for understanding the

26

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

world (e.g. Chakrabarty, 2000; de Santos, 2008; Lugones, 2010; Mignolo, 2002; Pascale, 2019; Quijano, 1989, 2002; Said, 1979; Savransky, 2017; Spivak, 1988; Smith, 2012). Since these West‐centric approaches, broadly, have been normalized as “being objective,” “doing science,” or “doing research,” “producing generalizable or valuable knowledge,” decolonial approaches seek to dismantle, unpack, and unmask the power of colonial knowledge/systems, including the logics of settler colonialism. The current interest in including indigenous knowledge is part of these larger streams of scholarly endeavor to decolonize knowledge. A critical objective of decolonial approaches is to expose the exploitative logics that create and maintain hierarchies between and within realms and peoples. Colonialism, in all forms, involves degrees of violence and control, some evident, other forms are persistent, but are not always evident until we find the terms to describe them. These include historical and contemporary conquests of territories, economic and political exploitation, large‐scale violence, forced migration, extermination of people and their cultures, and slow demise through interruption of access to food, water, and land leading to dehumanization of the colonized (see also Kannabiran, 2016). Decoloniality seeks to reveal how these logics of violence and force are used especially in the guise of bringing modernization, development, and/or civilization to “the other.” This process also involves consumption of “the others’” knowledge, their spaces, their living, and their realities (see e.g. Hountondji, 1995; Kaul & Zia, 2018; La Duke, 2002). Many of the current scholars who are immersed in decolonial approaches show how colonization continues, often with new actors and emphasizes. Two current academic discussions are important to consider. One is about the appropriateness of scholars settling for West‐defined ontologies (see Savransky, 2017 on the debate and Smith, 2012 on indigenous realities). The second discussion is about the “decolonial turn” and its topicality; whether this is resulting in white, powerful scholars co‐opting the terms decolonizing knowledge production, without actually dismantling the hierarchies (Barnes, 2018). The debates about power and hierarchies, also occur in other spaces, though without necessarily using the term “decoloniality.” Many are more attentive about specifying which places they are writing about. Looking at the Indian scholarship in English, a literature with which I am familiar, it is clear that there have long existed a range of ongoing debates about intersectionality (e.g. John, 2015 vs Menon, 2015; or Rege, 1998 vs Datar, 1999; Kannabiran & Swaminathan, 2017). Scholars have discussed how exactly should intersectionality balance historical traces and contemporary colonial projects, nation‐building structures, and local structural hierarchies. India’s multiple languages, socio‐political realities, diverse regional histories emerge as distinctive mechanisms to delineate these concepts of power. Some of these debates are likely to have greater relevance for societies where caste, tribal, intra‐ and interreligious hierarchies are more salient within their boundaries, than race structures organized in ways that are typical in countries like the USA.1 By failing to consider, or erasing these complexities, or unquestioningly using a US form of intersectionality, scholars fail to see how global racialization projects impinge on these existing stratifications, and how the incursions of neoliberal, majoritarian democracies, have opened the doors to particular forms of racialization

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

27

processes today, including fostering genocidal conditions and a rising tide of detentions on accusations of being foreigners, as national governments manipulate existing hierarchies (Kaul & Zia, 2018 on Kashmir; or Majumdar, Mathur Velath, Chopra, & Chakraborty, 2015 on the Rohingyas). Yet, the power of the Global North scholars, through their proximity to publication outlets, enable Northern ideas of intersectionality to travel, irrespective of shortcoming, and contribute to the erasures and silencing inherent in knowledge hierarchies that they sought to address in their own societies (see Purkayastha, 2012 for a critique). A key aspect of such erasures is worth emphasizing. Many Global North theorists continue to write theory without examining their own rootedness in colonial projects. In an excellent decolonizing project, sociologist, Patil (2018) examined Judith Butler’s widely read and cited piece on the heterosexual matrix. Patil effectively argues that Butler’s heterosexual matrix ignores the relations of space and time, and consequently is silent about the colonial histories that led to the production of imperial masculinities and femininities. She points out that the colonial travelers described “barbaric” types of genders that existed in societies, which they then proceeded to erase as part of their civilizing mission. New laws controlled and punished varieties of masculinities and femininities, while racist tropes normalized white gender binaries as the classification for understanding and practicing gender and sexualities. Patil argues that powerful scholars rarely delved into webbed connectivities to reflect on the knowledge that emerged from a longer history of Euro American colonial knowledge production. Their failure to do so erases the need to acknowledge their positionality within these earlier imperial histories. By silencing what existed before colonization proceeded to forcibly impose gender binaries, theoretical statements, about gender and sexuality by scholars such as Butler (1990), continue to be lauded widely in Euro America (and other parts of the world) as new insights. In contrast, paying attention to influential scholars of the Global South would not only emphasize these silencing processes; Global North scholars would also have to reflect on the ways in which these colonial encounters, structural violence, and social changes that were forced onto the lives of the colonized, also affected the colonizer as a result of colonialism. Raewyn Connell’s (2007) book Southern Theory is now widely cited by scholars who wish to acknowledge scholarship from the Global South. However, few follow the actually streams of discussions in which the Southern scholars are embedded. Ashis Nandy is an example of a prolific scholar who has written extensively about the ways in which colonialism brutalized the colonialists in their quest to “civilize” the colonized.2 Silences and erasures that continue to mark much of the dominant scholarship on gender and sexuality foster selective methodological nationalisms. While the histories of knowledge, from the vast and diverse region labeled as the Global South continues to be ignored, underrepresented, silenced, and rediscovered – partially at best – by powerful scholars in the Global North, vast structures of scholarly knowledge production also create associated material realities. Powerful publication outlets, distributional mechanisms, and the institutionalization of particular standards of good scholarship continue to be located and better financed in the Global North. These structures position many Global

28

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

North scholars advantageously compared to those in the Global South. Within the Global North, white scholars, as a group, tend to be more advantageously located within the hierarchies, because of the explicit and unstated rules that govern high impact publications (see also Purkayastha & Abraham 2019).3 At the same time, explanations based on Global North versus Global South are not wholly sufficient to explain the persistence of these hierarchies. At one level, explanations based on North–South binary frameworks hide both hierarchies within regions, as well as the ways in which sections of “the North” and “the South” intersect in fostering particular types of knowledge. The processes I described earlier clearly generate advantages for scholars in the Global North, but also benefit a select few within Southern countries, while other scholars in the same regions cannot access some of these knowledge production circuits. At another level, neoliberal globalization have begun to reshape and reinscribe some of these hierarchies as universities in many parts of the world have begun to applaud publications in “impact factor journals” and appearances at highly prestigious international outlets.4 Most of the Global North journals have reviewer pools drawn primarily from these regions. Thus, their knowledge frames – with the shortcomings I discussed earlier in this section – are likely to shape their reviews and contribute to severe inequality in the quality of reviews that scholars receive from different parts of the world. Consequently, these very terms of operation, now being rapidly adopted in several countries, contribute to the maintenance of knowledge hierarchies by lauding publication structures that are likely to silence and erase Southern scholarship that insist upon breaking out of the colonial molds. Similarly, many countries continue to send PhD dissertations to outside expert examiners; this process virtually ensures that the candidates are likely to allude to foreign scholarship as they frame their argument in anticipation of this interaction with a distant examiner. Reflecting a key argument of Ashis Nandy (1983) in The Intimate Enemy, I would argue that colonial ways of thinking and acting are also internalized, and these structures, that valorize Global North knowledge production processes, also contribute to the perpetuation of colonized knowledge. A significant challenge of decolonizing is to also recognize and seek to dismantle these entrenched structures. Overall these vectors of power, both between the Global North and South, and within the South, shape knowledge hierarchies within academia, amplify some voices, and subdue or silence others. Efforts to decolonize scholarship attempt to address these hierarchies across and within the North and South, to build inclusive theories that begin with the understanding that colonialisms are not in the past, but these colonial structures continue to shore up knowledge hierarchies. Transnational Assemblages Beyond Academia The power inequalities within academia provide one piece of the answer to questions about the persistence of knowledge hierarchies. Critical transnational scholars have also unpacked how power flows across and through national boundaries; they have shown how the focus on nation‐states and boundaries hide the global reach of the powerful actors who breach others national boundaries while keeping

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

29

their own boundaries zealously guarded. Most important, critical transnational scholars have begun to identify multiple actors who create and uphold knowledge hierarchies: they include universities, funding agencies, media conglomerates, and varied publications networks. Understanding how these actors are linked is important for understanding the impediments to creating inclusive knowledge. An example drawn from recent work will illustrate this point. In our 2018 article on transnational racialized assemblage, Vrushali Patil and I have documented that academics are merely one set of actors in a transnational assemblage of knowledge production processes. We were studying how media discourses presented a particular rape case in India. We began by describing the historic relations of power between Britain (as the colonial power) and the Indian subcontinent during the Raj and the discourse and material traces produced by these relations regarding sexual violence in India. We also discussed how early Global North feminists and humanitarian movements reproduced these traces and created an archive of colonial knowledge on race, sexuality, and civilization in India. This knowledge was premised on silencing histories and discourses that Indians themselves produced. We then moved to trace the treatment of the 2012 Delhi rape, situating it, not in the here and now, but in the longer histories of colonial relations. We examined the representation of this rape case by first comparing the coverage of New York Times and the Indian newspaper, Times of India, and then by examining which framing lingered, powerfully on Google.5 While the methodology is discussed in details in that article, it is important to assert that we examined longitudinal data to find out which discourses persisted. We followed the coverage from global news media to global human rights institutions, activist initiatives, and academic treatments, and ended up identifying a contemporary affective assemblage that is profoundly shaped by the colonial archive and that generally continues to materialize some truths and silence others. Tracing what flowed through knowledge realms and constitute them, as well as what does not flow along the relations within an assemblage helped us to identify whose knowledge structures are circulated endlessly and whose truths and voices are silenced – ultimately what comes to matter and what disappears. These assemblages are presented in Fig. 1.1 Multiple sets of actors act according to their own logics and for their own purposes. Nevertheless, they are tied to each other in complex ways. For instance, academics vie for funding, or consult for international non‐governmental organizations; the logics of these other actors’ action, and what they expect, have been set by their understanding and objectives. Similarly, the media often rely on the most publicly available data for their stories which academic publications and data are hidden behind paywalls. Increasingly, the businesses that create false histories, news, and data that can be circulated through social media are becoming powerful actors in the business of knowledge construction. While scholars might resist through their own presence on social media and in these other spaces, our collective voice, at present is very subdued as these other actors begin to substitute our knowledge – however carefully created – with their own. As I understand it, we are not at a point where we can state that we are decolonizing the knowledge frames that flow through these transnational assemblages.

30

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

Affect and traces from older colonial discourses Northern media

Human rights organizations, including chains of NGOs -

Powerful funding agencies Formal and informal economies of branding and pro�it making

Academia

Social media

Other entities that create and pro�it from knowledge production and knowledge control

Fig. 1.1.  Schematic Representation of Transnational Knowledge Assemblage Based on Patil and Purkayastha (2018).

Fig. 1.1 illustrates the flows among these formations, and points to the power‐ laden, trans‐territorial, “complex becoming” of sets of knowledge (in the case of the cited paper, on the construction of “Indian rape culture”). The scholarship on assemblages in the Global North, at present, tends to discuss unstable heterogeneous formations coming together, that is, actors with logics of their own come together as assemblages. Applying this to knowledge production systems it would suggest that any hierarchy that result from these transnational assemblage systems is not a reflection of any single underlying structure. However, as critical transnational feminist scholars, we asserted that it is important to pay attention to “the persistent coming together since these create and sustain racial orders.” Consequently, these flows, and what does not flow – whose voices and viewpoints are emphasized, and who are silenced – produce and sustain knowledge hierarchies. They certainly do so across scholarly and other terrains in more complex ways than we tend to discuss in our scholarly groups. Indigeneity and the Challenges of Creating Inclusive Knowledge The scholarly discussions on decolonizing knowledge have inevitably turned to the persistent marginalization of indigenous knowledge. However, there are several explicit and submerged issues that we have to consider in our quest for including indigenous knowledge. This section attempts to lay out some of the challenges of decolonial approaches that include being inclusive of indigenous knowledge. Keeping in mind the point about hierarchies within and across realms

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

31

I ask: do indigenous knowledge challenge, contribute to, or fit in with knowledge produced by the non-indigenous feminists or might they remain marginalized in ways that further silence their voices? Based on the discussion on transnational assemblage in the previous section, I will consider, how do the attempts at bringing indigenous knowledge to expand feminist knowledge take shape and form amidst these assemblages? My overarching objective is to reflect on whether terms such as indigenous knowledge being silenced by their inclusion in particular ways? More importantly, how can we, as feminist scholars devoted to inclusivity, sort through some of the contradictions and challenges associated with including different types of knowledge production? This section focuses on indigenous and transnational knowledge production, and the silences and silencing processes embedded within knowledge hierarchies. The Knowledge World Out There and the Challenge for Feminists Before embarking on a discussion of the specific challenges for feminists, I begin by presenting some data on actors who are engaged in producing versions of the term “indigenous knowledge.” Following the methodology of the paper discussed in the last section, and the understanding of transnational assemblages of knowledge, I began by enquiring what emerges via a Google search on the words “indigenous knowledge,” i.e. what is “flowing” on this topic within this vast web sphere. Since more and more people look to the web as their source of main source knowledge, I begin with this search first, rather than to academic writing, to learn which types of definitions are used and reused formally and informally around the world linked through the English‐language web sphere.6 Analyzing the results of Google searches provides a gauge of which accounts of “indigenous” were opened the most, and who or what entities had the resources to create hooks that algorithms pick up and place on the top of these searches. As I discussed earlier, non‐academic constructions, uses, and dissemination of power flow through a vast assemblage. However, the non‐academic constructions are critically important for this discussion on indigeneity because, for indigenous groups who are constantly researched, distinctions between academic and non‐ academic may not matter when outsiders constantly seek to study them. As Smith (2012, p. 2) points out, most indigenous peoples and their communities do not differentiate scientific research or “proper” research from the forms of amateur collecting, journalistic approaches, film making or other ways of “taking” indigenous knowledge that have occurred so casually over centuries.

Critical transnational feminist scholars have also long indicated that Global North racism facilitates similar modes of “data collection” and appropriation in the guise of good academic scholarship in many parts of the Global South, as they do within indigenous communities. The powerful within specific realms typically have histories of similar engagements with indigenous populations. Before I share the results of a Google search, it is important to point out the limitations of these data. According to Pan et al. (2007), people mostly consult, at the most, the first three pages of google searches. In an earlier search I conducted

32

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

in 2016 (see the Appendix), the organizations that appeared on the first page of a Google search are actors such as the World Bank and UNESCO. Both organizations presented definitions of indigenous knowledge to promote action – their own action. Getting through the next two pages did not help either. The majority of the links talked about indigenous knowledge as though indigenous sources were all the same and static). Even if there were references to indigenous knowledge in the continent of Africa, a homogenous African indigenous knowledge seemed to be implied in many of the discussions. This was especially true when authors are attempting to show that mainstream science and indigenous knowledge systems share an interest in nature. A current search, in 2019, showed many of the same patterns (see the Appendix). While the websites of some indigenous groups emerged in the first few pages, some of the same large international actors’ voices were listed prominently through these searches. Without providing more detailed reading of these data, which require a full length paper in its own right, I want to point out that indigenous knowledge, revealed through the Google searches in 2016 and 2019, show an insistence upon a binary, a kind of “pure,” knowledge developed in a local language, through practice, with the implication that, it is indigenous because it has stayed in that place/time. Most links lead us to groups who are trying to solve the fall out of climate change, manage wildlife, or introduce “innovative” ideas into education. In sum, these searches show, that in societies and institutions where the control and production of new knowledge is profitable, indigenous knowledge is a new knowledge arena to be mined, cherry‐picked for insights, and co‐opted for the agendas of the powerful and the privileged. Thus, it is hard to escape the reality that indigenous groups are being silenced, even erased, by the simple tactics of attributing it to an overgeneralized “indigenous” source where no real groups or their histories or encounters with the colonizers are relevant in this relentless quest to take over and twist some of this knowledge to fit the frames of these powerful actors, and their need for new frames at the moment. The nuanced, complex accounts of indigenous knowledge, including some scholarly works indicate place of rootedness, discuss histories of violent encounters, provide witness to constant resistance to erasure, accounts of survival and decimation, and often draw a distinction between indigenous knowledge streams and the institutionalized, rootless (or root‐invisibilized) Global North world knowledge regimes (see among others, the work of Winona La Duke, 2002 in the USA, or Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 2012 in Australia, or Kahante Horn‐Miller, 2013 in Canada). Many of these knowledge creators indicate a different ontology, not merely a different epistemology, but different ontologies. These types of nuanced accounts do not appear within the first five pages of these Google searches. In fact few scholarly accounts appear through these searches. Feminist Interventions Earlier feminist interventions into methodologies provide a pathway to consider indigenous knowledge. After all, decades of development of feminist methodologies, even the forms that fail to heed their own colonial and contemporary

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

33

imperialist, racist roots, offer some useful parameters that can be used and redesigned. Feminist discussions and questioning of ontologies and epistemologies of mainstream research have insisted that we pay attention to standpoints and to voice. When transnational feminists have taken up the challenge of decolonizing knowledge, they have extended the examination of power across space and time, documented webbed connectivities, and looked for diversity within spatially defined units (nation‐states, regions, etc.). Nonetheless, it is instructive to look at some of the continuing methodological dilemmas that we need to resolve if we are to respectfully include the insights of indigenous knowledge. At the least, we should acknowledge the heterogeneity, glocality, scales, and diversity of these knowledge systems. We also need to reflect on the structures of silencing and silences.

METHODOLOGICAL DILEMMAS Heterogeneity of Indigeneity A methodological problem is that we keep talking about indigeneity and indigenous knowledge, but we do not seem to be at a stage where we acknowledge heterogeneities within indigeneity. Two important contemporary accomplishments are important for understanding heterogeneous indigenous knowledge within established hierarchies. First, there are some positive outcomes of the struggles of indigenous peoples, with growing support through some global networks, to gain human rights7 to determine their future. To some extent, these human rights’ struggles on the ground have led indigenous groups to develop and codify their knowledge and used the web and other public platforms for dissemination of their frames of knowledge and histories (instead of being totally stifled by the outside systems). This is the thrust of Tuhiwai Smith’s work.8 Second, as part of a larger academic process of decolonizing knowledge systems, scholars from nations who have rarely been able to get their voices heard earlier have, sometimes, been able to use the term indigenous knowledge to make space for presenting knowledge on their own terms (e.g. Adomako Ampofo & Arnfred, 2010). Thus, there are two streams of knowledge which have to be understood in their own terms as different from each other. These diverse types of knowledge on indigeneity reminds us that, in order to decolonize methodologies, we need to be able to capture the heterogeneity and scale of the concept indigenous. We need to become sufficiently knowledgeable so that we can better specify which group’s knowledge is the focus of our discussion, and our location in a long history of knowledge making. We should be able to describe clearly our understanding of social location of indigenous groups within multiple hierarchies, that is, what do we know and what we do not know about groups whose knowledge we wish to include. The scales and intersections of structures that shape their social location are important. Different groups are subject to multiple, coalescing and clashing levels of power, hence it is important to understand the global and local structures of power that shaped

34

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

them historically and that shape lives now. In other words, we need to respect indigenous knowledge streams sufficiently to consider them as expressions of multiple modernities, as emanating from long histories of colonial encounters so that they are as contemporary, though distinctive, as the “modernities” of their colonizers. Another related point is important. At present, we often use “marginality” as a general term to indicate the position of indigenous voices in scholarly realms. Monisha Das Gupta (2008) provides an illustration that shows why it is not sufficient to think in terms of general marginalities from a critical transnational perspective. She pointed out that, for instance, immigrants in the Global North share commonalities with those engaged in indigenous struggles because they both reveal the power relationships between majorities within any nation and those deemed as “others.” But, importantly, indigenous peoples have to negotiate their positions with nation‐states in ways that are very distinct from the immigrants and other minorities. On what terms are people, those who have historically been the objects of research, whose voices have been silenced and co‐opted, able to define the larger terrain of indigeneity? At the same time, there are many indigenous groups, and among them are some with relatively more power; surely their voices are heard more than those at the further margins. These relationships suggest that we ought to pay attention to the relationships between marginalities, and be able to describe them. These standards are those that we are supposed to follow as social scientists – specify the extent we sought evidence or data or accounts, the limits of our evidence, and a specific assertion about generalizability. We should pay heed to the principles of intersectionality to understand power and hierarchies within groups even if we move away from the specificities that apply to some nations but not to others. Even though most indigenous people are minorities, the discussions about people simultaneously inhabiting majority and minority positions at different levels of structures (Purkayastha, 2012) may provide some pointers about understanding these relationships between marginalities within groups. Structures of Silence and Silencing If an acknowledgment of heterogeneities reminds us to move beyond simpler depictions of hierarchies, a more difficult methodological challenge is to understand silences. Moving away from our current tendency to use “indigenous” as an overgeneralized term, we would have to ask whose voices present these groups’ knowledge, male or female, or other classifications of humans? And, do we understand the specific historical configurations that are reflected in the publicly expressed knowledge? Bringing a transnational intersectional approach to understanding indigenous knowledge enables us to understand indigeneity as a dynamic state, and pay attention to, and acknowledge whose voices are left out and whose are being privileged. Bringing a transnational intersectional approach is not intended to replace diverse indigenous understandings of matrices of power and concepts of being‐in‐the‐world. Rather, it is a step for unraveling which kinds of indigenous knowledge practices we are considering and exactly

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

35

how we might be silencing indigenous knowledge systems in our attempts to foster inclusivity. Inclusion of indigenous knowledge is an overall goal, but it requires us to continue to pay heed to whether or not we are colonizing and/or co‐opting knowledge by paying little attention to the silences and silencing processes (see e.g. Butalia, 2000; Panjabi, 2005 on silencing histories, or Barnes, 2018 on the co‐optation of decoloniality). A related issue that affects our understanding of silences is opacity. This idea of opacity acknowledges that groups that are always researched and have experienced long attempts to wipe out their cultures and knowledge may develop ways of communicating with outsiders that only reveal what they want outsiders to know. Somewhat like the “weapons of the weak,” described by Scott (1985): about the poorest farmers who survived under harshest colonial machinery: practices of opacity may have helped indigenous knowledge systems to survive. How should we tread on these grounds as outsider feminists? We now have different models of working with indigenous communities that reflect the knotty problems of accessing knowledge, data, narratives, or even understanding hierarchies of important themes.9 Are feminists’ attention to standpoints and voices sufficient to navigate these terrains? Where are we located in the hierarchies of historical and contemporary colonial encounters? These are questions I grapple with but to which I have no satisfactory answer. And, apart from our academic enterprises, we also have to expand our understanding of the interconnections of the other entities and actors – the transnational assemblage – that produce powerful structures of silencing. If we wish to decolonize knowledge, some of the activism needs to be directed to the transnational assemblages of knowledge production. We need to engage with knowledge productions in traditional outlets of academia and what is being rapidly developed and disseminated through virtual platforms (see also Narayan & Smith, 2019). Along with what we traditionally consider to be non‐feminist data, analyses, and approaches, the broader affective assemblages that shape our emotions, discourses, and capacities to engage with specific types of knowledge in particular ways continue to act as powerful structures of silencing. Thus, analyzing these structures of silencing may be a central task of decolonizing knowledge systems. Hence, the task is not simply to be inclusive, but to analyze silencing mechanisms and, hopefully, try to address those mechanisms. From these analyses of silencing, we might be able to unearth how we can comprehend institutional, group, and individual‐level silencing processes, and our complicity – including the complicity of those of us who are otherwise marginalized – within transnational assemblages of silencing.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS For critical transnational work, as feminists, we need to remain aware of the need to go beyond the fixed categories (the implicit binaries of modern vs traditional) that I described in the first section of this chapter, and focus our attention on long histories of encounter and erasures. Another step involves remaining aware that

36

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

from our colonial vantage point we typically collapse the histories of indigenous groups (at many different scales) into one history, and treat indigenous knowledge as though it were frozen in time (a purer, simpler time). Histories matter. A related step for those of us who wish to foster more inclusive knowledge is to acknowledge the historical buffeting heterogeneous indigenous groups contended with, as well as the powerful outside structures that continue to impinge on their lives. So a complete second step would be to understand indigeneity as a historical and ongoing process, which appear as different streams depending on the scale and contexts we are analyzing. The further step would be to acknowledge that knowledge hierarchies are not only produced through academic enterprise but through a transnational assemblage of actors; our task, as academics, ought to be, to analyze different realms through which silencing is enforced. Relatedly, just as we pay heed to standpoints and voices, we need to foster decolonial methodologies to study the structures of silencing and the silences. These steps together can lead us to a better understanding of the dynamic tension inherent in inserting indigenous knowledge into a transnational feminist enterprise. These might lead us to create more respectful scholarship. We are on an unfinished journey to navigate circuits of power that significantly shape the terrains of knowledge, weaving local to transnational knowledge production processes, in different patterns at different historical moments. The contours of our journeys to decolonize knowledge are as important as the end point we wish to reach.

NOTES 1.  While I use the example of India, scholarship in many countries in the Global South, especially those affected by colonialism, are similarly attentive to the temporalities and spatialities of global to local connectedness. Caste and tribal hierarchies often rely on structures that appear to be similar to race structures in the USA. However, these hierarchical social formations are not synonymous, so equating race and caste in scholarly analyses wholly erases many specificities of this system, including the specificities of marginalization. As Bhattacharya, Gabriel, and Small (2002) have argued, racism structures globalization in the twenty‐first century. For people in many countries, racism can act as a global structure of interaction, interacting with existing hierarchies on the ground; for instance, as racism structures many multi‐country projects initiated by actors in the Global North, defining the how and why of project practices, evaluations and assessments, forcing particular types of knowledge to be produced (for an account of how exactly this process works, see Roth (2015). 2.  I have deliberately chosen Ashis Nandy because of his prolific and incisive scholarship on colonialisms. However, he has also been severely criticized by many feminist scholars for his stance on many gender issues. This is exactly the point about formulating theories. Without reading more of the discussions, and the histories of these discussions, a mere nod to “Southern theories” does not help scholars to reformulate theories that are more suitable beyond the borders of selected nation‐states. Also read, for instance Hountondji (2002) or Barnes (2018) to get a sense of the complexities. 3.  We have discussed how scholars in the diaspora often end up being “the” spokespeople for their countries of origin (Purkayastha, 2019; Purkayastha et al., 2003). 4. There is, for instance, a rapidly growing valorization of impact factor journals. While the wish to identify high quality scholarship is a good objective, it is important to understand that impact factors depend on the publications that are monitored by

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

37

Global North entities—which automatically focus on publications a small selection of languages. Further, articles which are cited often, or downloaded often are reflections of the economic and political power of journals and publication houses to market and distribute some types of knowledge. At the same time, chapters edited collections, often the main publication outlets available to scholars around the world, are ignored in these understandings of “impact.” 5.  The articles, especially the 2018 article on transnational assemblage on Indian rape culture, provide more details of the methodologies and findings. 6.  For more on the method related to research on the web, see Patil & Purkayastha, 2015, 2018, or Bilder, 2006; Burguet, Caminal, & Ellman, 2015, or Pan et al. (2007). 7.  I use human rights to mean substantive human rights (for a longer discussion see Armaline, Glasberg, & Purkayastha, 2015). While the formal human rights documents enshrine many conventions for indigenous groups, the critical issue here is to have the right to determine ones way of life on the ground (see https://www.un.org/development/desa/ indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf). 8.  The few indigenous sites that emerged in the 2019 Google searches indicate a slight breakthrough in whose voices are featured on the earlier pages. While these search positions do not resolve the dilemmas of how indigenous knowledge is classified or used, it shows voices other than the international actors, attempting to define indigenous. 9.  Two “primers” on gathering knowledge from and/or with indigenous groups provide the contours of the practices of understanding indigenous knowledge, a first step in thinking about inclusion. The earlier article by Harding et al. (2012) describe National Science Foundation (US) ethics of conducting research. The second, a primer available on line from Open North and indigenous groups of British Columbia First Nations Data Governance Initiative (2017), outlines the parameters of respectful knowledge exchange. The challenge of feminists is to reflect on where our knowledge expansion enterprises fit in these practices.

REFERENCES Adomako Ampofo, A., & Arnfred, S. (Eds.). (2010). African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges, possibilities. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J., Njambi, W. N., & Osirim, M. (2004). Women’s and gender studies in English‐speaking sub‐Saharan Africa: A review of research in the social sciences. Gender & Society, 18(6), 685–714. Abraham, M. (2018). Sociology and social justice. London: Sage Publications. Armaline, W., Glasberg, D., & Purkayastha, B. (2015). Human rights enterprise. London: Polity Press. Barnes, B. (2018). Decolonizing research methodologies: Opportunity and caution. South African Journal of Psychology, 48, 379–387. Baxi, U. (2002). The future of human rights. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Bhamra, G. (2014). Connected sociologies. London: Bloomsbury Academics. Bhattacharya, G., Gabriel, J., & Small, S. (2002). Race and power: Global racism in the twenty‐first century. London: Psychology Press. Bulbeck, C. (1998). Re‐orienting western feminisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bilder, G. (2006). In Google we trust?. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 9(1). Rtrieved from https:// quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0009.101?view=text;rgn=main Burguet, R., Caminal, R., & Ellman, M. (2015). In Google we trust?. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 39(12), 44. Butalia, U. (2000). The others side of silence: Voices from the partition of India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Chaudhuri, M. (2012). Indian “modernity” and “tradition:” A gender perspective. Polish Sociological Review, 2, 277–289. Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Provincialising Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

38

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Cambridge: Polity Press. Datar, C. (1999). Non‐Brahmin renderings of feminism in Maharashtra: Is it a more emancipatory force?. Economic and Political Weekly, 34(41), 2964–2968. Das Gupta, M. (2008). Rights in a transnational era. In R. I. Buff (Ed.), Immigrant rights in the shadow of citizenship (pp. 402–424). New York, NY: New York University Press. Desai, M. (2016). The gendered geographies of struggle: The WSF and its sometimes overlapping other worlds. Gender & Society, 30(6), 869–889. Falcon, S. (2016). Power interrupted: Antoracist feminism in the United Nations. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Grewal, I., & Kaplan, C. (1994). Scattered hegemonies: Postmodernity and transnational feminist practice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Harding, A., Harper, B., Stone, D., O’Neill, C., Berger, P., Harris, S., & Donatuto, J. (2012). Conducting research with tribal communities: sovereignty, ethics, and data‐sharing issues. Environmental Health Perspectives, 120(1), 6–10. Hill Collins, P. (1990). Black feminist thought. New York, NY: Routledge. Horn‐Miller, K. (2013). What does indigenous participatory democracy look like: Kahnawa:Ke’s community decision making process. Review of Constitutional Studies, 18(1), 111–132. Hountondji, P. (1995). Producing knowledge in Africa today. African Studies Review, 38, 1–10. Hountondji, P. (2002). Knowledge appropriation in a post colonial context. In C. Hoppers (Ed.), Indigenous knowledge and integration of knowledge systems: Towards a philosophy of articulation (pp. 23–38). Claremont: Africa Books. John, M. (2015). Rejection or critical dialogue?. Intersectionality. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(33), 72–76. Kannabiran, K. (2012). Tools of justice: Non‐discrimination and the Indian constitution. New Delhi: Routledge. Kannabiran, K. (Ed.). (2016). Violence studies. In Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kannabiran, V., & Kannabiran, K. (1991). Caste and Gender: Understanding Dynamics of Power and Violence Source. Economic and Political Weekly, 26(37), 2130–2133. Kannabiran, K., & Swaminathan, P. (2017). Representing feminist methodologies. London: Routledge. Kaul, N., & Zia, A. (2018). Knowing in our own ways: Women and Kashmir. Economic and Political Weekly, 53, 33–37. La Duke, W. (2002). The Winona Laduke chronicles: Stories from the front lines in the battle for environmental justice. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing. Lugones, M. (2010). Towards a decolonial feminism. Hypatia, 25(4), 742–759. Majumdar, S., Mathur Velath, P., Chopra, K., & Chakraborty, M. (2015). Rohingyas in India: Birth of a stateless community. Kolkata: Calcutta Research Group. Menon, N. (2015). Is feminism about ‘women’? A critical view on intersectionality from India. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(7), 37–44. Mignolo, W. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. South Atlantic Quarterly, 101, 57–96. Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminisms without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Narayan, A., & Smith, L.‐H. (2019). Gender, religion, and virtual diasporas. Economic and Political Weekly, 54(17), 77–86. Retrieved from https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/17/review-womensstudies/gender-religion-and-virtual-diasporas.html Nandy, A. (1983). The intimate enemy: Loss and recovery of self under colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Nandy, A. (2002). Time warps: Silent and evasive pasts in Indian politics and religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Nandy, A. (2005). Creating at nationality. In Exiled at home. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Open North and British Columbia First Nations Data Governance Initiative. (2017). Decolonizing data: Indigenous data sovereignty primer. Retrieved from bcfndgi.squarespace.com/…/ Decolonizing‐Data‐FN_DATA_SOVEREIGNTY_PAPER

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

39

Pan, B., Hembrooke, H., Joachims, T., Lorigo, L., Gay, G., & Granka, L. (2007). In Google we trust: Users’ decisions on rank, position, and relevance. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 12(3), 801–823. Panjabi, K. (2005). Old maps and new: Legacies of the partition. Calcutta: Seagull Press. Pascale, C.‐M. (2018). Epistemology and moral economies of difference. Transforming social research. International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies, 1(1), 45–57. Pascale, C.‐M. (2019). The weaponization of Languahe: Discourses of right‐wing authoritarianism. Current Sociology, 67(6), 898–917. Patel, S. (2006). Beyond binaries: A case of self reflexive sociologies. Current Sociology, 54, 381–395. Patel, S. (Ed.). (2010). The ISA handbook of diverse sociological traditions (pp. 52–65). London: Sage Publications. Patel, S. (2014). Afterword: Doing global sociology: Issues, problems and challenges. Current Sociology, 62, 603–614. Patil, V. (2008). Negotiating decolonization in the United Nations: Politics of space, identity and international community. New York, NY: Routledge. Patil, V. (2018). The heterosexual matrix as imperial effect. Sociological Theory. 36(1), 1–26. Patil, V., & Purkayastha, B. (2015). Sexual violence, race, media (in)visibility: Intersectional complexities in a transnational frame. Societies, 5(3), 598–617. Patil, V., & Purkayastha, B. (2018). The transnational assemblage of Indian rape culture. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41, 1952–1970. Puri, J. (2016). Sexual states. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Purkayastha, B. (2012). Intersectionality in a transnational world. Symposium on Patricia Hill Collins. Gender & Society, 26, 55–66. Purkayastha, B., Subramaniam, M., Desai, M., & Bose, S. (2003). The study of gender: A partial review. Gender & Society, 17, 503–524. Quijano, A. (1989). Paradoxes of Modernity in Latin America. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 3(2), 147–177. Quijano, A. (2002). The return of the future and questions about knowledge. Current Sociology, 50(1), 75–87. Reddock, R. (2014). Radical Caribbean social thought: Race, class identity and the postcolonial nation. Current Sociology, 62(4), 493–511. Rege, S. (1998). Dalit women talk differently: A critique of ‘difference’ and towards a Dalit feminist standpoint position. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(44), WS39–WS46. Roth, S. (2015). Paradoxes of Aid Work: Passionate. Professionals. London: Routledge. Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage Paperbacks. de Santos, B. S. (2008). Another knowledge is possible: Beyond Northern epistemologies. London: Verso. Savransky, M. (2017). A decolonial imagination: Sociology, anthropology and the politics of reality. Sociology, 51, 11–26. Scott, J. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies. New York, NY: Routledge. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak?. In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–316). Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

40

BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

APPENDIX Examples From Pages and Descriptors Retrieved on June 30, 2016 Page 1

• What is indigenous knowledge – Definition – Bibliography – Links www. worldbank.org/afr/ik/basic.htm

Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge – knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. Indigenous knowledge contrasts with the international knowledge system generated by universities, research institutions, and private firms.

• Indigenous knowledge and sustainability – Unesco www.unesco.org/education/ tlsf/mods/theme_c/mod11.html

Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that is unique to a culture or society. Other names for it include: “local knowledge,” “folk knowledge,” “people’s knowledge,” “traditional wisdom,” or “traditional science.” This knowledge is passed from generation to generation, usually by word of mouth and cultural rituals, and has been the basis for agriculture, food preparation, health care, education, conservation, and the wide range of other activities that sustain societies in many parts of the world. Page 2

• Indigenous knowledge must be harvested for development – University … www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story… University World News

March 9, 2013 – There is a rich body of indigenous knowledge embodied in Africa’s cultural and ecological diversities, and African people have drawn on this. Examples retrieved on May 1, 2019 What does indigenous knowledge mean? A compilation of attributes https:// www.ictinc.ca/blog/what-does-indigenous-knowledge-mean April 6, 2018 – Local and indigenous knowledge refers to the understandings, skills, and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings. For rural and indigenous peoples, local knowledge informs decision making about fundamental aspects of day‐to‐day life. What is local and indigenous knowledge | United Nations … www.unesco.org/ new/en/natural…areas/…/what-is-local-and-indigenous-knowledge

Knowledge Hierarchies and Feminist Dilemmas

41

Local and indigenous knowledge refers to the understandings, skills, and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings. For rural and indigenous peoples, local knowledge informs decision making about fundamental aspects of day‐to‐day life. Indigenous knowledge and sustainability – Unesco www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_c/mod11.html Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that is unique to a culture or society. Other names for it include: “local knowledge,” “folk knowledge,” “people’s … Traditional knowledge – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_ knowledge Jump to indigenous intellectual property – Main article: Indigenous intellectual property … to identify indigenous peoples’ special rights to claim (from within … Characteristics … Property rights … The Convention on … · Government of India … Defining indigenous knowledge – https://theoryofknowledge.net https://www.theoryofknowledge.net/…knowledge/indigenous-knowledge…/ defining-i. The best way to begin our understanding of indigenous knowledge is by considering its source: indigenous peoples and their societies. Indigenous knowledge systems – https://theoryofknowledge.net https://www.theoryofknowledge.net/areas…knowledge/indigenous-knowledgesystems. Knowledge questions in indigenous knowledge systems include language’s role in shaping culture, and the limits of positivism in acquiring knowledge. (PDF) Indigenous knowledge as a key to sustainable development https://www.researchgate.net/…/265197993_Indigenous_knowledge_as_a_key_ to_sustai. July 29, 2015 – Indigenous knowledge is the unique knowledge confined to a particular culture or society. It is also known as local knowledge, folk knowledge, people’s knowledge, traditional wisdom, or traditional science. How indigenous knowledge advances modern science and technology theconversation.com/how‐indigenous‐knowledge‐advances‐modern‐science‐and‐tech… January 2, 2018 – Indigenous knowledge has aided and enhanced modern science and technology for centuries, Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. What are indigenous knowledge systems? https://www.herald.co.zw/indigenousknowledge-systems-explained/

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 2 AFRICAN FEMINIST AND GENDER SCHOLARSHIP: CONTEMPORARY STANDPOINTS AND SITES OF ACTIVISM Josephine Beoku‐Betts

ABSTRACT This chapter reviews developments in the intellectual and activist work of African feminists and gender scholars over the past two decades. African feminists and gender scholar activists have broken with dominant epistemologies to frame their own sites of knowledge production and feminist identity, reflecting shifting conditions in local and global contexts. The knowledge they generate is rooted in a tradition of scholarship, activism, and engagements with state institutions and with transnational and regional feminist movements. I discuss (1) contexts in which African feminist standpoints have emerged over the past 20 years, (2) developments in women and gender studies programs, and (3) ways in which African feminist scholars in the continent and diaspora have stimulated intellectual engagement and activism through feminist research and publishing, collaborative scholarship, influencing policy, and new forms of activism. Keywords: African feminism; scholar/activism; women’s and gender studies; feminist knowledge production; African feminist epistemologies; African gender studies

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 43–64 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031003

43

44

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

INTRODUCTION African feminist and gender scholar activism have grown exponentially over the past two decades in multiple and shifting sites as new theoretical and empirical discourses in feminist scholarship and praxis have emerged and advanced. Contributing factors include the influence of transnational feminist movements, Black feminist studies, and pan‐African feminist epistemologies (Crenshaw, 1991; Dosekun, 2019; Hill Collins, 1990; Mama, 2017; McFadden, 2018). The global growth of information technology and social media networks have also provided platforms for generating new feminist epistemologies and forms of activism, both digitally and offline (Darkwah, Chapter 7; Mpofu, 2016). In many regions, extremist authoritarian political regimes and religious movements have mobilized through intellectual dialogue, protest, and advocacy for international policy changes. In sum, African feminists are generating new questions and forms of praxis as a response to neoliberal economic policies, political crises, and backlash against the rights of women and sexual minorities (Adomako Ampofo & Arnfred, 2009; Adomako Ampofo, Beoku‐Betts, & Osirim, 2008; Balghis & Tripp, 2017; Dosekun, 2020; Mama, 2017; Nyanzi, 2014; Rodriguez, Tsikata, & Adomako Ampofo, 2015). In reviewing developments over the past 20 years in the intellectual and activist work of African feminists and gender scholars responding to challenges and opportunities affecting gender and sexual inequalities in global and regional contexts, I argue that they frame their own sites of knowledge production and feminist identity to reflect shifting conditions in local and global contexts. The knowledge they generate is rooted in a tradition of scholarship, activism, and engagement with state institutions, transnational, and regional feminist movements. This allows them to foster intellectual exchange among scholars and activists and to create new ways of subverting and transforming structures of unequal relations, particularly gendered power relations in African societies. I contextualize African feminist standpoints, examine developments in women and gender studies programs, and discuss ways in which African feminist scholars in the continent and diaspora have stimulated intellectual engagement and activism through feminist research, publishing, and collaborative scholarship. I also highlight new areas of feminist research and activism, such as commercial agriculture and large‐scale land acquisition, digital activism, and the political engagement of young feminist activists.

CONTEXTUALIZING AFRICAN FEMINIST STANDPOINTS African feminists and gender scholars have long challenged Western White feminists’ privileging of their own history and systems of knowledge over those of African women and women in the global South (Adomako Ampofo & Arnfred, 2009; Nnaemeka, 1998, 2004; Ogundipe, 1994; Oyewumi, 1997, 2003; Steady, 2004). Oyewumi (1997), for instance, famously challenged the usefulness of gender as a primary analytical construct in universal theories of women’s oppression. Using the Yoruba language as an example, she argued that social categories like ethnicity, seniority, race, and generation, could be more relevant than gender for women’s status in African social structures. Oyewumi’s work was widely criticized

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

45

for its generalization from the Yoruba to other African languages, and for its simplistic assumption that the absence of biologically based gender markers in a language signifies the absence of gender hierarchy (Bakare‐Yusuf, 2004). Her work is nonetheless important for having drawn attention to the problem of generalizations in African cultural contexts that do not take into account intersectional factors informing social positioning. African feminists and gender scholars also criticize feminist scholars in the global North for their complicity with and silence about exploitative development policies of economic institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite their adverse impact on women and girls (Adomako Ampofo, Beoku‐Betts, Njambi, & Osirim, 2004; Akin‐Aina, 2011; Nnaemeka, 2004; Tsikata, 2012). Furthermore, even when their theoretical scholarship preceded that of their northern counterparts (Tripp, 2006), feminists and gender scholars in Africa and other regions of the global South have had to demonstrate familiarity with dominant feminist paradigms in the global North if they wished to be published in peer‐reviewed international journals. Their research has had to meet Western standards but the theory and empirical data they produce is either ignored or appropriated as case studies in the development of Western feminist thought (e.g., Adomako Ampofo, 2009; Beoku‐Betts & Njambi, 2005; Connell, 2014; Steady, 2004). Adomako Ampofo (2009) expands upon this complaint in recounting her experience as an African feminist scholar. She realized that her collaboration as a co‐researcher in projects with Northern colleagues was more a function of plays than a partnership of peers when her decisions were overturned without consultation, the budgets she was given were not always transparent, and the knowledge she produced was not acknowledged because she was viewed as a mere consultant. In addition to insufficient support, African feminists and gender scholars also confront mainstream social sciences’s failure in the continent to fully integrate gender analysis into the development of contemporary African social thought in ways that take into account African histories and situated experiences. Yet another challenge they face is the need to reconstruct new epistemologies that are both African and transformative of oppressive gender relations (Ahikire, 2005; Gouws, 2005; Imam, Mama, & Sow, 1997; Mama, 2007). Nonetheless, such challenges have not impeded their efforts to analyze the process of deconstructing western feminist knowledge systems. During the last 20 years, attitudes toward African women and gender have improved epistemologically and empirically. I identify early milestones and current trends. The first work emphasized distinctive aspects of African feminism and addressed such issues as women’s economic autonomy, traditional leadership roles, gender role complementarity, and the importance of indigenous culture and knowledge systems (Amadiume, 1987; Mba, 1982;). One example is Steady’s (1981) seminal work, The Black Woman Cross‐Culturally, which recognizes Black, and especially African, women as the first feminists given their long history of oppression and resourcefulness for survival and self‐reliance. Interpretations of African feminism, and even association with the term “feminism,” may have changed but the significance of indigenous culture and knowledge systems based on shared values of collaboration, compromise,

46

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

complementarity, and negotiation have remained key points of emphasis (Acholonou, 1995; Nnaemeka, 2004; Ogundipe, 1994). Nnaemeka (2004) coined the term “negofeminism” to explain how African feminists working for transformation tend to negotiate, compromise and accommodate “in deference to local and cultural imperatives” (p. 380) rather than to criticize, subvert, and challenge. Similarly, Ogundipe (1994) speaks of “stiwanism” (Social Transformation Including Women in Africa). Eschewing the term “feminism,” which “seems to be a kind of red rag to the bull of African men” (Ogundipe, 1994, p. 229), she refrained from attacking the very idea of patriarchy and instead advocated for men and women to collaborate as partners in African development. Another cultural construct used as an alternative to the term “feminism” is the centrality of motherhood (Acholonou, 1995; Oyewumi, 2003). This standpoint assumes that heterosexual women are privileged over non‐binary sexually identified women and that those who choose, or are unable, not to have biological children are stigmatized as failures. This variant of African feminism has been extensively contested for essentializing African women and privileging biological motherhood over other experiences that define women’s identity and positioning in society (Dosekun, 2019; McFadden, 2018; Nkealah, 2016). In the public sphere, African women are invariably expected to play the role of mothers; they must be caring and giving and must play host to men. This assumption that African feminism differentiates itself from other feminisms by being “distinctly heterosexual [and] pro‐natal” (Gwendolyn Mikell, 1997, p. 4) remains problematic in discourse on African feminism. The idea that women are self‐sacrificing wives and mothers in African cultures comes from gender role socialization on womanhood in heteropatriarchal societies. For McFadden (2018), this is conceptual and political essentialism inherited from the nationalist period, and African women must break away from it if they are to craft new identities based on freedom and independence from male control. She contends that many women choose to be complicit and define their lives along these lines because it is daunting to unlearn something so historically ingrained. Some variants of African feminism embrace the term “feminism,” attempting to broaden its meaning and make it more inclusive of understandings African women bring to it in transnational dialogues and network building (Mama, cited in Salo, 2001). The feminist political economy approach emphasizes the impact of internal structures, processes, and institutions, for example, the state, political transitions, and class and ethnic conflicts. It is concerned with how external geopolitical economic processes, including colonialism, globalization, and neoliberal economic reforms, as well multinational corporations and international financial institutions, perpetuate unequal trade relations and widen disparities between countries in the global North and South. These kinds of adverse implications for women, along with persistent gender inequalities in both local and global contexts, do create spaces for new political and economic opportunities in the social structure (Osirim, 2003; Tsikata, 2009). Thus, at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, the site of Africa’s first course on “Women and Society” (1979) and where a new women’s movement, Women in Nigeria (1982), was launched, it was the political economy framework that underpinned the

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

47

curriculum, research, and activism, and that inspired their embrace of socialist/ feminist ideology (Awe & Mba, 1991). Other feminist scholars applied the intersectionality paradigm, which emphasizes the importance of race, class, ethnicity, gender, imperialism, and, in some cases, sexuality. Steady’s (1981) pioneering work, Black Women Cross‐Culturally, identifies issues of race, class, sexuality, and gender as contributing to the marginalization and unequal status of African women. In the introduction to the seminal work, Engendering African Social Sciences, edited by Imam et al. (1997), Imam makes this point perfectly clear: “For most of the contributors to this book, class, gender, race, imperialism are simultaneous social forces, both interwoven and recursive on each other” (p. 21). Building on these paradigms, recent decades have seen a growing body of African feminists and gender scholars and activists incorporate critical, innovative, intersectional, and confrontational approaches in their scholarship, activism, and identity formation as feminists. I refer to this group as Critical African Feminists in order to acknowledge their strong emphasis on activism framed by critical theory and praxis and characterized by open commitment to the goals of global and African feminist dialogues (Mama, 2011). Their approach recognizes that African women’s mobilization around concern for community survival and well‐being is important women’s work. Women, they argue, must also challenge ways in which internal and external patriarchal institutional cultures prevent them from fulfilling their potential, which includes gaining “respect, dignity, equality, lives free from violence, and the threat of violence and all those other feminist aspirations” (Salo, 2001, p. 60). Critical African Feminists recognize that while men can be allies, it is important to be strategic in order to form partnerships with males that can promote positive transformations in the structure of gender relations (Salo, 2001). Discourse among Critical African Feminists is often informed by the adverse impact on women’s lives of local and global geo‐economic, political, and cultural processes, including colonialism, globalization, and neoliberal economic policies. Access to land, inheritance, customary laws, unequal access to education, health, economic, and political opportunities are all often identified as being negatively affected. This critical standpoint has encouraged the evolution of African feminist epistemologies and activist agendas. Three epistemologies have burgeoned forth from underlying assumptions of the Critical African Feminist framework: Radical Intersectional African Feminism, Contemporarity: Sufficiency in a Radical African Feminist Life, and the African Feminist Charter. Radical Intersectional African feminism is an emerging perspective rooted in student‐led protests organized by the #FeesMustFall and #FreeEducation movements that began in South Africa in 2015 to challenge White supremacy at universities and to demand free education and the end to the exploitation of outsourced Black workers. Feminists in the #FeesMustFall movement also critique both the state’s masculinist and militarized nature and the student movements’ patriarchal and heteronormative culture. When female students at the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University participated in a “naked protest” against their institutions’ rape culture, they added a feminist dimension to the #FeesMustFall movement. Similarly, LGBTQI students’ engagement in the two movements opened up

48

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

new possibilities for a range of different but intersecting identities to challenge race and class privilege, patriarchal culture, and binary logic. While these students understood intersectionality as interlocking identities of oppression, such as race, class, gender, disability, sexuality, etc., they also saw it as a means of challenging the Western canon in the university curriculum; of decolonizing the marginalization of women and Black people in the production of knowledge; and of creating counter‐hegemonic knowledge (Gouws, 2017, p. 19). Their analytical approach squared with Critical African Feminist analysis as both link theory to praxis. However, Gouws argues, intersectionality requires more nuanced and contextualized analysis of the production and reproduction of power relations in postcolonial societies; of connections between colonialism and global capitalism; and of the continued contribution of knowledge production mechanisms to the perpetuation of unequal power relations in postcolonial societies. McFadden’s (2018) “Contemporarity: Sufficiency in a Radical African Feminist Life” is an emerging epistemology within the Critical African Feminism genre, which she describes as a framework for imagining new African feminist epistemologies offering alternative ways of living grounded in “the experience of sustaining oneself through ecological balance, a respectful interaction with nature, and nonmarket practices of sufficiency” (p. 415). “Contemporarity” speaks from an ecological feminist perspective and emphasizes sustainability and ecological balance and a reclamation of Black female sexuality, bodily integrity, dignity, and well‐being to produce new radical social knowledge and practices. McFadden (2018) describes this as a framework for reimagining new African feminist epistemologies that offer alternative ways of living that are grounded in “the experience of sustaining oneself through ecological balance, a respectful interaction with nature, and nonmarket practices of sufficiency” (p. 415). This standpoint reflects a need to envision an alternative to neoliberal capitalism, which, she charges, cannot redress global social and economic inequalities. For McFadden (2018), feminism as a universal politics of women’s resistance to effectively take us beyond patriarchy has failed, particularly in African contexts where nationalist ideology has infiltrated and ruptured discourse about African (Black) feminist politics and activism. Drawn from her own lived experiences, McFadden’s theory of “contemporarity” recognizes tensions in the African women’s movement over such issues as LGBTQI, sexuality and pleasure, and the marginalization and lack of respect for Lesbians and their political struggles during the HIV/AIDS crisis in countries like Zimbabwe. The Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists is a defining document that embodies the application of new pathways in Critical African Feminist epistemologies. It was written, approved, and adopted by participants at the first African Women’s Forum, held in Ghana in 2006 with support from the African Women’s Development Fund, a pan‐African funding organization supporting women’s rights in Africa. The Charter’s explicitly feminist preamble states: We define and name ourselves publicly as Feminists because we celebrate our feminist identities and politics. We recognize that the work of fighting for women’s rights is deeply political, and the process of naming is political too. Choosing to name ourselves Feminist places us in a clear ideological position. By naming ourselves as Feminists we politicize the struggle for

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

49

women’s rights, we question the legitimacy of the structures that keep women subjugated, and we develop tools for transformatory analysis and action. We have multiple and varied identities as African Feminists. We are African women, we live here in Africa and even when we live elsewhere, our focus is on the lives of African women on the continent. Our feminist identity is not qualified with “Ifs,” “Buts,” or “Howevers.” We are Feminists. Full stop. (African Feminist Forum, 2006)

The African Feminist Forum is still evolving. Some contend that it needs to pay closer attention to matters of inclusion, such as the marginalization of younger feminists, non‐binary sexually identified women, transgender persons, and poor and illiterate women (Decker & Arrington‐Sirois, 2019). Others deem it sufficiently inclusive (Pereira, 2017). In any case, the Charter offers a road map for interrogating current trajectories in the praxis of African feminist and gender standpoints. All three documents – the Charter, “Radical Intersectional African Feminism,” and “Contemporarity: Sufficiency in a Radical African Feminist Life” – serve to de‐center and de‐colonize dominant epistemologies, as well as to frame new sites of knowledge production and activism situated in African conditions and lived experiences. Each document also seeks to move beyond patriarchal and essentialist analysis. Below, I discuss the institutionalization of women and gender studies programs and look at how they stimulate intellectual engagement and affect wider struggles for gender equality in Africa.

SITUATING AFRICAN WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES PROGRAMS Although women and gender studies developed as a legitimate, independent field of study in African universities in the 1990s, African feminist intellectualism – whether as research, pedagogy, and/or activism – dates back to the writings and publications of women political activists participating in nationalist, Independence struggles in the early twentieth century, and even before (Mama, 2009; Pereira, 2017). By the 1970s, scholarship and activism co‐existed in the work of the Association of African Women on Research and Development (AAWORD) and the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), two organizations that hosted conferences, training workshops, and intellectual dialogues for African scholars and activists during periods of political and economic crises on the continent. One important outcome of their efforts to incorporate gender analysis in the development of social science theory and methodology in Africa was the book, Engendering African Social Sciences (Imam et al., 1997). The institutionalization in the late twentieth century of women and gender studies in African universities was motivated by debates on national and sub‐ regional political conditions, development initiatives resulting from neoliberal economic policies like structural adjustment programs (SAPs) in the 1980s, and the crisis in African education in the 1990s. Neoliberal economic policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank, such as SAPs in the 1980s and Poverty Reduction Strategy Programs in the 1990s, led to burdensome demands on national economies, including deregulation, decentralization, and privatization, which increased

50

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

debt and reduced expenditures on social services like education. The demand by governments and donor agencies for gender training to facilitate the implementation of service delivery programs like gender mainstreaming was also one contributing factor. Another was transnational feminist networks’ mobilization and intensive political activism before and after the United Nations and nongovernmental (NGO) conferences in Nairobi (1980) and Beijing (1995). These conferences created spaces for increased political openness to advancements in the rights of women, which spurred the development of national machineries for women and to more opportunities for gender equality in education. Inspired by the momentum generated during those years, feminist academics made concerted efforts to promote women and gender studies as a legitimate research and pedagogical discipline at their institutions (Adomako Ampofo et al., 2004; Mama, 2006, 2011; Pereira, 2005; Tripp, 2006). There are now more than 50 women and gender studies university degree programs at African universities, the oldest being at the universities of Ibadan (Nigeria) and Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), and Makerere University (Uganda). In West Africa, women’s studies at Nigeria’s Ahmadu Bello University began in 1979 with the introduction of “Women and Society,” a sociology course that laid the groundwork for the launching of a new women’s movement in 1982. The Women’s Research and Documentation Center was created as a follow‐up to the University of Ibadan’s 1985 national conference on rural women and agriculture to promote new methodologies and a more accurate understanding of women’s roles and concerns in Nigeria and West Africa (Awe & Mba, 1991). Ghana has no university degree programs in women and gender studies but the discipline has nevertheless experienced exceptional growth there since the 1980s, especially in the areas of research, institutional curricula, and the consideration of gender perspectives in state politics, activism, and advocacy platforms (Yeboah, Adomako Ampofo, & Brobbey, 2014). One reason for this is the foundation in 1990 within the Institute of African Studies of the Development and Women’s Studies Program (DAWS) to develop women and gender studies as an academic discipline through teaching, action‐oriented research and dialogue, and the development of theories and methodologies centered on the Ghanaian experience (Adomako Ampofo, 2009; Yeboah et al., 2014). In 2005, DAWS became the Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA), whose broader mandate enabled the university community, NGOs, and the public and private sectors to access policies and information about gender‐related issues, as well as faculty and student resources like mentoring programs and curricular reforms aiming to mainstream gender studies in higher educational institutions. CEGENSA also produces peer‐reviewed publications and manuscripts covering a wide range of issues (Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy, 2015; Yeboah et al., 2014). It was, however, an East African academic institution, Makerere University (Uganda), that became the first in the continent to establish women’s studies as a separate discipline in 1991, inspired by the Third United Nations Women’s Conference and NGO Forum (Nairobi, 1985) (Ankrah & Bizimana, 1991). The proposed two‐year master’s degree program was designed to produce a pool of trained personnel to service the department and the new Ministry of Women

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

51

in Development, and the public and private sectors. An undergraduate degree program was added in 1999 and the two became the School of Women and Gender Studies (2020). Women’s organizations were instrumental in developing Makerere’s and other African university’s new programs. With their help, community activities were organized that included seminars, training programs, and documentation that have been pivotal in sustaining awareness about women and gender equality issues in Uganda and in maintaining strong transnational networks (Ernstberger, 2020). Today, it is blogs that facilitate critical dialogue among academics and activists at Makerere, now widely recognized in a consultative capacity for developing gender mainstreaming programs in academia, government bureaucracies, and development agencies. It must however be noted that the professionalization of gender studies has an unfortunate consequence: the depoliticization of gender and the neutralization of the feminist political goal. Southern Africa has the African Gender Institute (AGI) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Established in 1996, it is now well known for its historical role in radicalizing women’s and gender studies scholarship on the continent since 2000 by providing a supportive environment for feminist scholars and activists to develop and strengthen their skills in African feminist theory‐building, pedagogy, and research. In addition to undergraduate and graduate degrees in gender studies emphasizing gender and the politics of sexuality in Africa, AGI initiatives include the Sexual Harassment Network, which links higher educational institutions within the South African Development Community; the program, Young Women’s Leadership on Sexuality and Reproductive Health Rights in Universities; e‐advocacy projects; and Queer Visuality film festivals hosted in locations throughout the country (African Gender Institute, 2020). Women and gender studies programs are integrated in the curriculum of some North African universities, such as Morocco’s Center for Studies and Research on Women at the Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah (Fez) and the Center of Women’s Studies at Mohamed V. University (Rabat). Sadiqi (2016) describes how, despite institutional challenges to their efforts to initiate and develop these programs, women faculty members at the university in Rabat seized opportunities emerging from state policies for higher education reform to introduce a graduate gender studies program. Framed within Arab‐Muslim culture and value systems and combining research and activism, the program has helped to democratize higher education in Morocco. Women and gender studies programs’ potential for reducing gender inequality and advancing women’s rights is often stymied by underfunding, limited resources, lack of a critical mass of trained, full‐time feminist faculty members, unequal access, and the neoliberal institutional climate in most university systems. Moreover, depoliticizing programs and normalizing the concept of “gender” to fit in with government and donor‐driven development objectives is problematic because it threatens to neutralize the discipline’s social justice agenda and capacity to develop critical theoretical analysis (Adomako Ampofo, 2009; Kasente, 2002; Mama, 2000; Manuh et al., 2007). There is now an established body of feminist literature on African women’s and men’s sexualities (Arnfred, 2015; Bennett & Tamale, 2017; Pereira, 2014;

52

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

Tamale, 2011). Yet in many institutions’ curricula, subjects addressing sexuality, identity politics, and reproductive justice are often underrepresented or incorporated into population or health studies that do not recognize the centrality of gender or sexuality as an organizing principle (Adomako Ampofo, 2009; Mama, 2005). Epidemiological and biomedical dimensions of living with diseases like HIV and AIDS are often emphasized at the expense of attention to the physicality of sexual relationships and pleasure (Arnfred, 2004; Feminist Africa, 2003). African feminist scholars have debated this issue widely (Arnfred, 2004; Bennett, 2003; Feminist Africa, 2003). Some contend that these programs’ perceived vulnerability in conservative institutional climates encourages faculty members to choose their battles and adopt a pragmatic and complicit approach that sidesteps courses unlikely to be supported by the administration (Mama, 2009). Others maintain that people teach according to their context and its demand for such subjects. In South Africa, where LGBTQI citizens have recognized constitutional rights, there is a demand for such courses and they are deemed relevant for the university curriculum. In other parts of Africa like Cameroon and Uganda, however, authoritarian governments’ anti‐LGBTQI legislation and policies make it difficult to promote such subjects in the university curriculum. Tamale and Oloka‐Onyango (2000) posit that when some feminist academics try to challenge institutional patriarchal structures by raising concerns about such issues, they are labeled “bitches in the academy.” Ugandan feminist scholar Nyanzi (2015) illustrates this point when she states: The alienation and invisibilisation of African homosexuals is apparent within African knowledge generated by many African scholars living, studying and teaching in diverse countries of Africa. As politicians parrot that queer sexualities and alternative genders are un‐African, many scholars reiterate that queer theory belongs to post‐structural and post‐modern Westerners. Queer African scholarship is side lined as an anomaly, just as African queer knowledge is marginalised as alienating. (p. 126)

Another vulnerability experienced by women and gender studies programs is the mainstreaming of gender in African higher educational institutions. Such policies have helped increase women’s access to higher education but gender inequality in access – still driven by structures of class, race, ethnicity, and region – therefore remains a critical development problem. Women entering higher educational institutions, whether as faculty members or students, are still exposed to hostile environments and experience discrimination in the form of sexual harassment, a lack of safe spaces, and inadequate sanitary facilities and mentoring programs (Beoku‐Betts, 2011; Gaidzanwa, 2007; Manuh et al., 2007; Prah, 2003; Tsikata, 2007). Tsikata’s (2007) study of gender inequalities in the institutional cultures and career trajectories of University of Ghana faculty members found that intersecting factors related to status and privilege challenged the institution’s view of itself as being gender neutral. Gender inequalities were found in the disproportionate representation of students and faculty members and also in male‐centered privilege in residential arrangements and governance structures. Similarly, Prah’s (2003) study of Cape Coast University reported on the low statistical visibility and ranking of women faculty members and predicted that a relatively low proportion of them would ever fill policymaking positions.

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

53

Following is a discussion of ways in which African feminists and gender scholar activists are shaping the trajectory of continental and transnational feminist dialogues by fostering the development of critical theory and dialogue and new forms of solidarity and activism among women in Africa. I refer to the work of such African feminist journals as Agenda and Feminist Africa; provide examples of collaborative networking; and discuss new directions in feminist scholarship in Africa and the diaspora.

AFRICAN FEMINIST JOURNALS For 20 years, the two leading African Feminist Journals, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity and Feminist Africa, have been raising awareness about African feminist intellectual and activist work. The peer‐reviewed Agenda is proudly on the leading edge of “feminist debate and gender analysis” in Africa, having produced special issues on a variety of critical debates of importance for women and gender in South Africa, among them, “Women’s Sexuality and Pornography,” “Non‐Normative Sexual and Gender Diversities in Africa,” “Who’s Afraid of Feminism? South African Democracy at 20,” “Gender and Climate Change,” and “2010 FIFA World Cup: Gender, Politics, and Sport.” The mission of Feminist Africa, which was launched in 2000 and is based at AGI in Cape Town, is to “radicalize the field of gender and women’s studies scholarship by developing a feminist intellectual community grounded in critical engagements with local conditions and women’s movements” (Mama, 2017, p. 2). This open‐access online journal now in its 22nd issue is about to move to the University of Ghana. Designed to reflect both academic and activist writing, it covers feminist academic debates and interventions, as well as conversations among African feminists, practitioners of public policy, and activists. Featured themes have included “African Sexualities,” “African Feminist Engagements with Film,” “Land, Labor and Gendered Livelihoods,” “Feminists Organizing,” and “Researching Sexuality with Young Women: South Africa.” In the face of serious financial and administrative challenges over the years, the journal’s editors have resisted corporate offers from publishing houses and have maintained their commitment to collective ownership, open‐access, and political and intellectual freedom of creativity (Mama, 2017).

CONTINENTAL AND TRANSNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS Since the turn of the century, African feminists and gender scholars, development practitioners, and activists have collaborated regionally and transnationally in pressing governments to address legislative and policy initiatives that advance gender equality and women’s rights. Their activism builds on the work of organizations like AAWORD that laid the groundwork for research and advocacy during the 1980s and 1990s, when African states and institutions were severely affected by the economic, political, and social crises resulting from globalization. Shrinking resources have left AAWORD less influential but “its legacy and

54

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

footprints are clearly evident in several pivotal continental efforts at feminist knowledge production and advocacy” (Rodriguez et al., 2015, p. xi). African women’s organizations and NGO feminist policy networks like Women in Law and Development in Africa, working closely with universities and with research institutes like the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, were instrumental in drafting The African Women’s Protocol, which was adopted by the African Union in 2003 and became legally binding in 2005 (Tripp, 2006). Developed by Africans for Africans, the Protocol is considered one of the world’s most progressive women’s and human rights instruments. Unlike the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly, it is not viewed as a Western‐crafted legal instrument (Gawaya & Mukasa, 2005; Mohamed, 2014). In protecting women’s rights, the Protocol promotes gender equality in the continent in such areas as marriage and divorce, land tenure, and inheritance, while emphasizing that African cultures and traditional values should not prevent women from enjoying their rights (Banda, 2006). Key Protocol accomplishments range from law reforms addressing gender equality, such as citizenship for spouses and children, and banning harmful practices like female genital cutting, to adoption by some governments of maternal and child health‐care practices that have reduced maternal mortality in several countries (Mohamed, 2014). However, “The African Protocol is a cause for celebration, but not complacency” (Banda, 2006, p. 84). Persistent lack of political will in many countries to institute and enforce policies and procedures that protect the rights of women and promote gender equality remains one of the Protocol’s challenges. African organizations collaborating with regional networks on women and gender equality include the pan‐African African Women’s Development Fund, which supports women’s rights through grants to autonomous women’s organizations in the continent. The Fund has sponsored recent seminars on “Women’s Labor Rights: Confronting the Barriers” and “Women and Non‐Communicable Diseases in Africa,” as well as African Feminist Forum conferences. The African Women’s Development and Communications Network, Women and Law in South Africa, and the Coalition of African Lesbians all work closely with feminists and gender scholars in the continent to promote gender equality and women’s rights and control over sexuality and bodily integrity (Pereira, 2017). African feminists, gender scholars, and activists are also active transnationally through their collaboration with similar organizations in the global North and South. Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN), a South‐ based international network of feminist scholar activists established in 1984 in preparation for the United Nation’s Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, is one alliance in which African feminist organizations like AAWORD have played an integral role. DAWN’s Southern, feminist political economy perspective acknowledges the colonial roots of specific experiences encountered by women in Africa; the adverse impacts on them of racism and Eurocentrism, globalization, and neoliberal economic policies; and their diversity based on the intersectionalities of ethnicity, culture, class, and other differences (Antrobus, 2015). DAWN’s publications and conference panels shaped Nairobi conference

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

55

discourse by challenging Northern definitions of feminism and its relevance to poor women in the global South. Women Living Under Muslim Laws is another transnational solidarity network linking organizations in several African countries. It links groups like BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, which serves those whose legal rights are subject to religious, customary, and statutory laws in Nigeria. BOABAB also supports sexual rights activists working in Muslim countries; in 2003, it was instrumental in persuading the Northern Nigerian Sharia Court of Appeal to overturn the sentence of death by stoning of Amina Lawal who was accused of adultery.

COLLABORATIVE INTELLECTUAL WORK African women feminists and gender scholars belong to a long tradition of collaborative continental and transnational intellectual work. As Adomako Ampofo (2009) writes: Yet those of us in the Global South and those in the Global North need each other, because context matters in defining perspective; because feminist theorizing benefits from those diverse perspectives; because feminists in the Global North rarely speak our local languages and need us to help them enter our space; because northern‐based researchers have access to more and better research and to publish (they hold gate‐keeping positions in journals and funding agencies); and because space‐sharing is a feminist thing to do. (p. 41)

Current collaborations are exploring new areas of topical interest in feminism and gender issues in Africa and the diaspora. Special issues of Gender and Society, edited by Adomako Ampofo et al. (2004) and African and Asian Studies, edited by Adomako Ampofo et al. (2008), included reviews of gender studies scholarship in Lusophone and North Africa. A third collaborative publication is African Gender Studies: A Reader, edited by Oyewumi (2005). Its main goal was to challenge essentialist interpretations of gender and to understand how gender is constructed in different African contexts. Adomako Ampofo and Arnfred’s (2009) African Feminist Politics of Knowledge takes a more nuanced approach to examining challenges faced regularly by African feminists and gender scholar activists as they contend with university bureaucracies, donor agencies, and North–South collaborative projects. Authors variously address the questions: What constitutes knowledge? What kinds of knowledge are valid? Why do African feminists need to position themselves more forcefully in discourses on these subjects? Entitled “African Feminisms: Cartographies for the 21st Century” and edited by Decker and Baderoon (2018), the introductory paper in a issue of Meridians acknowledges advancements in African feminist studies in recent years brought about through scholarship and program development on the continent and also in such universities in the global North as Pennsylvania State University, where the African Feminist Initiative program was established in 2015. Most of the issue’s authors are African feminist scholars working in the continent, including North Africa, or the diaspora. Their papers represent critical issues of interest and political concern to African feminists: sexual and gender violence since the

56

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

Boka Haram insurgency; sex work and feminism in Africa; gender and militarized secessionist movements in Africa; feminisms in African popular culture; and emerging areas in African feminist epistemologies, such as McFadden’s “Contemporarity: Sufficiency in a Radical African Feminist Life.” Guest editors acknowledge their relative privilege to counterparts in Africa, including those who form part of the new diaspora in universities in the global North. They also note that differences in generation, academic rank, and how interests are prioritized by United States‐ and African‐based students and faculty members, all have an impact on how feminism is interpreted and partnerships shaped between feminist scholars in the global North and South. In addition to special journal issues, recent collaborative partnerships addressing African feminism and gender studies include Transatlantic Feminisms: Women and Gender Studies in Africa and the Diaspora, edited by Rodriguez et al. (2015), and Holding the World Together: African Women in Changing Perspective, edited by Achebe and Robertson (2019). Based on original feminist scholarship by women academics in Africa and the diaspora, both of anthologies argue for an exchange of knowledge about women and gender across borders, whether regionally in Africa or transnationally across the diaspora; and examine issues of diversity as well as the interconnecting aspects of women’s experiences. Both works also explore and interrogate critical concepts and themes that position African and African diaspora women in feminist discourse; and interrogate the politics of “Black” feminisms and “Black women’s ambivalent and ideologically torn relationships with the concept of feminism” (Rodriguez, Tsikata, and Adomako Ampofo, 2019, p. xiii). Achebe and Robertson (2019) challenge the category, “African women,” as a single analytical framework given the historical, social, economic, political, geographical, and cultural variations found among African people. Interconnecting themes are also addressed, including the politics of representation, survival, resistance, and making a living, as well as the politics of religion; love, marriage, and body politics; economy; and society. These examples of collaborative scholarship addressing African feminist and gender studies are significant for their contributions to feminist scholarship. As Achebe and Robertson (2019) point out that the increase in the input of African feminist scholarship in broader feminist discourse “has provided heightened sensitivity to the production and Africanizing of knowledge, as well as the power of naming and speaking for others” (p. 5).

SELECTED THEMES IN CURRENT AFRICAN FEMINIST AND GENDER STUDIES RESEARCH In contrast to the large body of literature by African feminists on subjects such as feminist movements, gender‐based violence, militarism, popular culture, globalization, law reform, and sexuality studies, following are three examples of emerging areas of knowledge production that have not received as much attention by African feminists and gender scholars but are nevertheless critical, growing subjects in discourse about development and feminism in the region. The three subject areas are commercial agriculture and large‐scale land acquisition, feminist digital activism, and young feminist activism.

57

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

Land Legislative and policy initiatives informed by neoliberal market reforms have largely overlooked livelihood insecurities in the contexts of land and labor, which have disproportionately affected women (Tsikata & Amanor‐Wilks, 2009). The politics of gender and large‐scale land acquisition in relation to land loss and livelihoods is therefore a rapidly growing area in African feminist analysis, as reflected in special issues of Feminist Africa (2009) and Feminist Economist (2014). In their editorial, “Land and Labor in Gendered Livelihood Trajectories,” Tsikata and Amanor‐Wilks (2009) attribute gender disparities in control over land and labor to women’s reproductive work, along with geopolitical policies and institutional processes in the colonial and contemporary periods. These issues are taken up in articles on East, Southern and West Africa. Several papers also address the work of activists in advocating for land and livelihood rights. In 2014, the journal Feminist Economics also published a special issue on “Land, Gender, and Food Security.” Edited by Doss, Summerfield, and Tsikata (2014), it emphasizes that feminist analysis of land issues is not only about women’s loss of control over land relative to their male counterparts, but that age, marital status, and class differences are all salient factors determining the degree to which women have access to and control over land interests, and are vulnerable to land grabbing and land scarcity. Case studies from Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, and Sudan, along with countries in Asia and Latin America, are discussed. The underlying argument is that scholarship on land acquisition focuses too much on mapping size and too little on its effects on different social groups. In addition, gender blindness in mainstream literature has given rise to a parallel literature on gender and land, which needs integration (Tsikata, 2009; Tsikata & Awetori Yaro, 2014). The question about whether customary laws protect women’s rights to land is raised, given the extent of gender inequalities deeply rooted in local patriarchal power structures (Darkwah, Medie, & Gyekye‐Jandoh, 2017; Tsikata & Awetori Yaro, 2014; Whitehead & Tsikata, 2003). Digital Activism The explosion of digital technology over the past two decades has expanded opportunities for transnational feminist activism; and African feminist activists across the continent have embarked on digital activism through local, regional, and transnational feminist mobilizations and knowledge sharing. In 2013, Feminist Africa, which has pioneered this journey by virtue of its continued existence as an open‐access, online, feminist scholarly journal (Radloff, 2013), published a special issue on “Feminist Engagements with 21st‐Century Communications Technology.” The editor points out that use of digital technology and its impact on the expansion of African cyberfeminism is only the most recent development in a long tradition of women’s activism and alternative communication strategies for countering male privilege and gender discrimination. Since 2000, women’s organizations in Africa have adapted to a succession of communication platforms – blogs, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and Whatsapp on computers and increasingly on mobile phones – to create alternative spaces and creative networks for advancing

58

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

their strategic individual and collective goals. Contributing authors presenting cases from Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the continent as a whole explore and problematize the implications of intergenerational, regional, and class differences in access to and use of digital tools. They also focus on a range of issues, such as the use of radio and/or mobile phones in rural communities; LGBTQI; cyberactivism and feminist uprisings; and sexuality, pleasure, and online censorship. The book, Digital Activism in the New Social Media Era: Critical Reflections on Emerging Trends in Sub‐Saharan Africa, edited by Mutsvairo (2016), examines how African users of digital technology navigate particular social, economic, intellectual, and personal environments. As mobile phones are more and more widely used in Africa, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp have increased opportunities for citizen journalism, democratic debate, political activities, and social activism (Wasserman, 2016, p. vi). At the same time, since social media in many African countries are state sponsored and culturally sanctioned, they have been found useful, especially by the youth, for politically challenging dominant heteronormative discourses, and by feminist and LGBTQI activists wishing to dismantle patriarchal narratives that dominate the mainstream media and provide fuel for oppressive legislative measures. One of the thematic sections of Digital Activism in the New Social Media Era examines emerging debates and strategies employed by gender and LGBTQI activists on social media. Mphiripiri and Moyo (2016) address ways in which gays and lesbians in Zimbabwe “use Facebook as an alternative public sphere to challenge prevailing political and social stigmas associated with their sexuality” (p. 15). While Mpofu (2016) explores blogging and feminism in Zimbabwe, Njoroge (2016) critically interrogates the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign and the role of celebrities worldwide in raising awareness about the 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram. Darkwah’s (forthcoming) chapter, “Internet Activism: Feminist African Style” describes young Ghanaian feminists’ use of the Internet to disseminate ideas beyond academia, and also the wider community’s response to this form of activism. Chapters on the sites she investigated are “Adventures from the bedrooms of African Women,” “Mindofmalaka,” “Ghanafeminism,” and “Pepper Dem Ministries.” Darkwah concludes that although these young feminists’ ideas sometimes provoke backlash, they have a generally positive impact to the extent that they receive some public and private institutional support. The public is becoming sensitized to specific gender equality and women’s rights issues, such as recognition that women’s sexuality is for pleasure as well as reproduction and that normalizing rape culture perpetuates violence against women. As African feminist studies on digital activism have grown, they have broadened discourse about bodily integrity to include not only reproductive rights but also gender and sexual identity. Young Feminist Activism Young African feminists’ overt, engagement, whether rooted in the academy (#FeesMustFall) or outside of it (Pepper Dem Ministries) is an important feature of minisms. Some of their activism (e.g., #FeesMustFall) and is bounded

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

59

by “principles of participation, empowerment, collaboration, power‐sharing and feminist leadership” (Davies & Sweetman, 2018, p. 388). This segment of the population has not historically taken part in formal, global decision‐making but that is changing as a result of rapid population growth among youth in the global South and the rise of “fourth wave” feminist movements that rely on social media to mobilize around issues like women’s empowerment, sexual harassment, rape culture, and non‐hierarchical feminist practices (Davies & Sweetman, 2018). It is said that because feminist leaders have not sufficiently invested in preparing younger feminists to move the feminist agenda forward, there are generational tensions among younger feminists regarding power sharing (Garita, 2015). As Kenyan feminist Catherine Nyambura (2018) states: We need to be part of leading, co‐creating, and articulating collective feminist narratives and developing action to further women’s rights and social justice in the women’s movements that exist throughout the world. (p. 425)

Young African feminists organize around issues such as LGBTQI rights, access to safe abortion, the Global Gag policy, HIV/AIDS in Africa, sexual violence, and a normalized rape culture; and they build coalitions in alliance with wider feminist and social justice movements to promote social, economic, and political empowerment. Student‐led movements like #FeesMustFall and #FreeEducation have also challenged White supremacy at universities in South Africa, demanding free education and an end to outsourcing Black workers. Young African feminists approach their activism intersectionally, in that they are mindful of persistent disparities based in gender, class, rural versus urban residence, sexuality, and other oppressive structures perpetuating inter and intragenerational inequalities. They blend their feminism with popular culture, music, film, and literature to raise awareness among their generation about feminist concerns. Like other social justice organizations, young feminist movements in Africa are challenged by the restrictive laws and punitive measures of authoritarian states that restrict their movement and use of social media. Their lack of fluency in abstract and technical language may limit their access to and engagement in the policy process; and their ability to advance their mission and goals is often curtailed by inadequate funding and time (Nyambura, 2018). Intragenerational class differences determining access to digital technology exclude entire groups from exposure to consciousness raising, knowledge production, and power sharing. For that reason, organizations like the African Feminist Forum and the African Leadership Institute are committed to supporting young African feminists and to raising feminist consciousness and strengthening movement building in this demographic sector (Pereira, 2017).

CONCLUSIONS Overall, feminist knowledge production in Africa is both a historical and contemporary tradition. Irrespective of the growth and institutionalization of Women and Gender Studies and the expansion of information technology and social media networks, feminist knowledge production continues to be understood from multiple, shifting sites that are closely linked to feminist activism on the

60

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

continent. Feminist networking based on collaborations between scholars and activists has strengthened the African feminist movement and made it more assertive and influential within the continent and globally. In building networks of solidarity among scholars and activists, African feminists have helped institutionalize legislative policies advancing gender equality and women’s rights. The output of peer‐reviewed journals like Feminist Africa and Agenda continues to create spaces where the next generation of scholars, activists, and artists can express their voices in feminist dialogue across the continent and in collaboration with transnational feminist networks. They have independently and in collaboration with scholars in the global North and South conceptualized, reframed, and articulated questions and debates on specific ways in which issues like colonialism, globalization and neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy, and homophobia and heteronormativity have had an impact on women’s and gendered experiences. Yet there is still much to be done to understand how these processes intersect with such issues as ethnicity, class, rural‐urban disparities, religious fundamentalism, citizenship, and gender, and the conditions shaping new configurations of oppression and inequality. Because of the many cultures and multiple identities that need to be examined and negotiated in nuanced and contextualized ways, areas of contestation exist within and between the various standpoints of African feminisms. However, it is these same areas of contestation and negotiation that create opportunities for the emergence of new epistemologies. The guiding principle underlying contemporary practices in African feminist knowledge production is that such work must provide insights into how patriarchy, heteronormativity, and global economic, political, and social inequalities are being confronted in the region. In other words, African feminist knowledge production must be situated in social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of women’s lives, and linked to activism to promote gender equality and social transformation.

REFERENCES Achebe, N., & Robertson, C. (Eds.). (2019). Holding the world together: African women in changing perspective. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Acholonou, C. O. (1995). Motherism: The Afrocentric alternative to feminism. Owerri: OFA Publications. Adomako Ampofo, A. (2009). One who has truth – She has strength: The feminist activist inside and outside the academy in Ghana. In A. Adomako Ampofo & S. Arnfred (Eds.), African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges and possibilities (pp. 28–51). Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Adomako Ampofo, A., & Arnfred, S. (Eds.). (2009). African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges and possibilities. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J., Njambi, W., & Osirim, M. (2004). Women’s and gender studies in English‐speaking sub‐Saharan Africa: A review of research in the social sciences. Gender & Society, 18(6), 685–714. Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J., & Osirim, M. (2008). Researching African women and gender studies: New social science perspectives. African and Asian Studies, 7, 327–341. African Feminist Forum. (2006). Feminist Charter. Retrieved from http://www.africanfeministforum. com/feminist-charter-preamble/ African Gender Institute. (2020, March). Young women’s leadership on sexual and reproductive health rights in universities. Retrieved from http://www.agi.ac.za/agi/srrp/young-african-feminist-leadership. Accessed on March 29, 2020

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

61

Ahikire, J. (2005). Locating gender studies in the Pan African ideal: A reflection on progress and possibilities in Uganda. In Arnfred, S., Chacha, B. K., Gouws, A., Ahikire, J., Ogundipe, A., Pereira, C., … Yieke, F. A. (Eds.). Gender activism and studies in Africa (pp. 41–53 and 54–65). Dakar: CODESRIA. Akin‐Aina, S. (2011). Beyond an epistemology of bread, butter, culture and power: Mapping the African feminist movement. Nokoko, Fall, 65–89. Ankrah, E. M., & Bizimana, P. D. (1991). Women’s studies program for Uganda. Signs, 16(4), 864–869. Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in African Society. London: Zed Books. Antrobus, P. (2015). DAWN, the third world feminist network: Upturning hierarchies. In R. Baksh & W. Harcourt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements (pp. 159–187). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Arnfred, S. (2004). Re‐thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Arnfred, S. (2015). Female sexuality as capacity and power? Reconceptualizing sexualities in Africa. African Studies Review, 58(3), 149–170. Awe, B., & Mba, N. (1991). Women’s Research and Documentation Center (Nigeria). Signs, 16(4), 859–864. Bakare‐Yusuf, B. (2004). “Yoruba’s don’t do gender”: A critical review of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s The invention of women: Making an African sense of western gender discourses. In S. Arnfred, B. Bakare‐Yusuf, E. W. Kisiangami, D. Lewis, O. Oyewumi, & F. Steady, African gender scholarship: Concepts, methodologies and paradigms. Dakar: CODESRIA. Balghis, B., & Tripp, A. M. (Eds.). (2017). Women’s activism in Africa. London: Zed Books. Banda, F. (2006). Blazing a trail: The African protocol on women’s rights comes into force. Journal of African Law, 50, 72–84. Bennett, J., & Tamale, S. (Eds.). (2017). Research on gender and sexualities in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA. Beoku‐Betts, J. (2011). Neoliberal economic restructuring of public universities in Ghana: Effects and challenges for academic women scientists. Ghana Studies, 14, 191–221. Beoku‐Betts, J., & Njambi, W. (2005). African feminist scholars in women’s studies: Negotiating spaces of dislocation and transformation in the study of women. Meridians, 6(1), 113–132. Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.cegensa.ug.edu.gh/programmes. Accessed on March 29, 2020. Connell, R. (2014). Rethinking gender from the south. Feminist Studies, 40(3), 518–539. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity, politics and violence against women. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. Darkwah, A. (2002). Trading goes global: Market women in an era of globalization. Asian Women, 15, 31–49. Darkwah, A. (Chapter 7). Internet activism feminist African style. In A. Adomako Ampofo & J. Beoku‐ Betts (Eds.), Producing inclusive feminist knowledge: Voices from the global south (pp. 147–156). London: Emerald Publishers. Darkwah, A. K., Medie, P. A., & Gyekye‐Jandoh, M. (2017). Interrogating large scale land acquisition and its implication on women in sub‐Saharan Africa: A case study of Ghana. Consortium on Gender Security and Human Rights, Working Paper, No. 401. Davies, I., & Sweetman, C. (2018). Introduction: Development and Young Feminisms. Gender and Development, 26(3), 387–401. Decker, A. C., & Arrington-Sirois. (2019). African Women Organize. In N. Achebe, 7 C. Robertson, (Eds.). Holding the World Together: African Women in Changing Perspective (pp. 125–144). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Decker, A. C., & Baderoon, G. (2018). African feminisms: Cartographies of the twenty‐first century. Meridians, 17(2), 219–231. Dosekun, S. (2019). African feminisms. In O. Yacob‐Haliso & T. Falola (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of African women’s studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77030-7_581 Dosekun, S. (2020). Fashioning postfeminism: Spectacular femininity and transnational culture. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Doss, C., Summerfield, G., & Tsikata, D. (2014). Land, gender, and food security. Feminist Economics, 20(1), 1–23. Ernstberger, A. L. (2020). A room, a chair, and a desk: Founding voices of women’s and gender studies in Uganda. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 21(2), 4–16.

62

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

Gaidzanwa, R. (2007). Alienation, gender, and institutional culture at the University of Zimbabwe. Feminist Africa, 8, 60–82. Garita, A. (2015). Moving toward sexual and reproductive justice: A transnational and multigenerational feminist remix. In R. Baksh & W. Harcourt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements (pp. 271–294). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Gawaya, R., & Mukasa, R. S. (2005). The African women’s protocol: A new dimension for women’s rights in Africa. Gender and Development, 13(3), 42–50. Gouws, A. (2005). Establishing gender studies programmes in South Africa: The role of gender activism. In S. Arnfred, B. K. Chacha, A. Gouws, J. Ahikire, A. Ogundipe, C. Pereira, … F. A. Yieke (Eds.), Gender activism and studies in Africa (pp. 41–53). Dakar: CODESRIA. Gouws, A. (2017). Feminist intersectionality and the matrix of domination in South Africa. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 31(1), 19–27. Hill Collins, P. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Imam, A., Mama, A., & Sow, F. (Eds.). (1997). Engendering African social sciences. Dakar: CODESRIA. Kasente, D. (2002). Institutionalizing gender equality in African universities: The case of women’s and gender studies at Makerere University. Feminist Africa, 1, 91–99. McFadden, P. (2018). Contemporarity: Sufficiency in a radical African feminist life. Meridians, 17(2), 415–431. Mama, A. (2000). Feminism and the state in Nigeria: The national machinery for women. North Ghana: Third World Network‐Africa. Mama, A. (2006). Feminist studies in the African contexts: The challenge of transformative teaching in African universities. In P.T. Zeleza (Ed.), The study of Africa, Vol. 1: Disciplinary and interdisciplinary encounters (pp. 297–312). Dakar: CODESRIA. Mama, A. (2007). Is it Ethical to Study Africa? Preliminary Thoughts on Scholarship and Freedom. African Studies Review, 50(1), 1–26. Mama, A. (2009). Demythologizing gender in development: Feminist studies in African contexts. IDS Bulletin, 35(4), 121–124. Mama, A. (2011). What does it mean to do feminist research in African contexts?. In Feminist Review Conference Proceedings 2011. Retrieved from https://nigs.ufsc.br/files/2017/07/fr201122aAMINA-MAMA-Feminist-Research-in-Africa.pdf Mama, A. (2017). The power of the feminist Pan‐African intellect. Feminist Africa, 22, 1–15. Manuh, T., Gariba, S., & Budu, J. (2007). Changes and transformations in Ghana’s publicly funded universities: A study of experiences and opportunities. Oxford: James Curry. Mba, N. (1982). Nigerian women mobilized: Women’s political activity in Southern Nigeria, 1900–1965. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mikell, G. (Ed.). (1997). African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa. University of Pennsylvania Press. Mohamed, F. J. (2014). 11 years of the African women’s rights protocol: Progress and challenges. Development, 57(1), 71–76. Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminism without borders. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mphiripiri, N. A., & Moyo, S. B. (2016). A resilient unwanted civil society: The gays and lesbians of Zimbabwe use of Facebook as alternative public sphere in a Dominant Homophobic Society. In B. Mutsvairo (Ed.), Digital activism in the social media era: Critical reflections on emerging trends in sub‐Saharan Africa (pp. 249–269). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mpofu, S. (2016). Blogging, feminism, and the politics of participation: The case of her Zimbabwe. In B. Mutsvairo (Ed.), Digital activism in the social media era (pp. 271–294). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mutsvairo, B. (Ed.). (2016). Digital activism in the social media era: Critical reflections on emerging trends in sub‐Saharan Africa. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Njoroge, D. (2016). Global activism or media spectacle: An exploration of the ‘bring back our girls campaign’. In B. Mutsvairo (Ed.), Digital activism in the social media era: Critical reflections on emerging trends in sub‐Saharan Africa (pp. 311–325). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Nkealah, N. (2016). (West) African feminisms and their challenges. Journal of Literary Studies, 32(2), 61–74. Nnaemeka, O. (Ed.). (1998). Sisterhood, feminisms and power: From Africa to the diaspora. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

African Feminist and Gender Scholarship

63

Nnaemeka, O. (2004). Nego‐feminism: Theorizing, practicing and pruning Africa’s way. Signs, 29(2), 357–385. Nyambura, C. (2018). Repoliticising women’s rights in development: Young African feminisms at the cutting edge. Gender and Development, 26(3), 423–437. Nyanzi, S. (2014). Queer pride and protest: A reading of the bodies at Uganda’s first gay beach parade. Signs, 40(1), 36–39. Nyanzi, S. (2015). Knowledge is requisite power: Making a case for queer African scholarship. In T. Sandfort, F. Simenel, K. Mwachiro, V. Reddy (Eds.), Boldly queer: African perspectives on same‐sex sexuality and gender diversity (pp. 125–135). The Hague: HIVOS. Ogundipe, L. M. (1994). Re‐creating ourselves: African women and critical transformations. Trenton: Africa World Press. Osirim, M. J. (2003). Carrying the burdens of adjustment and globalization: Women and microenterprise development in urban Zimbabwe. International Sociology, 18(3), 535–558. Osirim, M. J. (2009). Mobilizing for change locally and globally: African women as scholar‐activists in feminist and gender studies. In M. Dulo (Ed.). Power, gender, and social change in Africa and the African diaspora (pp. 94–111). Oxford: James Curry Press. Oyewumi, O. (1997). The invention of women: Making an African sense of western gender discourses. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Oyewumi, O. (2003). African women and feminism: Reflecting on the politics of sisterhood. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Oyewumi, O. (Ed.). (2005). African gender studies: A reader. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pereira, C. (2005). Locating gender and women’s studies in Nigeria: What trajectories for the future?. In S. Arnfred, B. K. Chacha, A. Gouws, J. Ahikire, A. Ogundipe, C. Pereira, … F. A. Yieke (Eds.). Gender activism and studies in Africa (pp. 1–26). Dakar: CODESRIA. Pereira, C. (2014). Changing narratives of sexuality: Contestations, compliance and women’s empowerment. London: Zed Books. Pereira, C. (2017). Feminists organizing: Strategy, voice, power. Feminist Africa, 22, 16–30. Prah, M. (2003). Gender issues in Ghanaian tertiary institutions: Women academics and administrators at Cape Coast University. Ghana Studies, 5, 83–122. Radloff, J. (2013). Editorial: Feminist Engagements with 21st century communications technology. Feminist Africa, 18, 1–11. Rodriguez, C., Tsikata, D., & Adomako Ampofo, A. (Eds.) (2015). Transatlantic feminisms: Women and gender studies in Africa and the diaspora. London: Lexington Books. Sadiqi, F. (2016). A genesis of gender and women’s studies in Morocco. Retrieved from https://www. researchgate.net/profile/Fatima_Sadiqi2/publication/308674223_A_Genesis_of_Gender_and_ Women’s_Studies_in_Morocco/links/57ea832908ae5d93a4814ec2/A-Genesis-of-https://www. researchgate.net/profile/Fatima_Sadiqi2/publication/308674223_A_Genesender-and-WomensStudies-in-Morocco.pdf Salo, E. (2001). African women’s voices: Talking about feminism in Africa. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equality, 1(50), 58–63. School of Women and Gender Studies. (2020). Retrieved from https://womenstudies.mak.ac.ug/blogs. Accessed on March 29, 2020. Steady, F. C. (Ed.). (1981). The Black woman cross‐culturally. Rochester, VT: Schenkman Books. Steady, F. C. (2004). An investigative framework for gender research in Africa in the new millennium. In S. Arnfred, B. Bakare‐Yusuf, E. W. Kisiangami, D. Lewis, O. Oyewumi, & F. Steady (Eds.), African gender scholarship: Concepts, methodologies and paradigms (pp. 42–60). Dakar: CODESRIA. Tamale, S. (2011). African sexualities: A reader. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press. Tamale, S., & Oloka‐Onyango, J. (2000). Bitches at the academy: Gender and academic freedom in Africa. In E. Sall (Ed.), Women in academia: Gender and Academic Freedom in Africa (pp. 13–37). Dakar: CODESRIA. Tripp, A. M. (2006). The evolution of transnational feminisms: Consensus, conflict, and new dynamics. In M. Marx Ferree & A. M. Tripp (Eds.), Global feminism: Transnational women’s activism, organizing, and human rights (pp. 51–75). New York, NY: New York University Press. Tsikata, D. (2007). Gender, institutional cultures and career trajectories of faculty of the University of Ghana. Feminist Africa, 8, 83–104.

64

JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS

Tsikata, D. (2009). Gender, land and labor relations and livelihoods in sub‐Saharan Africa in the era of economic liberalization: Towards a research agenda. Feminist Africa, 12, 11–30. Tsikata, D. (2012). Development alternatives for a post‐crisis world: An African perspective. Development, 55, 497–502. Tsikata, D., & Amanor‐Wilks, D. (2009). Editorial: Land and labor in gendered livelihood trajectories. Feminist Africa, 12, 1–9. Tsikata, D., & Awetori Yaro, J. (2014). When a good business model is not enough: Land transactions and gendered livelihood prospects in rural Ghana. Feminist Economics, 20(1), 202–226. Wasserman, H. (2016). Foreword. In B. Mutsvairo (Ed.), Digital activism in the social media era: Critical reflections on emerging trends in sub‐Saharan Africa (pp. v–vii). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Whitehead, A., & Tsikata, D. (2003). Policy discourses on women’s land rights in sub‐Saharan Africa: The implications of the re‐turn to the customary. Journal of Agrarian Change, 3(1–2), 67–112. Yeboah, A. A., Adomako Ampofo, A., & Brobbey, M. K. (2014). Women’s and gender studies in Ghana. In S. Agyei‐Mensah , J. A. Ayee & A. D. Oduro (Eds.), (Eds.), Changing perspectives on the social sciences in Ghana (pp. 285–312). Dordrecht: Springer Science and Business Media.

CHAPTER 3 DALIT AND AUTONOMOUS FEMINISMS IN INDIA Manisha Desai

ABSTRACT In this chapter, I revisit an important debate about dalit feminism that took place in the pages of the Economic and Political Weekly, a leading publication in India, from 1995 to 2000 (Datar, 1999; Guru, 1995; Rege, 1998, 2000). Reexamining this debate in the context of contemporary dalit and savarna feminist activism, I show that while the debate was key in making visible (1) the heretofore unmarked savarna nature of autonomous feminism and (2) the male domination of dalit politics, in the decades following the debate, dalit politics remains primarily male, and autonomous feminism while cognizant of and in conversation with dalit feminism is not necessarily transformed by dalit standpoint. Further, dalit feminism itself while visible nationally and transnationally has focused at home largely on “difference,” from savarna feminism without adequately addressing the differences among dalit subjectivities in neoliberal India, limiting the possibilities of radical, coalitional politics. Keywords: Dalit feminism, dalit standpoint; savarna feminism; autonomous women’s movement; dalit politics; bahujan feminism

TROUBLING THE GLOBAL SOUTH Reflexivity, the hallmark of feminisms everywhere, has opened new avenues of theorizing and organizing for gender justice around the world. Yet, feminisms are no more immune to the local and global inequalities that shape all knowledge production and social struggles. Hence, the co‐editors of this volume sought to Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 65–78 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031004

65

66

MANISHA DESAI

“liberate feminist scholarship” by examining the theory and praxis of feminist scholars and activists from the Global South. Among the questions they posed to the authors were: How do they break with dominant epistemologies to frame their own sites of knowledge production and feminist identity? And how do feminist discourses in the global South offer the possibilities of new insights that reflect the multiple and shifting conditions in their societies and how do their perspectives impact global feminist agendas?

I address these questions by revisiting an important debate about dalit1 feminism that took place in the pages of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), a leading publication in India, from 1995 to 2000 (Datar, 1999; Guru, 1995; Rege, 1998, 2000). Reexamining this debate in the context of contemporary dalit and savarna2 feminist activism can enable us to understand its contributions, as well as the challenges that still remain, not only for feminisms in India but also feminisms beyond. As the terms dalit and savarna feminism suggest, feminisms in India are neither monolithic nor homogenous, cautioning us from using overarching categories such as Global South feminisms. Additionally, adivasi,3 bahujan,4 Muslim, and LGBTQ feminisms are among other ways in which feminist scholar activists in India have articulated their theories and praxis. Just as All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of us are Brave (Hull, Bell‐Scott, & Smith, 1982) demonstrated the need for a Black Women’s Studies project, the articles on dalit feminism in the EPW showed how dalit politics in India was male dominated, while the autonomous feminist movement was led by savarna women, leading to the invisibility of dalit women in both contexts. Yet, in the decades following the debate, dalit politics remains primarily male, and autonomous feminism while cognizant of and in conversation with dalit feminism, is not necessarily transformed by dalit standpoint. Further, dalit feminism itself while visible nationally and transnationally has focused at home largely on “difference,” from savarna feminism without adequately addressing the differences among dalit subjectivities in neoliberal India, limiting the possibilities of radical, coalitional politics. The Dalit Feminism Debate The debate began in 1995 when Gopal Guru, a dalit scholar activist who is now the editor of EPW, wrote an essay titled: “Dalit Women Talk Differently.” It was the year of the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing. In India, the 1990s were marked by two key developments. First, were the economic reforms or liberalization which reconfigured the state’s economic commitments (Desai, 2016) and second, the expansion of reservations, affirmative action policies, in response to the Mandal Commission (1980) Report, which led to protests and backlash by the upper castes. Both these left indelible imprints on all politics, and particularly dalit and feminist politics. In this context, Guru’s (1995) main argument was that the “independent and autonomous organisation of dalit women has the potential to counter dalit patriarchy from within and state‐sponsored globalization from without” (p. 2548). Given the role of difference in mobilizing the autonomous women’s movement in India, he wrote, it

Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India

67

was only logical that dalit women would also organize autonomously from them. While the organizational expression of dalit feminism dated to 1994 when the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) was formed, it had a much longer history reaching back to the activism of Jyotiba Phule and his Satya Shodhak Samaj (Society of Truth Seeking) in the late nineteenth century (Bhadru, 2002). Guru attributed dalit women’s autonomous organizing to external factors, such as savarna women’s movements lack of attention to dalit women’s issues, and internal factors of patriarchal domination within the dalit movement. In terms of external factors, Guru (1995) highlighted how both the autonomous women’s movement, a primarily urban movement, and the rural women’s movement in Maharashtra failed to address the caste specific nature of dalit women’s oppression and experiences. For example, Guru (1995) indicated that the issue of rape for dalit women was not only about patriarchal, male violence, class, or criminality. Rather, for dalit women it was intrinsically tied to a legacy of caste oppression whereby upper caste men considered access to dalit women’s bodies as their right. Similarly, the then prominent rural women’s movement in Maharashtra Shetkari Sangathana (Farmers’ Union) tended to focus on women’s rights to land and prices of crops that affected rich farmers rather than the interests of the dalit women who were mostly agricultural laborers and had not benefited from the post‐independent land reforms. Other rural movements that focused on using common property for ecological restoration did not address the reality that dalit women were often excluded from accessing such resources due to the segregation and caste politics in rural areas. Finally, Guru (1995) noted that dalit women face hostility from savarna women both in urban and rural areas belying the notion of solidarity, which is often achieved by “whitewashing” dalit issues and by non‐dalit women speaking on their behalf and even claiming dalit identity. Beyond these external factors, Guru (1995) also highlighted internal factors such as the male dominated dalit movement that also silenced dalit women’s voices. This was particularly true in dalit, electoral politics which continues to be male dominated. But it was also the case in the cultural movement where dalit male writers had more recognition than dalit women writers. Thus, dalit men reproduced the exclusion of dalit women as perpetrated by both upper caste men and women. Dalit men, he claimed, should not be threatened by this assertion of autonomy by dalit women. Guru (1995) saw dalit women’s autonomous mobilization as a privileged epistemic intervention, given their position at the bottom of society. Although Guru (1995) noted that it would be more “authentic and valid” for dalit women to represent themselves in theory and politics, he did not advocate a “celebration of plural practices of feminism (Guru, 1995, p. 2548).” Rather, he cautioned that dalit women’s identities are not stable or homogenous, and that, there are class differences among dalit women. For example, dalit women from Maharashtra who are urban and better educated tend to dominate dalit women’s movements and they should be cognizant of this by working locally with women at the grassroots. Similarly, to challenge dalit male dominance of politics, dalit women would have to rely on the state’s gender project, which usually coopts and domesticates any real efforts at social transformation. To avoid fetishization and “ghettoisation of dalithood” (Guru, 1995, p. 2550), dalit women’s movement,

68

MANISHA DESAI

Guru (1995) claimed, should organize along with other bahujan women, not only around gender issues but also against processes of globalization and Hindutva that had increased their precarity and violence against them. Sharmila Rege, a savarna Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Pune University, responded to Guru (1995) in her article, “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position,” which appeared in EPW in 1998. She agreed with Guru’s basic analysis of the exclusion of dalit women from both the autonomous, women’s movement, which she labeled savarna feminism, and the dalit movement. Like Guru, she was also critical of differences that would render dalit women as “one more standpoint within” this plural multiverse (Rege, 1998, p. WS‐39). She, however, extended this critique of difference by transforming it into a dalit feminist standpoint which alone, she argued, can lead to emancipation. Rege’s (1998) article began with a critique of feminist theorizing around difference in the West; then discussed the history of dalit women in non‐Brahman movements of the late nineteenth and mid‐twentieth centuries. This was followed by the exclusion of dalit women from the two contemporary movements, that is, the dalit movement and the women’s movement, via what she called the “masculinization of dalithood and savarnization of womanhood” (Rege, 1998, p. WS‐42); and finally made a case for going beyond difference to defining a dalit feminist standpoint as a way out of narrow identity politics to a true emancipatory politics. A transformation from “their cause” to “our cause” is possible, for subjectivities can be transformed. By this we do not argue that non‐dalit feminists can “speak as” or “for” the dalit women but they can “reinvent themselves as dalit feminists.” Such a position, therefore avoids the narrow alley of direct experience based “authenticity” and narrow identity politics. (Rege, 1998 p. 45)

As a foremost, non‐dalit proponent of dalit feminism, this articulation made sense. Rege’s (1998) critique of difference in feminist theorizing in the West makes the by now familiar argument of how the alliance between post‐structuralism and feminism limits the analytical and political power of feminism, arising from its focus on discourse and culture at the expense of the lived realities of dalit women. Beyond Western feminists, Rege (1998) also, rightly in my view, takes to task subaltern and post‐colonial scholars in India for ignoring the pre‐colonial origins of caste oppression and writing the history of anti‐colonial struggles primarily in terms of nationalism. Nationalism, she argued, was a project of the upper caste elite that did not seek true equality and justice for all, rather sought to replace colonial power with that of the upper castes. The nationalist historiography marginalizes the anti‐caste and anti‐patriarchy struggles of bahujan leaders like Phule in the nineteenth century who sought an egalitarian society imagined as Bali‐Rajya5 instead of Gandhi’s Ram‐Rajya.6 Rege’s (1998) critique of the autonomous women’s movement as savarna and the dalit movement went beyond Guru’s, and noted that while both movements are attentive to the assertions of dalit women, neither movements have changed their theory or praxis substantively and the framework of difference made caste, in the case of the autonomous movement, and gender in the case of the dalit

Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India

69

movement, the sole responsibility of dalit women and “hinders the dialectics; both of a revisioning of contemporary feminist politics and a sharpening” of sharpening dalit positions (p. WS‐39). Chhaya Datar, also a savarna feminist sociologist and activist, and then Director of the Women’s Studies Program at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, responded in 1999 with the essay “Non‐Brahman Renderings of Feminism in Maharashtra: Is it a More Emancipatory Force?” Her critique began with locating the debate in Maharashtra, which was the focus of the previous two essays as well. While she recognized Rege’s contributions in terms of a dalit feminist standpoint, her main contention was that Rege’s intervention ignored ecofeminism which not only centers on dalit women’s experience in addressing environmental issues, but also offers an alternative to the modern capitalist paradigm that exploits all differences to its advantage, and can never offer true emancipation. Like Guru and Rege, Datar critiqued both the left and the autonomous women’s movement for ignoring caste but unlike them, her focus is primarily on their inattention to the industrial and technological paradigm of capitalism that sees rural areas only as resources to fuel growth and urbanization. For example, she critiqued the male dominated dalit movement for promoting Ambedkar’s vision of urbanization as an antidote to rural poverty and upper caste oppression. She noted that in the era of globalization, urban spaces would not provide economic security to the large number of rural migrants. Furthermore, she saw the male, dalit movement as reproducing caste patriarchy in striving for space and competing “with savarna men within the present political and economic system” (Datar, 1999, p. 2966). Similarly, Datar critiqued both the dalit and autonomous women’s movements for being urban, and dalit feminists for being undemocratic. She also defended the autonomous women’s movement, noting that unlike the dalit movement, it addressed issues of violence against dalit and adivasi women. Datar also set up a binary between the material reality of dalit women’s lives due to environmental degradation and the cultural symbolic oppression of brahminism, arguing that the dalit movement had focused primarily on symbolic struggles instead of political economic ones. Therefore, she argued, “dalit feminism as it stands cannot become a standpoint. It merely helps inform the liberatory knowledge of other movements […]” (Datar, 1999, p. 2964). The main thrust of her critique was that, dalit women’s movements were not addressing alternatives to the capitalist, industrial model of development that were addressed by Gandhian movements and the National Alliance of People’s Movements. For Datar, ecofeminism was an alternative standpoint, not dalit feminism, as it places social reproduction and social relations at the center and only a standpoint that articulates an alternative to modern, capitalist political economy can be truly liberatory. Rege (2000) responded to Datar in an article titled “Scripts of Denial and Accusation.” While she welcomed Datar’s focus on ecofeminism and an alternative model of development, she insisted that ecofeminism cannot be a standpoint. She was particularly critical of ecofeminists like Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva (1993) who she argued focused too narrowly on reproduction and gender difference, and instead advocated the work of ecofeminists like Bina Agarwal (1992) and Gabriele Dietrich (1994) who incorporated caste and other differences in

70

MANISHA DESAI

their ecofeminism. She was also critical of Datar’s focus on sustainable, rural communities as an alternative, as rural communities are differentiated by caste and would thus not be inclusive of dalits. Furthermore, Rege (2000) challenged Datar’s view of dalit feminism as not sufficiently material by noting that, reimagining society as Bali‐Rajya incorporates both material and cultural elements. Finally, Rege found a lack of openness to critique in Datar’s response; unlike the autonomous women’s movement that had failed to reenvision itself in terms of caste and noted that “without caste the radical edge of sexual politics is lost” (Datar 1999, p. 493). Moreover, calling out dalit feminists for their lack of democracy was hypocritical, given similar practices in the autonomous women’s movement. Rege ends with a call for intersectionality, constructing standpoints across difference. To summarize, the four articles in EPW critiqued both the male dominated dalit movement and the upper caste dominated autonomous, women’s movement for neglecting dalit women and articulated a need for dalit feminist standpoint that should: lead to a revisioning of the autonomous women’s movement and the dalit movement and not render caste and gender as issues for dalit women alone. Ironically, this scholarly exchange – between a dalit male scholar and two savarna women scholars – reproduces the very invisibility of dalit women, which is the focus of their intervention. To recenter dalit women, I explore some examples of contemporary dalit feminisms below, which today range from advocacy and activism to autobiographical and historical writing. Contemporary Dalit Feminisms As the debates presented in the above section noted, dalit women have a long history of activism in colonial and post‐colonial India in both dalit and women’s movements. Their autonomous organizing as dalit women, however, is more recent and emerges in a shifting international context of the 1980s and 1990s. The United Nation’s International Women’s Decade (IWD) from 1975 to 1985 and its three world conferences along with their NGO fora brought to global attention the range of women’s activism around the world (e.g., Antrobus, 2005; Desai, 2008). Over two decades (as there was another world conference in Beijing in 1995 a decade after the IWD), these global gatherings transformed from spaces of contention – around what constituted feminism, women’s issues, and gender justice – to sites of collaboration and solidarities, however ambivalent and contingent. It was in this context that, in 1985, Ruth Manorama – one of the founders of the NFDW – participated in a cultural exchange with African American feminists and later with feminists in South Africa. These meetings brought home the ways in which dalit feminists were often marginalized or absent in the leadership and representation of the women’s movement in India despite their active participation in it. To address this absence, Ruth Manorama organized a conference in Bangalore in 1987 inviting dalit feminists from across India. The conference led to the creation of a taskforce, which further resulted in the formation of the NFDW in 1995, so that dalit feminists could represent themselves at the UN conference in Beijing, China.

Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India

71

The 1990s were also a decade when the United Nations held several world conferences on issues ranging from gender to human rights, racism, environment, and population among others. This enabled dalit women to present their issues and engage in deliberations with other subaltern activists around these issues. The 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, was pivotal for both dalit women and men in linking their struggles with those of Afro‐descendant activists around the world. While linking caste and race‐based oppressions dates back to the nineteenth century in Phule’s writing, and continued in the 1960s, when inspired by the Black Panthers,7 young dalit activists in Maharashtra formed the Dalit Panthers, dalit feminists had not explicitly organized around those articulations. But following Beijing and Durban, dalit feminists followed what Mehta (2017) calls a dual strategy of articulating difference from upper caste feminists in India but similar to struggles of other feminists of color outside India. Echoes of this dual strategy are also evident in feminists of color organizing in the United States as demonstrated by Falcon (2016). This dual strategy then uses both the frames of human rights and global justice in their work at home and abroad. This strategy enabled them to make the predominantly male dalit movement at home more responsive to dalit women’s issues as well as collaborating with transnational actors. For example, in 2006 the NFDW worked with the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights to organize a conference on violence against dalit women. They also worked with the International Dalit Solidarity Network in 2009 to organize a similar conference on violence against dalit women in the Hague, Netherlands. But as Mehta (2017) shows, while the conference in New Delhi located violence against dalit women in specific historical and regional contexts, and also highlighted dalit women’s resistance to such violence, the international conference in the Hague tended to present a more monochromatic image of dalit women as victims of violence across centuries without the specificities or their resistance. Thus, transnational collaborations around similarity of oppression often reproduce a monolithic vision of oppression that many feminist scholars find troubling. If similarity abroad is problematic, difference at home has been equally challenging. Difference has been articulated primarily from savarna feminists. One‐way difference has manifested is through the formation of dalit women’s organizations. In addition to the NFDW, there are other regional and local organizations such as the All India Forum for Dalit Women’s Rights,8 and the Dalit Women’s Network for Solidarity. Most of these organizations work to provide support to women survivors of violence, grassroots activism, leadership development, and advocacy at the national and international levels. Another important manifestation of the problematics of difference is found in the writings by dalit women, autobiographical, historical, and theoretical. Sivakami’s (2006) The Grip of Change, Bama’s (2009) Sangati, and Baby Kamble’s (2008) The Prisons We Broke, the first two in Tamil and the last in Marathi, are examples of autobiographical works that have circulated widely throughout India. Unlike most such works in the genre, these are memoirs of a community, of generations of dalit women and their suffering but also their resistance, as individuals

72

MANISHA DESAI

and collectively. Fiction and poetry are other forms through which this has been articulated. Meena Kandasamy’s poetry often reinterprets women from the brahmanic epics. For example, in an anthology called Ms. Militancy she writes: My Maariamma bays for blood. My Kali kills. My Draupadi strips. My Sita climbs onto a stranger’s lap. All my women militate. They brave bombs, they belittle kings. They take on the sun, they take after me. (Kandasamy, 2011, p. 9)

Similarly, she also asserts sexuality in the face of the long history of sexual abuse of dalit women by upper caste men. She writes: I strive to be a sphinx: part woman, part lioness, armed with all lethal riddles. Come, unriddle me. But be warned. I never falter in a fight. And far worse, I seduce shamelessly. (Kandasamy, 2011, p. 9)

Along with memoirs and poetry, dalit feminists have also rewritten histories of dalit women’s activism in dalit movements. Echoing the title of an earlier feminist history of women in the Naxalite Struggle, Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon’s (2015) We Also Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite movement begins to fill out the gaps in both dalit and autonomous women’s movement histories. Critiquing Rege (1998, 2000), Guru (1995), and Lata (2014), for example, questions the very understanding of mainstream feminism. She notes: She (Rege) does not consider Dalit‐Bahujan feminist articulations as mainstream. “what is mainstream feminism?” Is Sharmila Rege the representative of the mainstream in feminism and are Dalit‐Bahujan feminists on the side streams? If this is true, it means that the scores of non‐Brahmin women who have worked in the feminist movement, wrote, spread its thoughts, and struggled standing firmly on Phule‐Ambedkarite thought are not mainstream. It creates an academic illusion that only Brahmin or upper caste women’s movement is ‘mainstream’. Today many Dalit Bahujan activists like me understand how historians and researchers can murder our works by not mentioning them. It then becomes our responsibility to write down our autobiographies, experiences and oral histories. We will have to write our own histories.

Not only have they written their own histories; many dalit feminists have also sought to intervene theoretically by extending their dalit feminist standpoint as an epistemic rather than identity‐based formulation as noted in the Preamble of the Statement of Dalit Women’s Network, cited by Stephen (2018):

Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India

73

[…] in all honesty we feel the need to develop our own theory and praxis that will work for us as the “most” marginalised in a highly stratified society, as well as contribute to the analysis of our society and ways to transform it. We therefore feel that we need a new language to define this state of being. We therefore coin the term Dalit Womanism to better define and understand our lives, because it affirms us in a more holistic way rather than the term “Feminism” which comes with a lot of baggage in the Indian context. (First printed 2006 in Bangalore)

Difference is also evident among dalit women. Not only are they differentiated by class but also by religion. Many dalits following Ambedkar converted to Buddhism, others to Christianity, and still others remain within the Hindu fold. The increased reservations in the 1990s, following the Mandal report have produced a new generation of educated dalit feminists, who like their non‐dalit counterparts, have taken to blogs, web‐based portals, and social media (e.g., #dalitwomenfight), along with adivasi and bahujan feminists to both challenge savarna feminists, but also to narrate their activism. Given this discursive focus, language has become a key medium of challenging brahmanic superiority, particularly English. While English with its subtle and not so subtle distinctions continues to hold sway, many dalit feminists are no longer daunted by it as evident in Kandasamy’s (2011) poem: I dream of an english full of the words of my language. an english in small letters an english that shall tire a white man’s tongue an english where small children practise with smooth round pebbles in their mouth to spell the right zha an english where a pregnant woman is simply stomach‐child‐lady an english where the magic of black eyes and brown bodies replaces the glamour of eyes in dishwater blue shades and the airbrush romance of pink white cherry blossom skins an english that doesn’t belittle brown or black men and women an english of tasting with five fingers …. (p. 2i)

Thus, like feminists everywhere, dalit feminists in India have also taken to social media and creative ways of expressing their critique of intersectional gender inequalities. #MeToo, #HimToo, and Failed Conversations The difference from savarna feminists presents its own challenges as became clear in 2017 when, following the #MeToo movement in the United States, Raya Sarkar, a dalit law student studying in the United States, using the hashtag #HimToo published a list on Facebook of initially 69, and later 81 savarna Indian academics, many in universities outside India who were accused of harassing graduate students. Sarkar claimed that:

74

MANISHA DESAI I took this opportunity to create a list to warn students using firsthand accounts from survivors. The list is primarily for students to be wary of their professors, because in my opinion, knowing how college administrations function, harassers will continue to hold their positions of power. (Pal, 2017)

As several commentators have noted, the Facebook post in itself would not have amounted to much. But a day later, Kafila, a progressive website, posted a statement signed by several feminists, most of whom were savarna and had been active in the movement for many decades. The statement read: As feminists, we have been part of a long struggle to make visible sexual harassment at the workplace, and have worked with the movement to put in place systems of transparent and just procedures of accountability. We are dismayed by the initiative on Facebook, in which men are being listed and named as sexual harassers with no context or explanation. One or two names of men who have been already found guilty of sexual harassment by due process, are placed on par with unsubstantiated accusations. It worries us that anybody can be named anonymously, with lack of answerability. Where there are genuine complaints, there are institutions and procedures, which we should utilize. We too know the process is harsh and often tilted against the complainant. We remain committed to strengthening these processes. At the same time, abiding by the principles of natural justice, we remain committed to due process, which is fair and just. This manner of naming can delegitimize the long struggle against sexual harassment, and make our task as feminists more difficult. We appeal to those who are behind this initiative to withdraw it, and if they wish to pursue complaints, to follow due process, and to be assured that they will be supported by the larger feminist community in their fight for justice.9

This statement generated 125 comments, and many more posts on various platforms. As Banerjee and Ghosh (2018) noted, although the Facebook post and Kafila statements are often framed and read in terms of caste, they were not exclusively about caste. Roy (2017) sees the controversy to be about power differences among feminists, who gets to name and shame and who is protected. Who are the gate keepers of the movement and how do they inadvertently keep folks out? How are solidarities broken? What constitutes power and privilege.

Some read it as generational differences, among older and younger feminists. Following the responses to the statement, Nivedita Menon (2017), among the signers of the Kafila statement and a well‐known feminist, wrote a long piece bemoaning the “easy term of abuse savarna.” She claimed that none of the signatories of the statement knew the caste background of the originator of the list or of the alleged victims, and that caste was irrelevant to the feminist strategies of making individuals and institutions accountable beyond the legal arena with which feminists have learnt the hard way, which does not lead to justice. Raya Sarkar and many other dalit feminist saw the response as dismissive and patronizing, and savarna feminists as unwilling to accept the leadership of dalit feminists. As Asha Kowtal (2019), a dalit feminist noted: We are not okay with the brushing aside of Dalit women in conversations around #MeToo. This movement did not recognise caste power wielded by men to occupy top institutional positions, which, when combined with male privilege, makes it possible to abuse women employees. The Savarna‐led discourse did not factor in the fear of abandonment, the risk of losing employment and the severe lack of support for Dalit women survivors. It is more than a denial and amounts to an epistemological erasure of Dalit women’s narratives. (p. 1)

Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India

75

Menon (2017) had ended her long response by noting that: The building of feminist cultures requires taking responsibility for lengthy struggles, building of solidarities, rethinking of strategies from time to time, engaging in dialogue with mutual trust. I am not very hopeful that the trust that has been so wantonly destroyed can be rebuilt very easily.

Many dalit and other feminists wondered: “How could one statement destroy trust, and why was it so fragile to begin with” (Anasuya, 2017). In the debate that followed, the focus soon shifted from the perpetrators to the splintering of the women’s movement along caste lines, which belies that the women’s movement in India was never uniform, and that not only dalit women, but many other adivasi and bahujan feminists remained marginal in the movement despite their years of participation. But the controversy which took place primarily online also revealed the power differences among dalit women, which some acknowledged openly. As Dalit women, we are also constantly unpacking our privileges of class, access to the English language, technology, and mobility. We see no reason to feel guilty about it, because a history of oppression of thousands of years requires representation and articulation to ensure our voices are heard. We are fully aware of it, hence, we will write, we will speak, and we will occupy spaces that were always denied to us (Kowtal, 2019).Ultimately, this debate left many on both sides unsettled, and there were no concrete steps to move ahead collaboratively.

MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER The above debates among differently positioned feminists in India offer several insights. On the positive side, thanks to local and transnational political economic changes, movements, and state projects, new groups of dalit feminists have begun to assert themselves and become visible both at home and in the world. This new assertion brings with it, new expressions, literary, theoretical, and activist. It also challenges dominant feminist narratives and activism, highlighting the ways in which dalit feminists experience their exclusion: When Savarna champions for women’s rights occupy spaces, write, speak eloquently, receive awards and build their careers, it makes us Dalit women angry. It makes our experience invisible and obliterates our existence. (Kowtal, 2019)

Thus, it is important to be alert to new collective identities that emerge from local and translocal political economies and recognize the multiplicities within each context. On the problematic side, such assertions have not resulted, as Rege (1998) had hoped in a dalit feminist standpoint that would transform both the dalit and autonomous women’s movements. The dalit movement and politics continue to be led predominantly by men, and as the increasing atrocities against dalit families are brought to justice, the demands are often framed, primarily in caste terms even when sexual assault of dalit women is starkly evident as happened in the 2006; Khairlanji murders of a dalit women, her daughter, and two sons (Teltumde, 2017). Like feminists elsewhere, feminists in the Global South do not always break from dominant epistemologies. As Banerjee‐Dube (2014) notes, this is partly because

76

MANISHA DESAI

colonial and post‐colonial categories of caste, and I would add gender, structure of both dalit knowledge and resistance, even as they rework those categories. This suggests that on a global scale, we need to be attentive to such challenges and possibilities emerging from, as Connell (2015, p. 61) notes, “… overlapping visions of gender justice, arenas of connection and mutual learning, and enough sense of solidarity to make these arenas work.” Such possibilities were visible in the Baatein Aman Ki (Conversations of Peace) campaign that took place across India in Fall 2018, that brought feminists and other social justice activists together to challenge the increasing violence, intolerance, and bigotry against dalits, Muslims, LGBTQ, and all those considered “other” by the forces of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism). More recently, the new Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which would disenfranchize Muslims seeking asylum from the region and perhaps impact Muslims living in the country for generations has galvanized protests across the country. These protests are intergenerational, with women at the forefront, intersectional as evident by the participation of activists from myriad movements who chant slogans that denounce patriarchy and Hindutva, and sing songs of solidarity translated in local languages borrowed from the region and across continents such as We Shall Overcome (the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States), Bella Ciao (the Italian anti‐ fascist song from the 1940s), and Hum Dekhenge (We shall Witness, an Urdu song from the nationalist struggle written by the poet laureate of Pakistan).

NOTES 1.  Broken or crushed, the term first used by Phule in the late nineteenth century and made popular by Dalit Panthers in the 1960s, refers to those marginalized by the caste system in India as “untouchables.” 2.  With varna or caste, refers to upper castes. 3.  Literally, original inhabitants, refers to indigenous communities. 4.  Literally majority refers to other lower castes who are not dalits. 5.  The kingdom of Bali, the hero of dalit and other subaltern castes who challenged Brahmin domination. 6.  The kingdom of Ram, the hero of the epic Ramayana as interpreted by Brahmin narrative. 7. The Black Panthers, an organization working on issues of Black liberation, self‐ defense, social programs, welfare, and education, was formed in the United States by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966. According to Bloom and Martin (2013), the Black Panthers were not only a Black revolutionary movement organization, but also a part of a larger movement against empire and imperialism. 8.  For information, see http://www.ncdhr.org.in/all-india-dalit-mahila-adhikar-manch/. 9. https://kafila.online/2017/10/24/statement-by-feminists-on-facebook-campaign-toname-and-shame/.

REFERENCES Anasuya, S. I. (2017). Why the Response to a List of Sexual Harassers Has Splintered India’s Feminist Movement. Daily O. Retrieved from https://www.dailyo.in/politics/sexual-harassment-rayasarkar-kafila-indian-feminism/story/1/20291.html Antrobus, P. (2005). The global women’s movement: Origins, issues and strategies. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.

Dalit and Autonomous Feminisms in India

77

Agarwal, B. (1992). The gender and environment debate: Lessons from India. Feminist Studies, 18(1), 119–158. Bama. (2009). Sangati – Events (L. Holmstrom, Trans.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Banerjee, S., & Ghosh, N. (2018). Debating intersectionalities: Challenges for a methodological framework. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 19, 1–17. Banerjee‐Dube, I. (2014). Caste, race, and difference: The limits of knowledge and resistance. Current Sociology Monograph, 62(4), 512–530. Bhadru, G. (2002). Contribution of Shatyashodhak Samaj to the low caste protest movement in 19th century. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 63, 845–854. Bloom, J., & Martin, W. (2013). Black against empire: The history and politics of the Black Panther Party. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Connell, R. (2015). Meeting at the edge of fear: Theory on a world scale. Feminist Theory, 16(1), 49–66. Datar, C. (1999). Non‐Brahmin renderings of feminism in Maharashtra: Is it a more emancipatory force?. Economic and Political Weekly, 34(41), 2964–2968. Desai, M. (2008). Gender and the Politics of Possibilities: Rethinking Globalization: Gender Lens Series, Rowman and Littlefield. Dietrich, G. (1994). Women, ecology and culture. I In N. Menon (Ed.), Gender and politics in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Falcon, S. (2016). Power Interrupted: Anti-racist and Feminist Activists Within the United Nations. University of Washington Press. Guru, G. (1995). Dalit women talk differently. Economic and Political Weekly, 30(41–42), 2548–2550. Hull, A., Bell‐Scott, P., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (1982). All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave. New York, NY: Feminist Press. Kamble, B. (2008). The prisons we broke (M. Pandit, Trans.). Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. Kandasamy, M. (2011). Ms Militancy. New Delhi: Navayana Publishers. Kowtal, A. (2019, February 15). Building a feminism that centres the voices of the oppressed. The Wire. Retrieved from https://thewire.in/caste/building-a-feminism-that-centres-the-voices-ofthe-oppressed Lata, P. M. (2014). On Sharmila Rege’s first death anniversary, a Satyashodhak review of her last book. Miloon Saarya Jani. Translated from Marathi by Minakshee Roade and Nidhin Shobhana. Retrieved from http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i d=8177:silenced-by-manu-and-mainstream-feminism-dalit-bahujan-women-and-their-history &catid=120:gender&Itemid=133 Mandal Commission. (1980). Report of the Backward Classes Commission. Retrieved from http:// www.ncbc.nic.in/Writereaddata/Mandal%20Commission%20Report%20of%20the%201st%20 Part%20English635228715105764974.pdf Mehta, P. (2017). Dalit feminism at home and in the world: The conceptual work of “difference” and “similarity” in national and transnational activism. In B. Molony & J. Nelson (Eds.), Women’s activism and second wave feminism (pp. 231–248). London: Bloomsbury Academic Collections. Menon, N. (2017, October 24). Statement by feminists on Facebook campaign to “name and shame.” Kafila. Retrieved from https://kafila.online/2017/10/24/statement-by-feminists-on-facebookcampaign-to-name-and-shame/ Mies, M., & Shiva, V. (Eds.). (1993). Ecofeminism. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publications. Pal, D. (2017). Why Raya Sarkar’s list is not vigilantism. Retrieved from https://www.newslaundry. com/2017/10/27/raya-sarkars-facebook-vigilantism-name-shame Pawar, U., & Moon, M. (2015). We also made history: Women in the Ambedkarite movement (W. Sonalkar, Trans. from Marathi). New Delhi: Zubaan Books. Rege, S. (1998). Dalit women talk differently: A critique of ‘difference’ and towards a dalit feminist standpoint position. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(44), WS39–WS46. Rege, S. (2000). ‘Real feminism’ and dalit women: Scripts of denial and accusation. Economic and Political Weekly, 35(6), 492–495. Roy, S. (2017, November 1). Whose feminism is it anyway?. The Wire. Retrieved from https://thewire. in/gender/whose-feminism-anyway Sivakami, P. (2006). Grip of change, a novel: Translated from Tamil. Hyderabad: Orient Longman.

78

MANISHA DESAI

Stephen, C. (2018, March 29). Dalit women’s movements: Leadership and beyond. Dalit women’s network for solidarity. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@cynstepin/dalitwomens-movements-leadership-and-beyond-50c286a3ac7 Teltumde, A. (2017). Dalits, dalit women, and the Indian State. In S. Anandhi & K. Kapadia (Eds.), Dalit women: Vanguard of an alternative politics in India (pp. 53–74). London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 4 WHAT DOES FEMINISM MEAN TO YOU? ARE YOU A FEMINIST? BRAZILIAN ACTIVISTS’ DEFINITIONS AND PRAXIS OF EMANCIPATORY INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM Solange Simões

ABSTRACT This chapter seeks to situate theoretically and comparatively the definitions and praxis of feminism by women activists of the Brazilian participatory state feminism in comparison to the current and emerging definitions in the theories and praxis of transnational feminisms. It analyzes the answers to attitudinal as well as behavior questions to a survey conducted in 2016 among delegates to National Conference for Policies for Women, representing over 150,000 women activists from all over the country and from a wide range of organizations and movements (women’s and feminist organizations, trade unions, political parties, black movements, environmental groups, LQBT organizations, etc.). The main research question addressed in this chapter is whether current Brazilian feminisms – constructed by several generations of women – have had a trajectory, convergent with those of the feminisms of the global north and the global south, moving from the “rights feminism” of the 1970s to the current intersectional and emancipatory feminism, which goes beyond the affirmation of women’s

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 79–101 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031005

79

80

SOLANGE SIMÕES

rights and gender equality, and moves on to use the broader concept of social justice to propose equality for the whole of society, not just for women. Keywords: Brazil; state feminism; public policies for women; feminist theory; feminist praxis; survey definitions of feminism

THE EMERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE OF PARTICIPATORY STATE FEMINISM AND INTERSECTIONAL EMANCIPATORY FEMINISM IN BRAZIL In the last decades, the thriving Brazilian women’s and feminist movements became known as some of the most well organized, diverse and effective women’s movement in Latin America. Those movements and organizations emerged in and were enabled by close association with changes in domestic as well as global socio‐economic contexts: the trajectory of the struggles for gender equality in Brazil has been intertwined with women’s active roles in broad social and political movements engaged in fighting the military regime in the 1970s, in the transition to democracy in the 1980s, in the democratization of the country in the 1990s, as well as from the further development in institutionalization and policy making for inclusion and social justice that took place in the period 2003–2016 under the Worker’s Party governments. Particularly in this last moment, which has been called the fourth wave of the Brazilian women’s and feminist movements (Matos & Simões, 2018), there was a remarkable convergence of the agendas for feminism by both the international and domestic contexts. Internationally, following the United Nations’ 1995 Beijing Conference on Women and the Platform for Action, a new focus was placed on institution building and policy making to promote gender equality in all areas in governments, consistently with the Platform’s recommendations for gender mainstreaming. Domestically, there was the accession to the presidency of a workers’ party rooted in social movements seeking to build greater equality and justice in class, race, sexual and gender relations by promoting institution building (in the state as well as in civil society) and grass‐rooted social policy making (Alvarez, 1994; Simões & Matos, 2009; Simões et al., 2009). In that context, we had the further development of the relationship between women’s and feminist movements and the state, from the initial gendered institution building and policy making during the transition to democracy in the 1980s into a much more established and dynamic relationship with the state, which has been conceptualized as Brazilian participatory state feminism (Matos & Paradis, 2013). It is noteworthy that in a recent article covering 17 Latin American countries, Gustá, Madera, and Caminotti (2017) compared governance models (bureaucratic, participatory and transformative) of state and feminism in 17 countries in Latin America; Brazil is the only one of all those cases that the authors consider “almost transformative” – “a model that combined bureaucratic capacities with participatory dynamics” (Matos & Alvarez, 2018).

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

81

It could be argued that an “ideal” articulation or convergence of the international context promoting gender mainstreaming with the national political context promoting social justice and inclusion took place during the Worker’s Party governments, especially with the creation in 2003 of the Special Secretariat for Policies for Women (Secretaria Especial de Políticas para Mulheres – SPM), with the status of Ministry. The creation of SPM denoted the institutionalization within the state of a body responsible to give visibility and to include in the executive agenda the issues that most directly affect women. Among the areas of action of the SPM was the articulation with international organizations as a way of meeting the international obligations assumed by the Brazilian state such as in the ratification of CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action (Carvalho, 2018). In the period from 2003 to 2016, the relationship between the Brazilian state and society and the relation between feminism and the state were marked by the institutional strengthening of gender equality in the country – besides the creation of the SPM, policy making was also promoted through the National Conferences for Policies For Women (NCPW) and National Plans for Policies for Women (NPPW), creating a new relationship of women’s and feminist movements with and within the state. In this period, the state played a central role in the creation of participatory institutional mechanisms to promote gender equality, bringing together autonomous movements and organizations and promoting their participation in decision making and public policy. The governments of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016) organized at least 112 national conferences on a wide range of public policy issues, including the environment, public health, LGBT issues and women’s rights. Involving between 150,000 and 300,000 participants at the municipal, state and federal levels, the four conferences sponsored by the SPM instituted this unique modality of participatory state feminism (Matos & Paradis, 2013). Organized by SPM in 2004, 2007, 2011 and 2016, these conferences involved hundreds of thousands of women to debate and build feminist, anti‐racist, anti‐homophobic policies and other ideals and agendas for inclusion and promotion of social justice (Matos & Alvarez, 2018). The NPPW, among other Worker’s Party initiatives, although facing many political, institutional and budgetary challenges, functioned as important “gateways” for feminist and women’s movements to dialogue and interact more directly with the state (Matos & Alvarez, 2018). Crucial to the intersectional character of this state participatory feminism is that – beyond mainstreaming – Brazilian feminism has increasingly spread horizontally, creating “horizontal fluxes of feminism,” or feminist sidestreaming (Alvarez, 2009; Heilbron & Arruda, 1995). The horizontal flow of feminism or feminist sidestreaming has emerged through diffusion circuits operated from a variety of horizontal currents of feminism (academic, black, lesbian, indigenous, young, rural, male, etc.). This process has included the recognition of “other feminisms” that were profoundly interlocked and, sometimes, controversially entangled in local, national and global struggles for social, sexual, generational, communitarian and racial justice (Alvarez, 2009; Heilbron & Arruda, 1995). The women’s movements and feminisms in Brazil have evolved through various political contexts and diverse activists that demanded multiple commitments and

82

SOLANGE SIMÕES

broader alliances – way beyond narrowly defined identity politics. As argued in a previous work (Matos & Simões, 2018), intersectional identities and corresponding multiple organizational affiliations of activists evolved into what we call intersectional emancipatory feminism, in which generational and racial intersections are currently strongly marked.

RESEARCHING PARTICIPATORY STATE FEMINISM ACTIVISTS: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY This chapter analyzes data from the second wave of the survey The Women of policies for women: Who are those who build the Brazilian participatory state feminism?. The two waves of the survey were conducted among representative samples of the delegates to the III National Conference on Policies for Women (2011), and the IV National Conference on Policies for Women (2016), both held in Brasilia and organized by the SPM. The research was designed and conducted by the Center for Studies and Research on Women (Nucleo de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre a Mulher NEPEM/ UFMG) in partnership and with funding from SPM. In 2016, this author joined the principal investigators, Marlise Matos and Sonia Alvarez, in the (re)design, data collection and analysis of the survey.a Findings from the two surveys for the attitudinal and behavior questions analyzed in this chapter are very similar and thus confirmatory of the various trends found. Given the strong convergence of findings from both waves, and in order to allow more space in this chapter for background, context and theoretical framing of the issues, I will limit the analysis to the findings of the 2016 wave of the survey and only in a few instances report data from the 2011 wave.b The two waves of the survey sought to explore different dimensions of participatory state feminism and, especially, to know in depth the profiles of the activists mobilized to debate and transform state policies for Brazilian women. The central focus of the research was to map the motivations, trajectories in activism, political orientation, values and perceptions (among other topics) of the delegates participating in the two conferences. In 2016, the 2,862 delegates represented 150,000 women, who participated in the preparatory municipal, intermunicipal and regional conferences. A stratified probability sample (361 delegates) was drawn with a 4.4% margin of error. Two main strata were used: the nature of the delegates’ representation in the conference (whether they represented civil society or government sectors) and the national geographic region of the delegates (Southeast, South, Northeast, Central West and North) (for a detailed description of our use of survey methodology see Almeida, Souza, Jardim‐Sousa, & Guerra, 2018). The questionnaire included four modules: (a) activism and political participation; (b) evaluation of public policies and perception of feminism and women’s roles, status and positions; (c) feminist sidestreaming/mainstreaming; and (d) perceptions about family, race, sexuality and gender. The questionnaire used a much higher number of open‐ended questions than most surveys currently do. Several of those open‐ended questions are included in the data analysis in this chapter.

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

83

REFRAMING THE MAIN RESEARCH QUESTION: FEMINISM FROM AN INTERSECTIONAL AND EMANCIPATORY PERSPECTIVE? It might seem obvious and logical that the delegates of the Brazilian NCPW 2016 should define themselves as feminists – after all, they had competed for positions to represent their communities, organizations, and movements, and ventured into long travel to Brasilia for several days of exhaustive discussions on the best policies to promote women’s rights and gender equality in Brazil. However, we found out from our survey that even among NCPW delegates, there were those who did not define themselves as feminists, and that delegates also subscribed to many and not always convergent understandings of what feminism is. It is thus evident that to answer one of the initial research questions – Are the women delegates to the NCPW feminist? – one should begin the analysis considering definitions of feminism, and in relation to which of them we will evaluate the conceptualizations and praxis of feminism among the women delegates to the NCPW. Feminist theories have reflected, in Brazil and throughout the world, the experiences, conflicts, and divergences within the women’s and feminist movements. The trajectories of feminist praxis and theories have crisscrossed trajectories that have gone (according to radical feminism) from the conceptual centrality given to the category of sex (and later, gender) for the understanding of social inequalities, through the discussion of the relevance of the concept of class (according to socialist feminists), and through the recognition and consideration of the differences not only between gender (men, women, and other gender identities) but also of the differences among gender (within a gender category), particularly among women, based on factors such as gender identity, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, disability, among other social cleavages correlated to structural and systemic inequalities. It may be argued that there is a growing consensus in the understanding of current feminism as being an intersectional feminism resulting from the recognition and understanding of gender interconnections with other factors that constrain social inequalities (Bose, 2012; Collins & Bilge, 2016; Mohanty, 2004). Consistent with the new theorizations about the multiple and interconnected sources of identity and inequality, it can be argued that feminisms in both the global south and the global north have been transformed into a potentially emancipatory feminism, for which overcoming gender inequalities implies abolition of other central forms of social inequality (Bose, 2015, Marchand & Runyan, 2011; Mohanty, 2004). Emancipatory feminism goes beyond the affirmation of women’s rights and gender equality, and embraces the broader concept of social justice to propose equality for the whole of society, not just for women. Indeed, Alvarez (2000) and Vargas (2008) have noted that feminism in Brazil and Latin America has become more pluralistic with the expansion of the shared spaces of feminist politics; with the increased visibility and strength of other feminist identities – black, lesbian, community, and popular feminisms; organization of women, trade unionists, and rural workers – with the involvement of feminists who seek to influence and participate in electoral politics; and with new

84

SOLANGE SIMÕES

opportunities for interaction in various social and political institutions. In investigating the origins of the concept of intersectionality, now central to feminist theory and praxis, Collins and Bilge (2016) also draw attention to the pioneering nature of Brazilian black women who, experiencing gender as closely intertwined with their racial identity and class positions, had a pioneering role in understanding intersectionality, both as theory and as praxis. This chapter therefore seeks to situate, theoretically and comparatively, the definitions of feminism presented by the women in Brazilian participatory state feminism, in comparison to the current and emerging definitions in the theories and praxis of transnational feminism. To begin with, it is important to note that, considering the age groups of our respondents (almost half of the delegates were 45 years old or more), one can assume that the sample of delegates, whose understandings of feminism are investigated, included the different generations of women who have constructed the various conceptualizations and practices of feminism in Brazil over the last four decades. And these Brazilian feminisms, which they have built, have had a trajectory, convergent with those of the feminisms of the global north and the global south, ranging from the “rights feminism” of the 1970s to the current intersectional and emancipatory feminisms. The chapter begins, thus, with the original research question reformulated in order to already make explicit the definition of feminism that will be used in the analysis of the survey data: To what extent do women in Brazilian participatory state feminism consider themselves feminists and think of feminism in an intersectional and emancipatory perspective, in which women’s rights and gender equality are intertwined with factors beyond gender identity – such as social class, race, sexual orientation and gender identity – and which includes the struggle for social justice and equality for all?

WHO CONSIDERS THEMSELVES TO BE A FEMINIST, AND HOW IS FEMINISM DEFINED BY THE WOMEN OF NCPW? Feminism, the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality are often not seen by people as synonyms or equivalents. Indeed, for many men, but also women, who believe in women’s rights and gender equality, the word “feminism” continues to inspire controversy and provoke visceral responses, often misleading and fraught with prejudice and strong negative feelings. And as we will see in this chapter, it is the case that also among the delegates to the NCPW 2016, there are those who, while acknowledging and supporting women’s rights, consider feminism as a very radical and negative movement with which they absolutely do not identify. Moreover, even among those who define themselves as feminists, the understandings and definitions of feminism are diverse and not always convergent. We will see below how these controversies emerge from the NCPW 2016 survey data. In response to the questions “There are women who say they are feminists.

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

85

Do you consider yourself a feminist?,” the vast majority, or more than 8 out of 10 women, considered themselves feminists, but about 17% did not. As expected, a very small percentage (5.5%) said they did not know how to classify themselves or say what feminism is. Although the data analysis shows some curious correlations, in general, our socio‐demographic variables showed little explanation for the self‐classifications of women delegates as feminists or not. Considering race, for example, about 80% of white and black women identified themselves as feminists; in the case of age groups, the youngest (up to 34 years) identified themselves as feminists, but the identification is also very high among delegates aged 45 or over (about 80%). Regarding sexual orientation there is a percentage of about 10% difference between heterosexuals and lesbians, about 80% and 90% respectively. Although the findings on identification as feminist do not come as a surprise, analyses of answers to open‐ended question about the definitions of feminism (What is feminism for you? Can you tell me how you define feminism, or what you think of when you hear the word feminism?) reveal in some cases the spontaneous reference to central ideas of feminism, but also few mentions or even the absence of concepts linked to an intersectional approach and to an emancipatory perspective of feminism. However, before starting to analyze the respondents’ answers, we have to critically consider what an open‐ended question in a survey questionnaire measures. We need to analyze the answers considering not only their substantive contents, but also possible methodological biases. First, it is necessary to ask whether the answers to open‐ended questions in a survey questionnaire simply measure what is more salient at the time of the interview, or what the respondents consider in fact as more important (Geer, 1988; Simões, 2014, Sudman, Bradbum, & Schwarz, 1996). There is also a widespread but misguided perception that an open‐ended question would necessarily lead to more in depth and valid responses. In the context of a survey interview, using the questionnaire as a data collection tool, responses to open‐ended questions tend to be very short, unclear, and may not meet the objectives of the question, and consequently may not measure what was intended to be measured (Schuman & Presser, 1981; Simões & Pereira, 2007). A methodological resource for this data measurement and validity problem was to train the interviewers to use probes, as additional questions to clarify the answers (Beatty & Willis, 2007; Simões & Pereira, 2007). However, given the context in which the interviews were conducted – during the conferences, at a time when the respondents had their participation in the conference interrupted for the interview – the time to explore and clarify short and ambiguous answers to the open‐ended questions was even more limited, and restricted the consistent and effective use of probes by our interviewers. Taking these methodological issues into account, I can now analyze the respondents’ answers. Firstly, I conducted a content analysis by looking at the words used and measuring the number of occurrences of the ideas and concepts most present in feminist theory and praxis. It must be noted here that the survey was conducted in Portuguese and the answers were translated into English by

86

SOLANGE SIMÕES

this author (whose native language is Portuguese). In my analysis, I aggregated words that, despite small semantic differences, I evaluate to have conceptual equivalence (e.g., aggregating singular and plural forms of the same concept such as woman/women, man/men, right/rights). It should also be noted that I count the total number of times words were used in responses to an open‐ended question, regardless of whether they were used more than once in the same response. The word clouds with the words used in the answers to the open‐ended allow us to compare the most used terms among delegates who considered themselves feminists and among those who did not consider themselves feminists (Fig. 4.1). It can be observed that (Table 4.1), among the women who considered themselves feminists, the most frequent terms were women (277), rights (151) and equality (142). It is interesting to note that the word “fight” received a high number of mentions (144) in the interviews conducted during the NCPW (held in May 2016 during days that coincided with the beginning of the process of impeachment of the first woman president in Brazil, Dilma Rousseff) than in the 2011 wave. During the process of interviewing, on the last day of the NCPW 2016, President Dilma Rousseff addressed the delegates in a highly emotional and politically charged session (for both the President and the delegates) that turned to be her last major public speech before the beginning of her impeachment process on the last day of the conference. Before she spoke, the stage was occupied by a large number of historic feminist activists and representatives of diverse feminists and women’s groups from all over the country. As she got on stage, the delegates defiantly, and in support of the President, chanted in a huge chorus “I have faith in my country because it is led by a woman.” It was a very sad and shocking moment for feminists that had been engaged in decades of struggle for gender equality

Fig. 4.1.  Word Clouds Non‐feminists and Feminists. Answers to the open‐ended question: Can you tell me how you define feminism, or what you think of when you hear the word feminism?

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

87

and social justice, and could hardly believe such a setback could occur after the many political and socio‐economic advancements under the Worker’s Party governments from 2002 to 2016. Besides the number of mentions of “fight,” a large number of delegates also gave centrality to praxis and identity in their definitions of feminism:

• Feminism is the daily struggle for women’s rights. • Fight, opinion, women warriors. • Defense of women, raising the flag, loving the feminine identity. • It is a daily struggle for the political, economic, social and cultural emancipation of women. • That woman who always protects the other woman, gives her hands to her, goes along, participates with her. • Women’s movement, union, strength. • It’s about wanting to make a world a better place for women. • It is entering into the fight and defending what is right for women. • A way to fight for equality and freedom. • I do not know the right definition, but I think it’s the woman who fights for women’s rights. • A woman who has suffered most of the time because of being a woman and from that she starts to fight for women.

It should be noted that the concept of gender – which only began to be used in feminist theory and praxis in the 1980s – receives a much smaller number of mentions (55). On the contrary, the term men (44) – which has received intensified attention given current approaches that emphasize the need to include men in the feminist movement – appears only as part of the responses that define feminism as “equality of rights between women and men.” Moreover, its use is small considering the great visibility men received in movements, street demonstrations, social media and campaigns such as the United Nations “He For She.” In the words of one delegate:

• Feminism deals with the issues of women who are undoubtedly the greatest victims, but could also mean liberation for men, who in some ways also suffer from this system of violence in regards to the imposition of roles.

A couple of respondents offered definitions calling attention to the fact that feminism is not a movement against or anti‐men:

• Feminism is equality. Feminism is not the annulment of man in society. • Feminism is not a fight against men, but against a structure that historically oppresses women.

As shown in Table 4.1, despite the delegates’ high educational levels (almost two‐third of delegates had a college or university degree), concepts that go beyond basic notions of rights and equality and which are central to more comprehensive

88

SOLANGE SIMÕES

Table 4.1.  Words used (by respondents who considered themselves to be feminists) in response to the open question: Can you tell me how you define feminism, or what you think of when you hear the word feminism? Number of Times Words Appear in Responses to Open‐ended question Feminist Respondent Yes Women Rights Fight Equality Gender Man Autonomy Empowerment Sexuality Work Patriarchy Violence Race Class World Trade Union Mainstreaming Intersectional

277 151 144 142 55 44 31 22 14 12 11 8 6 5 5 1 1 1

and refined conceptualizations of feminism also received few spontaneous mentions – such as autonomy (31 citations) and empowerment (22). The concept of patriarchy, central to the explanation and understanding of gender relations, received only 11 mentions. It is curious to note that the concepts intersectional and mainstreaming were mentioned only once. Similarly, notions central to intersectional feminism also obtained a very small number of mentions: race (only 6), sexuality (14), and work (12). Despite the high level of unionization among delegates (over one‐third of the respondents are filiated to trade unions), trade union is spontaneously mentioned only once by respondents in defining feminism. The term “world” only appeared in five responses, despite the importance of transnational feminism in the emergence and developments of feminisms in Brazil and Brazilian feminisms for the North–South dialogue and the evolution of the international feminist agenda:

• Feminism guides the fight of women in Brazil and in the world. Also noteworthy is that despite the fact that violence against women was pointed out by respondents as one of the biggest problems faced by women in Brazil, in the states and municipalities (Table 4.4), it rarely appeared in spontaneous definitions of feminism (eight mentions). It is also very curious, and indicative of a possible loss of centrality of women’s traditional roles (as mothers and housewives) as motivation for women’s activism

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

89

in the public sphere, that the word “family” was only mentioned four times. Moreover, the centrality of family was only pointed out in one definition of feminism (“Defend the family, worry about the basic family structure”), what is noteworthy, especially if compared to the 1970s when, under the military dictatorship, the defense of living conditions of the family was a fundamental motivation in women’s movements (Simões et al., 2009). On the contrary, however, the gendered division of domestic work and childcare were also rarely spontaneously mentioned, despite their centrality in maintaining traditional gender roles and occupational segregation of women, factors considered to explain the persistence of gender inequality in various other areas in Brazilian society (Simões & Matos, 2009). In contrast to the languages used by the delegates who identified themselves as feminists, among the delegates who did not consider themselves feminists, the term radical was one of the most mentioned, and associated with negative and strongly opposing views to what they believed feminism to be (and that can be very well visualized in the word cloud above). In a few cases, however, the use of the term radical appeared associated with internal criticism of the movement:

• Feminism is when you respect your peers, make constructive criticism; but there are very radical feminists.

Moving beyond the analysis of the use of specific words and concepts, I analyze below the answers offered by all respondents to the open‐ended questions about the understanding of the term feminism and classify them into categories that reveal some misunderstandings, basic understandings as well as more complex and current concepts of feminism. The typology that resulted from the analysis indicates four main types of conceptualization or understanding of feminism: (1) negative radical, (2) gender equality, (3) rights and empowerment of women and (4) intersectional/emancipatory: (1) Negative radical: A viscerally antagonistic, often caricatured view of feminism as anti‐men or an “authoritarian and quarrelsome women’s thing” (13.5%). Some examples are as follows:

• Feminism is a very radical movement, it does not want equality with man. They want to outshine men. • I do not know how to answer you. They are people very angry with everything, totally against men, but I do not know if in all the states it is like this. • It is a radicalism that rebels against man thinking that all men are equal and that women are always victims. • Women fighting, getting unruly and uncombed, fighting, occupations, street demonstrations. • Feminism that I’ve known is something radical; there are people I can not talk • • •

to. A feminist is not a malleable person, she will defend herself until she dies. A cause that people hold to iron and fire. Arrogant people. Feminism is an exaggeration of the condition of being female, being a woman appropriating masculine characteristics to impose a feminine identity. The speech is of equity but the practice is of superiority.

90

SOLANGE SIMÕES

(2) Gender equality: Definitions that tend to be relational in references to equality with men, but do not emphasize the transformative, empowering and autonomous dimensions of feminism (23%). Some examples are follows:

• Fighting for women’s rights, equal rights with men. • Do not accept that only men can, equality in every way, we are equally capable. • A movement in search of equality between genders. Disagrees that women are superior to men. • Basically, it is the equality between genders, against the culture of submission • •

of women; to break the abuses that exist against the performance of women in the political, professional, public sphere. To have the right to be entitled. Gender equality is the foundation of feminism. To know that man from the beginning of history is the boss and the woman obeys. Feminism is to break with these ties of the past and assume that we have the same rights as men. Feminism is the struggle for equality between the sexes; it is having women considered a human being with rights, like men.

(3) Rights and empowerment of women: Definitions in which the concepts of “women” and “rights” have a centrality, but also include ideals of autonomy, empowerment and freedom (46%). Some examples are as follows:

• Radical view that women have rights. • The radical idea that we are people. • Act of indignation against a system that imposed a subordinate space and roles for women in society. • It is liberating, it brings emancipation, empowerment, autonomy; is to overcome gender oppression. • Empowerment; constant struggle and movement that allowed me to get where I am now. • Feminism is you being the owner of your body, of your ideas, but also sharing. It’s up to you to take your turn and claim the right to take your turn. • Empathy, sisterhood, to love oneself, empowerment, change, freedom, power, friendship among women, fight against oppression, to be what you are. • It is the search for the autonomy of women. To have control over one’s own life, body. Search for rights. • To deconstruct the concept of patriarchy in Judeo‐Christian society. •

Deconstruct the history where women are subjugated; to have autonomy over the body, economic autonomy, and to have a libertarian education. My concept of feminism is based on the celebration of human rights of all women, taking into account the plurality and autonomy of women.

(4) Intersectional/emancipatory: This category was used to classify all definitions that pointed to inequalities not only intergender but also intragender inequalities, that is, differences between women, based on any mention of one or more factors in (such as race, social class, sexual orientation and gender identity),

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

91

and also mentions of collective ideals of equality and social justice (10%). Some examples are as follows:

• Social, racial, ethnic, economic equality. • Fighting for a society without patriarchy, anti‐capitalist, anti‐racist and anti‐homophobic. • The inclusion of black women is recent in feminism, and there is a need to think about the oppression of those women. • Participation of the LGBT movement, which is more present in the feminist cause. • It is an emancipatory project, involving several groups since women are not equal. • It is to defend and fight for women’s rights regardless of color, race or sexual choice. • Intersectional feminism that thinks and politically stands for the poor, work• • •

• • • •

• • • • •

ing class women, for trans‐women; it would be a feminism focused on public policies. Ideal of gender equity throughout the mainstreaming that the theme contemplates. Equity; fighting racism, sexism and patriarchy. The issues of lesbophobia and capitalism. Feminism is not a question of theory, it is a philosophy of life, a policy, it advocates the construction of a world of equality, the transformation of society towards the achievement of the welfare of women as a whole, defends women’s rights. It has its scope without excluding; in Brazil we have several feminisms. We must respect this diversity. It’s not just a way of being, it’s a philosophy of life. It is a desire to build another society based on equality, and that society is anti‐capitalist and not patriarchal. That people be seen and treated with equal rights and opportunities for all. For me, feminism is a commitment to political action, in favor of women and the transformation of the world. Our slogan is: “transformation of the world by feminism. From my point of view, although there are specific issues, the emancipation of women is closely linked to social emancipation, and therefore the feminist struggle must go hand in hand with the struggle for a just and egalitarian society. That is why, in organizing the struggles, one must think that there is no woman, but women, who differ according to their social condition, race/color, generation, sexual orientation, the region where they live. Building a fair and egalitarian society. Feminism is the self‐organization of women struggling to transform the world and promote equality. It is a social movement and a political practice. Radical change in society, more humane world. Human emancipation, not only from women, overall equality. An ideology to change the world. Changing women’s lives to change the world, and changing the world to change women’s lives, ensuring that women are treated as equals.

92

SOLANGE SIMÕES

Despite the strength of the conviction and clarity of some of the answers presented above, we once again note that in the answers to the open questions on the definition of feminism, intersectional and emancipatory understandings of feminism were not frequently spontaneously presented when considered proportionally to the total responses. Consequently, I take a step further in the data and seek to identify attitudinal questions in the surveys, that is, those that measure the beliefs and opinions of the respondents and that could better reveal the feminism of the NCPW delegates. This is what I will do next.

WHAT ARE THE ATTITUDES (BELIEFS AND OPINIONS) OF WOMEN IN BRAZILIAN PARTICIPATORY STATE FEMINISM? The survey included batteries of questions that investigated women’s beliefs and opinions about various feminist causes and agendas. Two of these question batteries were particularly revealing of the delegates’ feminism, showing the importance and priority they give to intra‐gender inequalities as well as to inequalities beyond gender relations. I, therefore, now move the analysis on to consider as additional indicators of the delegates’ feminism their attitudes (beliefs and opinions) regarding issues of inequality not only between women and men, but among women, issues of inequality and discrimination based on race, class, sexual orientation and gender identity – central issues for the new intersectional feminism that has become widespread not only in Brazil but throughout the world. The survey included a battery of attitudinal open‐ended questions about women’s perceptions and opinions about: (a) the major inequalities between men and women, (b) what should be changed to improve women’s lives and (c) main problems faced by women in Brazil, in the states, and in municipalities. In contrast to the answers to the understanding of the concept of feminism in the initial question, the answers to these (also open‐ended) questions may surprise us by the priority given to problems pertaining to an intersectional perspective of feminism. As can be seen in Table 4.2, more than half of the delegates believe that the main inequalities between men and women are relative to class (work/professional/ Table 4.2.  Inequalities between Men and Women – First Place. % Work/profession/wage/income Politic/power Raci sm/machismo/sexism Private sphere and care Violence Freedom/sexuality Other

56.7 13.4 12.9 4.7 3.3 1.9 2.5

Open‐ended question: Thinking about today’s world, what are the main inequalities between women and men? What is most unequal? And secondly? And thirdly?

93

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

salary/income). Quite below, but second, other central factors for the intersectional perspective (such as racism/machismo/sexism) are cited. In the next question – what should be changed to improve women’s lives – once again issues relative to class position are more often spontaneously cited (work and income), followed by political participation/power/public policies and autonomy/freedom. The fight against discrimination and for equality also appears prominently. Racism, sexism and lesbophobia are not spontaneously mentioned (Table 4.3). Table 4.3.  What Needs to Change to Improve Women’s Lives – First Place. % Work/income Political participation/power/public policies Wage and professional equality Education/day care Autonomy/ freedom Women’s health/right to decide about own body Private sphere and care

24.9 22.7 15.3 12.3 12.1 3.0 2.2

Open‐ended question: If you could change anything so that every woman’s life would improve, what would be the first thing you would do? And the second? And the third?

Although rarely mentioned in the previous answers to open‐ended attitudinal questions, the issue of violence is highlighted in the question about the main problem for women in Brazil, in their states and in their cities. Family/domestic work is the second most cited but only in reference to the country. Racism/sexism/ homophobia are also cited as a main problem in the country only. Bearing in mind references to central factors in the emancipatory/intersectional perspective, it is important to note that the other most cited problems were work/income, political participation, and health. Interestingly, this ordering of problems for the country remains very similar for states and cities as can be seen in Table 4.4. The questionnaire also included three attitudinal items to address the issue of feminism and public policy related to race, sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as four items related to racial discrimination and lesbophobia/homophobia/transphobia. At least 8 out of 10 respondents totally agreed or in part to the following statements:

• The women’s movements and feminism must include the fight against racism as a fundamental issue. • The women’s movements and feminism must include fighting against lesbophobia/homophobia/transphobia as fundamental issues. • Afro‐descendant/black and indigenous women have specific demands that must be addressed in public policies. • In Brazil, Afro‐descendant/black and indigenous women suffer discrimination based on race/color. • The racial quotas for public universities in Brazil represent social advancement.

94

SOLANGE SIMÕES

Table 4.4.  Main Problems for Women in the Country, State, and City. Answers

Violence Family/domestic work Work/income Racism, sexism, lesbophobia Political participation Health Public policies Land/housing/traditional communities Education Inequalities Discriminations Development Other

Brazil

State

City

%

%

%

37.8 19.7 10.7 9.3 5.8 3.8 2.7 2.2 1.9 — — — 0.5

38.1 0.3 11.2 0.5 4.4 4.1 7.4 — 0.8 13.4 5.5 — 7.1

36.7 1.4 11.8 — 3.0 4.1 5.2 1.6 1.1 6.3 7.4 0.6 8.2

Open‐ended question: In your view, nowadays what is the most important problem faced by women in Brazil, in their states and in their cities? And the second? And the third?

At least 8 out of 10 of the respondents disagreed totally or in part with the following statements:

• Romantic/sexual relationships must necessarily happen only between a man and a woman. • Black children, because of the difference of their race, have more difficulty learning. • Whites, in general, study harder than blacks. These attitudinal measures – with indicators of beliefs contesting prejudice and racial discrimination, lesbophobia, homophobia and transphobia – enabled me to construct the Pro Intersectional Feminism Attitudes Index – PIFAI. Table 4.5 shows that about one‐fourth of the delegates fully supported important values and items from an intersectional feminist agenda, while over two‐third Table 4.5.  Pro Intersectional Feminism Attitudes Index – PIFAI. % 1. Strongly disagrees with intersectional/emancipatory feminism 2. Tends to disagree with intersectional/emancipatory feminism 3. Tends to support intersectional/emancipatory feminism 4. Strongly supports intersectional/emancipatory feminism Total (valid responses)

0 1.6 69.8 27.4 100

Pro Intersectional Feminism Attitudes Index (PIFAI): If sum: equal to 5, then PIFAI = 4; less than 5 and greater than 2.99, then PIFAI = 3; less than 3 and greater than 0.99, then PIFAI = 2; equal to 1, then PIFAI = 1; equal to 0, then PIFAI = 0.

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

95

tended to support them. It is also noteworthy that none of the respondents disagreed totally with these items for a feminist public policy agenda. At this point in the analysis, after considering the attitudes (opinions and beliefs) regarding causes and items in a feminist agenda, and according to the measures and indicators included in the survey, I moved beyond the self‐classification of the responses from the delegates on the initial open‐ended question about notions of feminism and found additional evidence to classify the NCPW delegates as being mostly feminist. It is important to qualify, however, that only the closed‐ended attitudinal items (agree or disagree statements) produced a very high index not only of feminist attitudes, but of attitudes favorable to intersectional feminism. In the answers to the open‐ended attitudinal questions (on the main problems faced by women in the country, state and city) class issues had many spontaneous citations, but racism, sexism and lesbophobia were rarely spontaneously mentioned. Nevertheless, while I find evidence in the answers to the questions about perceptions and opinions that allows me to classify NCPW delegates as being mostly feminist, we must bear in mind that, on the one hand, the validity of attitudinal measures in a survey can be questioned, given that the responses could be edited by the respondents to convey socially desirable or politically correct opinions. On the other hand, as often found by social sciences (and especially in the case of survey methodology), attitudes often tend not to be consistent or correlated with behavior. Therefore, I will seek to answer the initial question – whether the women in Brazilian participatory state feminism are feminists – now considering the “hard” measures of our survey, that is, the measures of behaviors and activism. I hope that the respondents’ behaviors can help us understand not only the extent or diffusion of feminism among the delegates, but also the depth of these feminisms.

WHAT IS THE PRAXIS OF WOMEN IN BRAZILIAN PARTICIPATORY STATE FEMINISM? We can look at respondents’ behavior as possible indicators of feminism that move beyond the succinct answers to the initial open‐ended question as well as beyond pro‐feminism answers to attitudinal questions, which may be, in part, the effect of socially desirable responses. I will, therefore, seek in the behavior measures corroboration for feminist perceptions and, additionally, what their discourses may not have revealed. I will now try to understand the delegates’ feminism, not only considering what they say, but how they act. For this I will use the measures of associational life and political activism in the survey. First, I will consider participation in women’s movements. As could be expected from delegates to the NCPW, the respondents’ participation in various activities, meetings, and demonstrations of the women’s movements is quite intense: about 80% reported always participating, about 15% participated sometimes and only 4% have never participated. In addition to this high participation in

96

SOLANGE SIMÕES

activities, 74.6% of the delegates reported participating formally (being affiliated) or informally (participating in meetings) of movements or networks of women or feminists. In answering the central research question – if the delegates to the NCPWs are feminists – I also sought to investigate whether, in addition to participating in women’s movements, NCPW delegates practiced a feminism that was intersectional, fighting against discrimination and inequality beyond gender. I also sought to explore their actions in other movements, networks and political parties, and to distinguish between their civil and political associational life and their political activism. To measure civil and political associational life, the survey asked about participation in a wide range of groups and organizations, as listed in Table 4.6. The survey measured associational life in women’s and feminist movements or networks, but also in movements or groups that are organized in opposition to socio‐ economic or class inequalities, in defense of the environment, in the fight against racism, homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, that is, around social cleavages central to intersectional theory and praxis. The data showed that the delegates also participated formally (as a member) and informally (attending meetings) in the black movement (35%), in LQBT collectives (19.3%), in unions (43.5%) and in environmental movements (29.8%). I can now raise a new question for the analysis: would multiple participation and activism on issues of class, race, gender identity and sexual orientation be sufficient to conceptualize the delegates’ feminism as intersectional feminism? The concept of intersectional feminism requires not only participation in multiple and diverse movements, groups, and networks, but also awareness of the interconnections between the struggle for gender equality and the struggles against other main systems and structures of social and political inequalities. Therefore, in creating a measure that was only a sum of the multiple forms of delegates’ associational life, I consider more conceptually correct to name it as Potentially Intersectional Civil and Political Associational Life Index (PICPALI). The PICPALI only measures the number of associations in which the delegates participate and assumes that the greater the number of associations, the greater the participation of the delegates in a multiple and intersectorial agenda that allows the expansion of feminism to various places, with opportunities for interconnections of diverse agendas and an emancipatory praxis, transforming the current social relations of inequality, discrimination and exploitation. As Table 4.6 shows, there is a noteworthy proportion of women in the Brazilian participatory state feminism with high levels of potentially intersectional civil and political associational life. In 2016, 28.2% participated in 4–5 entities and 21.4% participated in more than 5. The percentage of those that did not participate in any organization was only 15.3%. Moreover, when we consider a second index, the Potentially Intersectional Political Activism Index, participation levels are quite high – about 90% of the delegates engaged in over five political actions. As Table 4.7 shows, these

97

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

Table 4.6.  Potentially Intersectional Civil and Political Associational Life Index – PICPALI. Participation levelsa 0 1 or 2 3 4 or 5 Above 5 Total

% 15.3 18.6 16.4 28.2 21.4 100

Number of civil and political associations in which the respondent participates formally (as a member) and/ or informally (in meetings and other activities). a

actions ranged from reading or watching political news, talking to people about politics, signing petitions, participating in political campaigns, demonstrations against or in favor of the government and demonstrations by women’s movements. I believe that the above analyses of the various attitudinal and behavioral measures of activists in participatory state feminism in Brazil allows me to answer affirmatively to the central question of this chapter, and to conclude that the great majority of the delegates to the NCPWs are feminists, considering their attitudes toward key points of a feminist agenda and also considering their levels of civic and political associational life and potentially intersectional and emancipatory political activism. As previously pointed out, the findings can be seen as evidence of the creation of what Alvarez (2000) called “horizontal flows of feminism,” that is, a perspective that highlights the continuity of gender discrimination, but goes beyond this to also value the principle of non‐discrimination based on race, ethnicity, generation, nationality, class or religion, among others.

Table 4.7.  Potentially Intersectional Political Activism Index. % 0 1 or 2 3 4 or 5 More than 5 Total

3.8 0.5 1.4 4.4 89.9 100.0

Index of potentially intersectional political activism: Read or watch political news; talk with others about politics; when there is an election, try to convince others to vote for the candidates you think are good; participate in community or community meetings to try to solve problems in your neighborhood or city; participate in meetings of a social movement; participate in political party meetings; do volunteer work for a candidate or political party; make demands to politicians or civil servants; sign petitions; participate in demonstrations for or against the government; and participate in activities/meetings/ demonstrations of the women’s movement.

98

SOLANGE SIMÕES

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: CONTEXTUALIZING OUR SURVEYS DATA AND SITUATING THE FEMINISM OF NCPW WOMEN ACTIVISTS IN THE TRAJECTORY OF FEMINISTS IN BRAZIL AND IN TRANSNATIONAL FEMINISM In analyzing the responses given by delegates to questions about their identifications with feminism, what they mean by feminism and what they think and how they act in relation to feminist causes, it is important to note that the NCPWs delegates represent a long trajectory of struggle for women’s rights, gender equality and social justice in Brazil, as well as in other countries, by women’s and feminist movements. As noted earlier in this chapter, the survey sample of delegates included the various generations of women who helped to construct the diverse conceptions and practices of the four waves of feminism in Brazil. Consequently, in order to contextualize and better understand the data analyzed in this chapter, it is very important to consider, even if in a cursory manner, some of the central characteristics of the four waves of Brazilian feminism – which the delegates actively constructed. We can then grasp how their understandings of feminism, their attitudes, their associational lives and their civic and political activism in relation to intersectional causes in feminist agendas should be related to their experiences as well as their exposure and/or contribution to the theories that originated from and at the same time established feminist movements from the 1970s onwards, in Brazil and in the world. Brazilian society can be seen as a case and evidence of a remarkable, though not unique, transformation of understandings of gender equality that resulted from a growing interaction of women’s participation in feminist movements, as well as in a wide range of other organizations and social movements, made possible by national and global contexts. The transformations of gender relations and feminism in Brazil over the last four decades have been intertwined and closely linked to the changes in socio‐economic structures and political regimes in the country. Gender equality processes that fostered institutional, economic, social and cultural changes have unequivocally resulted in the active role of women in the social and political movements involved in the struggle against the military regime in the 1970s, the transition to democracy in the 1980s (the second wave) and the democratization of the country in the 1990s (the third wave), as well as the processes of institutionalization and policy making from 2003 to 2016 (the fourth wave) (Alvarez, 1990, 1994; Matos & Simões, 2018; Pinto, 2003; Simões & Matos, 2009). Despite the differences in historical and political contexts, many of the central transformations and dilemmas of feminism in Brazil have important similarities with those of feminisms in other countries in both the global south and the global north. New ways of thinking about gender relations came to Brazil through middle‐class, academic and professional women who lived in Europe and the United States as political exiles. The centrality given by various currents of feminism to the category sex (and later gender) in the explanation of social inequalities was questioned by Brazilian feminists and socialist militants,

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

99

especially in the context of the struggle against dictatorship and its so‐called “savage capitalism” (Pinto, 2003). In this context, Brazilian women’s movements are an example of successful alliances among groups of self‐identified middle‐class feminists with the working class and black women. And this was not only in the struggle against military authoritarianism, but also in the fight for more socio‐economic, civil and political rights for women and the working class. It is relevant to note that while these feminist middle‐class women also had close links with opposition political parties and leftist organizations, the working class and black women’s movement were supported by progressive and activist Catholic Church’s neighborhood and grassroots organizations. Consequently, their demands included issues from a classic agenda of women’s rights to demands for the improvement of the working families’ living conditions (Alvarez, 1990; Simões & Matos, 2009). In analyzing the trajectories of feminist and women’s movements in Brazil (and the intersections between working class women and the black women’s movements with middle‐class and academic and professional feminist groups during the fight against authoritarianism and during the transition to democracy), it should be emphasized that the “local conversations” between the women’s and the feminist movements in Brazil must also be understood taking into account their connections with transnational feminism. We must bear in mind the participation of Brazilian women in the United Nations Women’s Conferences (from 1975 in Mexico to 1995 in Beijing); in the formulation and implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (with its broader agenda, and a more transversal and intersectional approach to gender inequalities); Brazil’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), especially the reports produced by the Special Secretariat for Women’s Policies for submission to the UN CEDAW Committee, and the recommendations made to Brazil by the Committee in response to the Brazilian reports (Basu, 2003; Matos & Simões, 2018; Simões & Matos, 2009; Thayer, 2001). In fact, in the last decades, especially since the United Nations World Conferences and the continuous development of transnational feminisms, feminist theory and praxis have been produced and expanded by the recognition of multiple local specificities as well as global convergences of economic conditions, and political and cultural rights of women. Feminism throughout the world becomes increasingly plural and attentive to differences not only between women and men, but also the differences among women and the interconnections between their gender identities, their racial identities, their class positions and their sexual orientations, among the various factors shaping social inequalities (Antrobus, 2004; Basu, 2003; Marchand & Runyan, 2011; Tripp, 2006; Yuval, 2006). I can conclude by stating that the 2016 NCPWs delegates are, for the most part, feminists who have participated in the construction of feminisms in Brazil, and who in this process have developed an increasing praxis of intersectional emancipatory feminism and contributed to the transformations – in addition to their own attitudes and individual behaviors analyzed in this chapter – of the collective theories and praxis of Brazilian and transnational feminisms.

100

SOLANGE SIMÕES

NOTES a.  This chapter is a modified version of an earlier chapter published in Portuguese, part of a two-volume collection (Matos & Alvarez, 2018, vols. 1 and 2) that investigated participatory state feminism in Brazil and provided theoretical and historical account as well as data analysis from the two waves of the survey (Simões, 2018). Different from the Portuguese version, this chapter futher explores the context and provides background information. Moreover, it is limited to the analysis of the 2016 survey wave and included only a few findings from the 2011 wave. b.  The two-volume collection edited by Marlise Matos and Sonia Alvarez, included a number of authors and chapters providing a comprehensive data analysis from the two waves of the survey (Matos & Alvarez, 2018, Vols. 1 and 2).

REFERENCES Almeida, H. N., Souza, A. R. D., Jardim‐Sousa, C., Guerra, L. R. (2018). As mulheres das políticas para as mulheres: apresentando o panorama da 3a e 4a Conferências Nacionais de Políticas para as Mulheres. In M. Matos & S. Alvarez (org). Quem são as mulheres das políticas para as mulheres no Brasil: expressões feministas nas Conferências Nacionais de Políticas para as Mulheres (Vol. 1, pp. 25–56). Porto Alegre, RS: Zouk. Alvarez, S. (1990). Engendering democracy in Brazil: Women’s movements in transition politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Alvarez, S. (1994). The transformation of feminism and gender politics in democratizing Brazil. In J. S. Jaquette (Ed.), The women’s movement in Latin America (pp. 13–63). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Alvarez, S. (2000). A “globalização” dos feminismos latino‐americanos: Tendências dosanos 90 e desafios para o novo milênio. In S. Alvarez, E. Dagnino, & A. Escobar (Eds.), Cultura epolítica nos movimentos sociais latino‐americanos: Novas leituras (pp. 383–426). Belo Horizonte, MG: Editora UFMG. Alvarez, S. (2009). Beyond NGO‐ization? Reflections from Latin America. Development, 52, 175–184. Antrobus, P. (2004). The Global Women’s Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies. New York, NY: Zed Books. Basu, A. (2003). Globalization of the local/localization of the global: mapping transnational women’s movements. In C. R. McCann & S. Kim (Eds.), Feminist theory reader: Local and global perspectives (pp. 68–77). New York, NY: Routlege. Beatty, P. C., & Willis, G. B. (2007). Survey synthesis: The practice of cognitive interviewing. Public Opinion Quarterly, 71, 287–311. Bose, C. (2012). Intersectionality and global gender inequality. Gender & Society, 26(1), 67–72. Bose, C. (2015). Patterns of global gender inequalities and regional gender regimes. Gender & Society, 29(6), 767–791. Carvalho, L. P. (2018). A SPM e as políticas para as mulheres no Brasil: saltos e sobressaltos em uma institucionalização das demandas das agendas feministas. In M. Matos &, S. Alvarez (org), Quem são as mulheres das políticas para as mulheres no Brasil: expressões feministas nas Conferências Nacionais de Políticas para as Mulheres (Vol. 1, pp. 87–138). Porto Alegre, RS: Zouk. Collins, P. H., & Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Geer, J. G. (1988). What do open‐ended questions measure?. Public Opinion Quarterly, 52, 365–371. Gustá, R., Madera, A. L., & Caminotti, N. (2017). Governance models of gender policy machineries under Le and Right governments in Latin America. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 24(4), 452–480. Heilbron, M. L., & Arruda, A. (1995). Legado Feminista e Ongs de Mulheres: Notas preliminares. In Núcleo de Estudos da Mulher e Políticas Públicas. Gênero e Desenvolvimento Institucional em ONGs. Rio de Janeiro: IBAM. Marchand, M. H., & Runyan, A. S. (2011). Introduction: Feminist sightings of global restructuring, old and new conceptualizations. In M. H. Marchand & A. S. Runyan (Eds.), Gender and global restructuring: Sightings, sites and resistances (pp. 1–24). New York, NY: Routlegde.

What Does Feminism Mean to You? Are You a Feminist?

101

Matos, M., & Alvarez, S. (orgs.) (2018). Apresentação. In Quem são as mulheres das políticas para as mulheres no Brasil: expressões feministas nas Conferências Nacionais de Políticas para as Mulheres (Vol. 1). Porto Alegre, RS: Zouk. Matos, M., & Paradis, C. (2013). Los feminismos latinoamericanos y su compleja relación con el Estado: debates actuales. Íconos – Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 45, 91–107. Matos, M., & Simões, S. (2018). Emergence of intersectional activist feminism in Brazil: The interplay of local and global contexts. In G. T. Bonifacio (Ed.), Global currents in gender and feminisms: Canadian and international perspectives (pp. 35–47). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Mohanty, T. C. (2004). Under western eyes revisited: Feminist solidarity through anticapitalist struggles. In Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pinto, C. R. J. (2003). Uma história do feminismo no Brasil. São Paulo, SP: Ed. Perseu Abramo. Schuman, H., & Presser, S. (1981). Open versus closed questions. In Questions and answers in attitude surveys: Experiments on question form, wording and context (pp. 79–107). New York, NY: Academic Press. Simões, S. (2014). Are imported survey questions under‐measuring political and gender participation in the global south (…and north)?. In J. K. Dubrow (Ed.), Political Inequality in an Age of Democracy: Cross‐National Perspectives (pp. 67–83). New York, NY: Routledge. Simões, S. (2018). As mulheres das Conferências Nacionais de Políticas para as Mulheres são feministas. In M. Matos & S. Alvarez (org), Quem são as mulheres das políticas para as mulheres no Brasil: expressões feministas nas Conferências Nacionais de Políticas para as Mulheres (Vol. 2, pp. 57–86). Porto Alegre, RS: Zouk. Simões , S., Reis , B. P. W., Biagioni, D., Fialho, F. M., Bueno, N. S. The private motivations of public action: Women’s associational lives and political activism in Brazil. In V. Demos & M. t. Segal (Eds.), Perceiving Gender locally, globally and intersectionally. Advances in Gender Research (Vol. 13, pp. 203–239). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Simões, S., & Matos, M. (2009). Modern ideas, traditional behavior, and the persistence of gender inequality in Brazil. International Journal of Sociology, 38(4), pp. 94–110. Simões, S., & Pereira, M. P. (2007). A arte e a ciência de fazer perguntas (The art and science of asking questions). In N. Aguiar (Ed.), Social inequalities, social networks and political participation (pp. 241–261). Belo Horizonte: UFMG University Press. Sudman, S., Bradbum, N. M., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Answering a survey question: cognitive and communicative processes. In Thinking about answers: The application of cognitive processes to survey methodology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Thayer, M. (2001). Transnational feminism: Reading Joan Scott in the Brazilian sertão. Ethnography, 2(2), 243–271. Tripp, A. M. (2006). The evolution of transnational feminisms: Consensus, conflict and new dynamics. In M. M. Ferree & A. M. Tripp (Eds.), Global feminism: Transnational women’s activism, organizing, and human rights (pp. 51–78). New York, NY: New York University Press. Vargas, V. (2008). Feminismos en América Latina: Su aporte a la política y a la democracia. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Colecció Transformación Global. Yuval D. N. (2006). Human/women’s rights and feminist transversal politics. In M. M. Ferree & A. M. Tripp (Eds.), Global feminism: Transnational women’s activism, organizing and human rights (pp. 275–295). New York, NY: New York University Press.

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 5 RECENT CHANGES IN INDIGENOUS FEMINIST AGENDA IN LATIN AMERICA Marlise Matos and Avelin Buniacá Kambiwá1

ABSTRACT This chapter critically examines dialogues between indigenous feminists and academic feminists about the role and significance of indigenous epistemologies in constructing social scientific knowledge, particularly feminist epistemologies. We argue that the term indigenous feminisms must be understood as broadly linking gender equality, decolonization, and sovereignty for indigenous peoples. In Latin America, this term typifies an activist and practical movement with cultural, economic, and politically specific dimensions. We posit that analytical and theoretical frameworks developed from indigenous women’s ways of knowledge production should be recognized and legitimated in feminist discourse because much is learned from their worldview about women’s emancipation, the importance of intersectionality in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender in indigenous contexts, in addition to political and cultural critiques. We show that indigenous feminist theoretical formulations are not homogenous but overlap in some areas of theoretical and practical formulations that involve new conceptualizations of the body, space, time, action/movement, and memory. Keywords: Indigenous feminisms; intersectionality; feminist knowledge production; decolonial feminism; feminist theory; Latin America

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 103–121 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031006

103

104

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

“Toda acción organizada por las mujeres indígenas en beneficio de una buena vida para todas las mujeres, se traduce al castellano como feminismo” (Julieta Paredes, Aymara feminist; apud Gargalo, 2006, p.255).2 This chapter addresses from a feminist perspective contentions and contestations by Central and Latin American indigenous women, many of whom are engaged in collective action at the local, national, regional and global levels against violence, ethnocide, poverty, exclusion, exploitation, and promotion of women’s rights in their communities. Not only have indigenous women played a central role in these struggles but they also assume full responsibility for their families when male relatives have disappeared or been killed by authoritarian forces during periods of civil unrest but they have also contributed to review feminist knowledge production particularly in explaining key issues and understandings of indigenous peoples epistemologies that are really important for women. We need to recognize that at one side these movements won extraordinary little space in a stable form of colonial production of knowledge and colonial State. At the other side, very commonly market agents’ use to act as their enemies, the contact being always conflictive not only with the academic knowledge and the State but also with landowners, loggers, miners, technical personnel responsible for engineering plants, etc. For a long time, the majority of the States in Latin America ignored their demands and contributions and only eventually supported programs directed to them and almost all of them were to deal with extreme poverty among indigenous people, for example. But at the same time indigenous leaders have been fighting for political inclusion of their voices in international political arenas such as global forums and another important arena where indigenous vocalization requests have been listened is in their knowledge contribution for the academic production in social sciences. This debate is complex and still controversial, but it brings important critical contributions to colonialism still in force in Latin America, in its networks, powers, and domains, but it also brings elements about the resistance, strategies, and agency capacity of actors and thinkers, whose reflections and actions contribute to debates about decolonization, to critical reflections on multiethnic and multicultural perspectives, which are in consolidation in academic and political forums, visualizing pauses and critical, emancipatory and loquacious reflections. And here we are still trying to strengthen the idea that there are indigenous feminist intellectuals who have been thinking about these topics in Latin America and part of their contributions have a fundamental epistemological character. Their effort to explain for us some central dimensions of indigenous epistemologies is a clear demonstration of important exchanges. It is one of these public arenas that we will address here: an epistemic and scientific dialogue between indigenous people, especially indigenous feminists, and academic feminist productions. The purpose of this chapter is to critically examine the dialogues between indigenous feminists and academic feminists about the role and significance of indigenous epistemologies in the construction of social scientific knowledge, particularly to feminist epistemologies. We argue that the term indigenous feminisms must be understood as broadly encompassing link between gender equality, decolonization, and sovereignty for indigenous peoples. In Latin America, this

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

105

term typifies an activist and practical movement with cultural, economic, and politically specific dimensions. It is also generally understood as a theory that is linked to feminist theory while rejecting the oppressive and exclusionary practices generally critiqued about western feminisms. In mobilizing as members of indigenous nations and community movements to advance their rights and struggles for self‐determination, Latin American indigenous feminist movements are also constructing new and innovative conceptual and theoretical epistemologies that reflects their lived experiences and struggles. We also argue that the analytical and theoretical frameworks developed from indigenous women’s ways of knowledge production should be recognized and legitimated in feminist discourse because much is learned from them about women’s emancipation, the importance of intersectionality in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender in indigenous contexts, in addition to political and cultural critiques from their world view. From a starting point of view, it is important to say that indigenous women’s mobilization are acting today through what the literature in social sciences has designated as “networks of social movements” (Scherer‐Warren, 2010). Since organized, indigenous women also congregate numerous articulation efforts with several other civil society organizations and movements, and also with political mediators from local, national, regional and even international organizations, and with distinct popular social backgrounds (such as black, rural, and environmental movements). As well they have engaged with academic researchers and intellectuals who have been concerned in this dialogue and their inherent difficulties is the translation processes among feminist indigenous women diverse knowledge and ideas. These networks are trying to find and make visible what they have in common in the region and how we can also learn with their traditional knowledge. We agree that indigenous feminisms may be understood as an umbrella term for theoretical and practical changes that tries to pursuit for gender equality and also are struggling for decolonization and to build sovereignty for indigenous people. Indigenous feminisms can itself be considered as a variety of feminism, but it encompasses a vast number of voices and perspectives that cannot be adequately represented in this chapter and sometimes they also refuse to be called by this word. This would be an impossible task for us. In this sense, the proposal here does not pretend to be full descriptive of the rich and infinite set of positions and perspectives for ethnic‐cultural, economic, and political search for indigenous autonomy. Our focus, as said, will be in the innovations of theoretical constructs for feminist theory in general made by indigenous feminists. Following this line, it is important to say that indigenous feminisms today in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) is both a theory – closely related to feminist theory but rejecting threads of oppression and exploitation that run through the mainstream of westernized feminisms – and an activist and practical movement with cultural, economic, and political specific dimensions. We already know that the search for indigenous autonomy in the region has emerged since the brutal process of colonization settled on in our continent but this processes also emerged in response to different factors and it is still in progress as the initial context of colonial expropriation of the region has never really stopped.

106

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

So, in this chapter, we will present in a first section some general aspects about the Latin American indigenous people’s situation with special emphasis on the activism of indigenous women in the region and also the recent political mobilization of Brazilian indigenous women. In sequence, we will address to a general discussion about the meanings and understandings of theoretical and conceptual formulations of indigenous feminist knowledge production. We will see how it reflects or denies the experiences of western capitalism and colonization of Latin American native people, particularly the Catholic Church which was – and still is – patriarchal, sexist, violent, and sought to undermine the traditional knowledge systems of these communities. As such, their experiences of struggle are unique and bring new analytical paradigms and possibilities of reciprocal learning in terms of questioning authorized traditional canons and methods of social science knowledge production and for reconstructing new forms of decolonized, depatriarchalized, and inclusive feminism. At the end of the chapter, noting that indigenous feminist theoretical formulations are not homogenous and are quite varied we, nonetheless, open the discussion about five areas in which their theoretical and practical formulations overlap involve new conceptualizations of the body, space, time, action/movement, and memory.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN LATIN AMERICA: THE LEADERSHIP OF INDIGENOUS WOMEN In the last 15 or 20 years, the emergence of some huge efforts to mobilize indigenous women in Central and Latin America is remarkable. Such mobilization is one of many characteristics of what we are designating as a “fourth wave” of feminist movements in the region (Matos, 2010, 2015). Among many other possibilities, such struggles also highlighted the dynamics of a new concrete and discursive practices (including innovative conceptual and theoretical proposals), produced by multiple collective subjects as women’s mobilization of indigenous nations and in community movements. In the CEPAL/ECLAC (2014) Report “Indigenous People in Latin America” we have the following mention of the role played by contemporary indigenous women in the region: The role of indigenous women and their organizations in the processes of change in the relationship of indigenous peoples and States is now unquestionable, as has been described in the first chapter of this document. At present these demands are concentrated in the deep ethnic, gender and generational inequalities that affect them. With an extraordinary capacity to shape national, regional and international partnerships, indigenous women have made proposals to give content and its political role, promoting the rights of indigenous peoples in various international bodies.3 (pp. 88–89, our translation)

ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), in the same report and working with data from 2010, has shown us that there has been an indigenous population growth where they became 45 million people in LAC, this representing a population increase of 49.3% in relation to the last report (which recorded data for the year 2000). At the 2000s, only 30 million indigenous people were registered in Latin America, and they were divided into 642 different communities.

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

107

For academic literature they are also called as “autochthonous peoples,” “minorities groups,” or “first nations,” depending on the specific defining criteria that are used. But the most academic recognized criteria are: (a) descended from the first territories inhabitants that were conquered during the “New World” colonization; (b) they are ecosystem peoples, such as farmers, pastoralists, hunters, extractivists, fishermen, and artisans who adopt a multipurpose strategy about nature appropriation; (c) people who practice small scale and intensive forms of rural production with strong community work, producing small surpluses, with satisfied needs and with low energy use; (d) people who do not have centralized political institutions and that frequently organize their lives primarily from a community level, taking decisions on the basis of community consensus; (e) people who share a specific language, religion, beliefs, clothing, and other common identification elements as well as a close relationship with their territories; (f) people who present a specific world view consisting of a protective and non‐materialist attitude in relation to land and to natural resources, relations based on a symbolic and material exchange with natural world; (g) people who are today dependent, for the political and economic advance, of a hegemonic society and culture; and (h) people who identify themselves as traditional peoples leaving in strong grounded communities. In addition to the Continental Liaison of Indigenous Women of Americas (ECMIA – Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas de las Americas) another indigenous organization that has a strong presence and participation of women, such as the CONAIE in Ecuador, we can see figures of great leadership. Examples are: Blanca Chancoso or Nina Pacari (the first one is Vice President of the Congress and former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ecuador), or Noelí Pocaterra, Wayú, member of Venezuelan Congress. Their trajectories revealed to the world the force of indigenous feminist activism. In Brazil there are, at least since the late 1980s, a number of joint efforts of endurance on indigenous mobilization. The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil – APIB (Associação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil) is the national body for Brazilian indigenous movements, which brings together organizations from different regions of the country and has created an important forum since 2005: The Free Land Camp (ATL – o Acampamento Terra Livre). In 2018, for the first time in Brazil’s history, an indigenous woman was elected to the Brazilian National Congress, her name is Joênia Wapichana and she is from the state of Roraima. At the age 43, Wapichana is a pioneer in indigenous causes in Brazil and has been working for indigenous cause since 1997, when she became one of the first indigenous women to graduate in Law at Federal University of Roraima. In 2008, she also became the first indigenous woman to speak in the Supreme Federal Court, defending the legality and the homologation for the boundaries of Raposa Serra do Sol an indigenous land reservation, also situated in Roraima. After that, she traveled to United States, where she got a master’s degree at Arizona University. As said, indigenous movements in Brazil are clustered in the Free Land Camp (ATL), a form of national mobilization that is carried out every year to make visible indigenous rights and to demand from the Brazilian state the fulfillment of their compromises with indigenous Brazilian people. The following indigenous

108

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

organizations are part of APIB in Brazil: Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Pantanal and Region, Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Southeast, Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the South, Great Assembly of the Guarani people, and Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB). The COIAB organization, for example, was created at a meeting of Brazilian indigenous leaders in April 1989 and it is the largest indigenous organization among us with 75 different indigenous people and membership, located in nine states of the Brazilian Amazon (Amazonas, Acre, Amapá, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins). ATL is also built with local associations, regional federations, women’s organizations, teachers, and indigenous students. Together, this community approximately includes a total of 430,000 people, representing at least 60% of Brazilian indigenous population. In the XII ATL – Free Land Camp, held in Brasília between 10th and 13th May of 2016, the Final Plenary approved the 1st National Agenda for Indigenous Women. This reference group had represented 23 ethnic different people from 14 Brazilian states. This first indigenous women agenda includes: (a) fighting against all forms of indigenous women’s rights violation – including, but not limited to, combating violence against women; (b) political empowerment and political participation; (c) the affirmation of the right to public health, education, and security; (d) economic empowerment; (e) the right to access and to own their land and the recovery for initiatives and processes of land disputes; and (f) strengthening of traditional knowledge and intergenerational dialogue. We will highlight here the recent indigenous women’s activism Latin American and Brazil. Specifically, we will focus their struggle for more citizenship inclusion and epistemic recognition. We do not care so much whether, directly, these struggles are self or heterodesigned as explicitly “feminist.” This is because we understand, like Celentani Gargalo (2014), that: Women are half of all peoples. And in all people, we have generated a critical thought to the unequal organization of power between men and women, always for the benefit of the former. If women of the native peoples call it feminism or not, to a large extent, is a translation problem. What is feminism at all? A liberal theorizing about the abstract equality of women and men? Or the specific search undertaken by women for the well‐being of them and in dialogue with each other to unravel the social symbols and practices that place them in a secondary place, with less rights and a lower valuation than men? If the word feminism translates the second idea, then there are as many feminisms as there are forms of women’s political construction. (Celentani Gargalo, 2014, p. 11)4

In spite of their constant presence against unfavorable contexts that some men think may attempt to erode indigenous traditional functions and visions, it is possible to observe among indigenous traditions some tendencies that actually violate some rights, such as the access to community political positions that follows traditional man guidelines, also some practices linked to heritage or to elections based on criteria as age, merit, and honorability that frequently excludes women, and also the existence of several cases that are situations of open discrimination against women and against young indigenous people. It is possible to identify sometimes women’s presence as communitarian authorities, spiritual guides, and experts with

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

109

special medical skills sourced in traditional knowledge, among others, and also with skills to assume political functions and complementary articulations with State organizations, specifically when the State tries to implement intercultural public policies. But this political potential is very often waste. But it also seems clear to us that today still remains a prevalent for and traditional collective process of decision making and this is a practice very important for indigenous feminists too that should really be incorporated in parliaments, for example, especially in relation to decisions related to indigenous people. This is an example that could also be expanded to urban areas and to non‐indigenous people too. On August 13, 2019, about 2,000 women from 113 different indigenous groups of Brazil gathered in Brasília (the Capital of Brazil) for the 1st March of Brazilian Indigenous Women. With the theme “Territory: our body, our spirit,” they have marched also against Bolsonaro’s government and in defense of the demarcation of Brazilian indigenous lands. Organized by APIB, the event, which began on August 9th with the National Forum of Women, had the participation of about 3,000 women, who in part also attended the march. The Indigenous Women’s March also joined with the Daisy March, held since 2000 in Brazil by rural women, quilombolas, riverside peoples, and Brazilian rural workers who also fight against mining, agribusiness, and many other attacks against them. There were about 100,000 women present in these marches and they constituted the largest union and articulation effort of subaltern women in Latin America.

MEANINGS AND UNDERSTANDINGS OF THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FORMULATIONS OF INDIGENOUS FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION Some of those struggles have helped to conceptually resignify important aspects of our sciences and we propose here to permeate it, to describe it and try to understand it as an urgent demand: to listen and, as far as possible, to try to translate some of the theoretical‐analytical aspects that we consider robust in this trajectory of resignification, dialogue, and translation between indigenous and non‐indigenous people. It is detachable that these movements advocate and discuss how they can really contribute to a new level of dialogue between knowledges, but at this time, primarily from concrete efforts of non‐hierarchical learning and reciprocal feminist knowledge construction. We have already passed the moment to – we academic feminists (almost always in a privileged condition of white women, highly educated, with good salaries, etc.) – recognize our own epistemic limitations and our reckless forms of intellectual arrogance or even inclination to commit epistemicides.5 A part of academic feminisms has sought to approach these other worldviews, other cosmovisions that are being translated with great care, where non‐indigenous feminists try to listen to their demands for justice and for epistemic recognition. We already have an important number of Caribbean and Latin American academic feminists who are strongly committed with this difficult translation exercise: Aura Cumes (Guatemala), Breny Mendoza (Honduras), Claudia Lima Costa

110

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

(Brazil), Julieta Paredes Carvajal (Bolivia), Magdalena Leon (Ecuador), Maria Lugones (Argentina), Orchy Curiel (Dominican Republic), Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala), Rita Laura Segato (Argentina), Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo (Mexico), Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (Bolivia), Silvia Cuevas Morales (Chile), Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso (Dominican Republic), among many others. They have sought, despite many difficulties, to build bridges between academic feminism and the worldviews, perceptions, and sensibilities of indigenous women who produce their own concepts and theories to explain the realities their communities actively mobilize in Latin and Central America. We want give prominence to few theoretical and analytical frameworks built by indigenous women as their ways of producing knowledge because we are sure that they can guide us to learn about women’s emancipation in general. We are in search for the strategies and sources for gaining basic understanding of what indigenous feminisms are interpreting themselves, also we want to map: how their thought differs from western feminists perspectives; how race and ethnicity intersect with gender in indigenous contexts, and what are the types of political and cultural critiques made by indigenous feminist thinkers. It is important to recognize that while Latin American indigenous feminists have been writing and speaking out for decades, indigenous feminism is a fairly recent development within scholarship in feminist’s studies and in other related fields. Because indigenous feminism, explicitly identified as such, is still developing itself as a field of study and is often perceived as a niche topic, it has not yet established itself with a strong terminology on which we can base a controlled feminist vocabulary (Miñoso et al., 2014). Thus, our study is in search for theoretical formulations made by LAC indigenous feminisms even though we are sure that there are many controversies in this field, researchers should use other suggested keywords and subject headings to explore intersections on feminisms and indigenous identities. Keep in mind that while indigenous feminism is the denomination we are using here, you may find other variations such as “native feminism,” “tribal feminism,” or “aboriginal feminism.” It is particularly important then to make the alert that indigenous feminisms are a broad, multidisciplinary topic and a critical perspective still being defined by itself and is still developing in LAC countries. Making a huge effort to synthesize extremely plural perspectives, we could say that community and indigenous feminist thought in Latin America includes at least five important areas that are also modes of theoretical–practical knowledge reformulations. They are: (1) body – which should be seen as a unitarian entity (energy, sensitive, spiritual, and sensory) and not separate of soul as proposed by the European westernized and colonized culture; (2) space – understood as a vital field for body to develop. It may be the street, land, the home, the school, the neighborhood, etc. and it is where the community life really exists; (3) time – conceived in the way were life runs through the movement of nature and from conscious acts; (4) action/movement is precisely the frame where these people classify organization and public policies proposals; the move that allows us to build a social body, a common body that is in struggle to live well; and finally (5) memory – seen as the steps taken by predecessors, grandparents, their roots from which they proceed.

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

111

An academic–scientific general framework arises from these areas: we will discuss indigenous women experiences and struggles for autonomy which are proposals that go directly against what Paredes (2010) coined as “patriarchal trunking/entroncamento patriarcal,” which means the meeting of women’s precolonization oppression with that of European oppression. Thus, an important starting point here refers to the fact that “patriarchal trunking” poses a non‐ trivial epistemic dilemma that Lugones (2014) and Segato (2012) also problematized in recent feminist debates. Its disputes are frequently around the use of gender concept to refer to indigenous people’s communities. For Maria Lugones, the dichotomous hierarchy between human and non‐human was one of the first marks of our colonial oppressive modernity. For her, the colonized female was treated in LAC as non‐human beings, they were not only racialized but reinvented by the civilizing western mission to make them as “woman” this time from western‐styled gender codes, and thus, she ends up identifying the category of “gender” really as a modernity/coloniality imposition. To try to think of a more general framework that can even overcome the dilemma of the patriarchal junction, we return to a specific feminist anthropologist’s contribution: Rita Segato (2012). She argues about three possibilities for a “meeting” between our westernized, gendered, and feminist knowledges and indigenous women perspectives: (1) the imposition of a dominant hierarchy of science/of western feminisms: which identifies the presence of Eurocentric feminism, which in turn, argues that gender domination, patriarchal domination are something like an “universal trend for women, nonwhite indigenous and black, and that colonized continents advanced modernity in the field of women’s rights” (p 115) and “under a pursuit for an unity, that could announce the possibility of transmitting our experiences to them and vice versa”; (2) the opposite situation, that is, it would not be possible to recognize in indigenous communities (and their epistemes) the presence of reciprocal elements: Maria Lugones and Oyeronke Oyewumi, for example, would be representatives of this current that says we have a lack of gender and of feminism in the precolonial world (Lugones, 2007); and finally (3) a third position (which is also the one that we recognize as possible here) defends the existence of gender classifications in tribal indigenous and African American societies that can make sense and can be very important to overcome patriarchal oppression. This third strand identifies in indigenous societies and also in African American a strong patriarchal organization, although different from western gender concepts and that would be functioning as a low intensity patriarchy that does not consider neither effective nor appropriate the leadership of Eurocentric feminism to deal with it (p. 116). Recognizing the presence of a low intensity patriarchy, these five dimensions aim to build epistemic forms that try to overcome it. This is therefore an effort to rescue the presence of patriarchy, which is never an a‐temporal or an a‐historical element, in specific experiences of indigenous women that really impact their cultures and also built different ways in which gender and race/ethnicity relations are established. We want to affirm that patriarchal structural oppression has also affected and still affects the reality of Latin American indigenous women, and this is an important theoretical–practical point

112

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

of departure here in this study. Even if the dimensions that we are going to analyze below try to be original in the sense of overcoming gender and race/ethnicity structural oppressions (and also structural forms of economic oppression), it is relevant to have in our scope that these exceedances are never, in fact, definitive. In fact, precisely because of this strong interference – of gender and ethnic oppressions – this production originating from traditional indigenous knowledge can dialogue with western feminist epistemologies and can help us build other epistemic bridges to deal with the possible overcoming of patriarchal and racial domination.

“HACEMOS TEORÍAS DESDE NUESTROS CUERPOS”/“WE DO THEORY FROM OUR BODIES” (PAREDES, 2013): SOME FEMINIST BRIDGES AND EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITIES Here we will refer here to theoretical -analytical framework built by struggles of women who are native of Central and Latin America and not to the more known categorizations of white or whitened feminisms (Segato, 2010). Those frames are fundamentally epistemological, and we consider them to be significant, but they are still quite muted for hegemonic feminist academic discussions. From the starting point that indigenous women in LAC very often face terror and continued violence through years, we will present some recent resilience and resistance situations. That is the case for Mayan people named Ixil and K’iche of Totonicapán (Guatemala), where indigenous women survived huge massacres between 1982 and 1983 (at least 1,771 indigenous were killed by the Guatemalan Army at that time), all that reported by the National Truth Commission, including truly perverse forms of war, as evidenced by systematic women’s rape as an instrument of genocide and terror (and this is repeated throughout Americas). The indigenous people killing and shooting by Army also happened just because they questioned a proposal for constitutional reform in relation to Mayan’s people autonomy. This is also the case with Q’om peoples of the provinces of Formosa and Chaco in Argentina and also the case for Guarani Kaiowá indigenous communities from Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil) whose documents and belongings have systematically been burned, or had to face the dramatic situation of being physically hunted and persecuted, sometimes murdered and terrorized by their perpetrators, almost always unpunished, and on several occasions, being almost completely forsaken by State agents. It is the same case for the Mapuche people of Chile, the Lenca’s of Honduras, and the Zapotecs of Teitipac, in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca in Mexico, where the attempts of annihilation are equally systemic and permanent. Indigenous women have resisted those acts of annihilation for centuries. Whether or not we call their struggles as feminist is not important here. But it is important to note that in most indigenous worldviews there is in fact no specific and segregated place for women, and that their forms of autonomy are never individualizing ones (Cusicanqui, 2003). On the contrary, necessarily it implies a trace of sharing in community and, only after, may include men themselves. They often share activities

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

113

in their communities, including going to different fronts of battle, facing farmers and other aggressors of their land, fighting in retakes and are, for that reason, also more exposed in struggles. Indigenous communities’ vision, as already mentioned, always precedes individual one (we will talk about this later), and in this collective frame the good for indigenous women is also linked to the good of children, elders and to whole village. Indigenous women are not prohibited to work or to study and can control their pregnancies naturally as they wish and, usually without the overweight of white societies that often criminalize different forms of birth control. Marriages are broken without major dramas and being in a position of command, such as being a Cacique (a community leader) or a shaman, to be mourners, and to occupy other power functions are also present in indigenous women’s lives. According to one of the authors: We are in another process that could not be called only as feminism, because we are not asking for the permission to be, we are already something, but now we are leaving in a more organized way. (Avelin Kambiwá)

In many indigenous communities, women are custodians of medicine and biodiversity health and nature knowledges and they also control food knowledge and are responsible for environmental conservation, for language and culture protection, and are widely recognized as important agents in their communities. This historical communitarianism of subaltern original groups in Latin America began a transition from the situation of almost absolute marginality in many public spheres to another condition in which subaltern female voices start, although with difficulties, to have some echo and this is happening also beyond their territories. We want here to act as bridges describing some theoretical and analytical frameworks that indigenous women create and really value in their resistance trajectories. The theoretical frame subjects we will briefly describe in this study are: (1) the concept of Good Living/Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay; (2) the category “territory body‐earth”; (3) the concept of indigenous dualism representing the tik and chachawarmi; and (4) the kinship alliance and other forms of solidarity, alliance, and reciprocity among indigenous women in the Americas with a view to building the “community of communities” which, in turn, presupposes and is based on the general depatriarchalization of social relations. The Buen Vivir As a critical attempt to react and resist to oppression, original people have been trying to strengthen, consolidate, and spread a new worldview, a new cosmovision based on what they call Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay. This vision is deeply associated and complexly grounded in a network of production of everyday meanings, when they defend with their own lives their resources to live – water, air, earth, and their territory subsoil always treated as sacred elements. There are many origins for the “buen vivir” expression. One of them stresses the references to Sumak Kawsay, a Quechua expression that tells about their ancestral worldview of life. Another important origin can be situated in black ancestor experiences based on African American philosophy –Ubuntu. This form

114

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

is also present in a similar manner among Aymara people as “short Qamaña” and among Guaraní people as “teko Pora” or “teko kavi.” In its original Quechua meaning “sumak” refers to the ideal and harmonious realization of life on planet and “kawsay” means ‘life’: a complete dignified life in fullness. The “Kawsay sumak” ancestrally consider all people as elements of Pachamama or of Poranga Pituna or Guaracy, or simply “Mother Earth” (madre mundo). It presents itself as an opportunity to build collectively new life forms, not being a complete original contribution or an exclusive novelty from the early twenty‐first century political processes in Andean countries and communities. But it is part of a large search for new initiatives forged as alternatives of life for human emancipation and for recovering life as a great value. In this sense, it would be important to talk about “good conviveres” which emerge from ancestral contributions of indigenous communities, which has reciprocity and solidarity values as their common ground. As examples of transformations made “buen vivir” life style we can mention some indigenous economic practices: the Minka (or minga), which is an institution of reciprocal help and collective work in communities that guarantees that work will be developed for common good (e.g., in the construction and maintenance of housing in a village or the collective work to build an irrigation canal, or a home or a road). Minka while being a powerful cultural and ceremonial ritual of community cohesion is also a space for the exchange of socio‐cultural norms. Another experience of Buen Vivir is present at Ranti‐Ranti, a form of exchange that, unlike the single and punctual barter that occurs in some mestizo economies, is a form of exchange that is an important part of a long chain leading to an endless series of value and product transfers without involving cash transfers. It is based on the principle of giving and receiving without determining a time, action, and space classification and it is also related to community values, directly associated to ethics, culture, and historical indigenous contents. There are numerous other examples of this behavior, mostly based on different forms of solidary and reciprocal attitudes between and through a diverse number of communities and certainly of all of them with nature. Many of these practices could be rescued and applied for the reconstruction of a new kind of economy that is, finally, at the service of all humankind and are integrated harmoniously with nature (not simply destroying or exploiting it). Buen Vivir is the proposal of a new paradigm of a social, material, and economic model that aims to transcend and who knows to overcome the economic forms of capitalism and that is why they have a very close dialogue with fields of western feminisms that are also intended to be anti‐capitalist. This indigenous worldview places the dimensions of care, healing, and solidarity above materialism and consumerism and can constitute new epistemic bases for the construction of new regimes of economic production. “Territorio Cuerpo‐tierra” – “Territory Body‐land” This is an analytical category specifically produced by Amerindians from feminist communities. For Lorena Cabnal, a xinka Community feminist from Guatemala: “to defend our ancestral territory from mining without defending women from

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

115

sexual violence is a huge inconsistency.” For her, it is important to fight in the direction that their fight for autonomy targets both capitalism and colonialism, two basic forms of power and of oppression over women that historically submitted indigenous people. As an example: patriarchy is transversalized by the effect of multiple oppressions, besides an economic aspect it is also a result of Christian and of western colonial patriarchy intersection with ancient indigenous traditions of patriarchy that still exists in Latin American communities. This category emphasizes the continuity between the corporeal and the territorial dimensions of life. Indigenous feminists declare: “in permanent action to strengthen the depatriarchalization of our body/territory, body and land/ territory without which pueblos decolonization is inconsistent’ or ‘There is no decolonization without depatriarchalization!” (Political Declaration of Xinkas’s women, community feminists, in celebration of 12 October, the Resistance and Dignification Day of Indigenous people, Guatemala, October 12, 2011). This category also intends to be a subversive concept to western hegemonic epistemologies (including feminist ones), as it focuses on and give salience to a rupture and even radical change in inherited forms of Christianity significance of gender and is also related to “patriarchal node/trunking.” Abya Yala emancipatory feminists’ struggles faces a difficult task of giving answer to different patriarchal forms and experiences of oppression (and also to their junctions) and, what is important here is that they get never individualistic responses but always collective ones, since social, personal, and intimate spheres are never separated on their episteme. Thus, thinking from Latin America would mean thinking from a profound critique of a colonial and capitalist model of exploitations, especially from a geopolitical‐corporeal place that is always on the system borders. Indigenous women of this specific territory had their bodies threefold feminized: they have female genitals, they have an indigenous feminine body, and also because they have an indigenous female body in a colonial over explored territory, they are even more expropriated by colonial western capitalism. By attributing a founding dimension to the body, linking it to the ancestral territories themselves, inexorably linking it to the land, to the Mother Land/Pachamama, indigenous epistemologies radically reconstruct an ecofeminist perspective. Here one can find a lost meaning for the countless feminicides that are experienced in our region: they are the ultimate marks of female capitalist expropriation in the region. This genocidal violence also establishes itself in relation to the land territory that can be also exhausted or exploited to exhaustion or even to death. Tik and Chachawarmi: The Indigenous Dualism (Not Binary) The concept of tik emerged from the Tojolabales men and women of Chiapas (Mexico) shows us that: Unlike the Cartesian subject that incarnates in the modern Western individual identical to himself, central, separated from nature, immovable, incapable of transformation, fixed, the Tojolabal tik is a non‐essentialist subject, it is a being in becoming, which is posited from the interdependence between people‐subjects that make the community a reality. By integrating a community, the existence of each one becomes free as soon as everyone recognizes each other as equals who need the work of another: to listen, understand and respect the word of those who

116

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

live in the collective place it implies understanding it even if it does not coincide; It implies not confusing, not hiding, not contradicting your word, that is, not trying to control it.”6 (Celentani Gargalo, 2014, p. 70)

It is from an explicit recognition that indigenous feminisms and their struggles are inescapably tied to collective subjects and demands (which are organically linked to nature and its territories) that emerges this concept of tik. As said, Tojolabal tik is a non‐essentialist subject, is a permanent becoming, a devenir, and it is postulated from entire interdependence between collective‐individual actors that makes their community possible. By being integrated in a community, the existence of each one’s freedom is made when all of them recognizes each other as equals and recognizes that they necessarily need the work for each other. This holistic approach is frontally opposed to modern society experiences that are inherently capitalist and individualistic ones. The concept of duality here is quite different from the concept of identical, and it is also different from the binary notion (which is necessarily exclusionary: this or that). Duality for indigenous epistemology implies necessarily reciprocity. Dual forms here can express themselves through different ways of thinking in paradox. This appears also in what Aymaras’ describes as chachawarmi: being at the same time a man and a woman, a father and a mother of all nations, understood finally as differences that are complementarities, differences in permanent dialogue, even if it is a conflictual manner, the two sides of a single being who is, at the same time, one and also two. Those categories also include dualities referred to human and non‐human beings in nature as presented by Maria Lugones (2014) that was treated in the western epistemologies as merely categories of exclusionary, binary, dichotomous, and hierarchical modes of existence, making this a central point for colonial modernity in Americas. That was the “civilizing mission of Christianity” and their huge efforts to transform human beings in westernized colonized people completely separated in two dimensions: man and women. Dual is also an important Guarani conception that appears when we discuss health and disease, for example, because body and soul are two integral aspects of a unique human being. In another example, the sphere of politics (or the public sphere) is not perceived as an abstract dimension of universality and separated from domestic sphere. The political always refers to one of many possible arenas of community environment. These spheres are ontologically complete in its selves and they are also complementary, dual but not binary, and never are stated as opposite positions or positioned as hierarchical domains. In other words, the perspective of binarism or so the insistence in dual systems, so dear to modernity and so strongly criticized by feminists, finds not only an echo in this indigenous epistemic dimension, but it also finds its way out. Our western epistemologies, even feminists, have fought many battles in this direction and these have not always been successful. Solidarity Political Experiences: Wiphala and More We would like to present here three very special experiences of political solidarity actions that can be understood from feminist indigenous activism: (a) the Letter

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

117

of Kinship Alliance between Indigenous and Black women in Brazil, written in 2004 for the occasion of the First National Conference for Public Policies for Women (1st Brazilian CNPM) in Brasilia; (b) the Political Declaracion of Xinkas Women, Comunitarian Feminists from Xalapán written in México in 2011; and (c) Notimia, a news agency of LAC indigenous and Afro‐descendant women. These are three solidarity documents and actions that are inherently political and are also collectivist actions very emblematic in the purpose of building alliances between agents, movements, agendas, and demands that have in common the profound critique of colonial heritage and its white male representatives hegemonic policies, and that also have feminism as their main anchor point. In the first document, Brazilian indigenous and black women, watching the weak visibility of their issues at a National Conference despite their widespread presence, decided to prepare a document, also used in other articulatory moments, to forge shared efforts of political demands. The other document brings an effort to make synthesis of key complex and struggled themes revealing the creative possibilities of feminist activism in transgressing cultural patterns and rehearse a life in freedom without having to leave out their own culture. This kind of activism sees feminism as a possible way to live their lives together, and also as a fundamental tool to counter systemic struggles both against colonialism, racism, neoliberalism, and patriarchy. The second document promoted the contact of Xinka’s women with Aymara feminists, and at this meeting was born an important communitarian symbolism: the Wiphala which is a flag of 49 red, orange, yellow, white, blue, green, and violet squares, each one with its special meaning in luni‐solar calendar of Andean First nations. This flag is present in every community event and also in the ceremonies of these women, and it identifies and reveals the values of fairness, equality, harmony, solidarity, and reciprocity of indigenous community system. It can be considered as a symbol of the resistance by native people and it is an emblem of Andean indigenous and continental renaissance. For many people, it is also an identifiable element of continental struggle for despatriarchalization of Abya Yala. In the words of Kambiwá: Black women were stolen from their native land and we indigenous women became slaves in our own land. As body, earth and territories are connected, this changes within us the form of our suffering. The indigenous woman feels invaded and thus disrespected in her own house, body‐territory, closes herself in the fight in a suicidal way, tries to expel the oppressor and resists. The black woman (I think) had to adapt to a country that was not her place, and thus was also robbed for losing its origins (Earth) and being forced to become Westernized. Both are forms of body, land and territory rapes, also remembering that Earth is the Great Mother …. But they were different ways of appropriating women’s body and a jointed way of struggle and resistance as well. (Avelin B. Kambiwá)

Notimia7 is a news agency of indigenous and Afro‐descendant women, which seeks to promote communication processes from indigenous and African American people in the region. It is made up of 200 communicators in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia, Brazil, United States, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. The genesis of Notimia came after three meetings of indigenous and Afro‐descendent women communicators, organized by the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Central America and Mexico, held between 2014 and

118

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

2016. After this, the inaugural launch came, in 2017, during the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, in New York, which marked a “milestone for regional indigenous communication,” as Guadalupe Martínez Pérez, one of the heads of the project says. This is a network creation of communicators that wants to publish about “povos originários”8 in LAC. The “Community of Communities” The more general value of reciprocity/solidarity of mutual autonomy posed by communitarian indigenous feminisms is the concept of “community of communities” (Paredes Carvajal, 2011). The community of communities is an epistemic imaginary or a symbolic narrative that replaces the occidental figure of State structure by truly political action of decolonization, because in their own ways those people are building strategies of depatriarchalization of all relationships (including state relations). This community imaginary is thought as a multiple body of originnary people in LAC: Aymara, Xinkas, Quechua, Mapuche, Maya, Zapotec, Nahua, Guarani, Terena, Aranas, Bororo, Guajajaras among numerous other ethnic groups, but it is a worldview that includes those different people once again as “territories body‐land,” postulating an absolute no ownership of both. As a metaphor, they postulate Pachamama as The Land that cannot belong only to one group or to one community, nor the community can exist in its own part isolated, without sharing their existence with Pachamama. In the Brazilian Kambiwá ethnic group, for example, the great and divine force is named as The Enchanted One and is revered in the figure of Jurema, Mother Jurema, or Sacred Jurema. In Tupi Guarani worldview she is the Great Mother, Guaracy (the mother of all living world), who brings the female figure to the center of a creative world, the one who manages life and literally gave us birth. Her manifestation is in the figure of Mother Earth and thus in respect to Her and in all that She gives us, leaving us the position of taking care of Her children and of Herself as we were Her guardians. She creates us and we depend on Her, so She acts in defense of our territories and there is a need for demarcation of indigenous lands which is also a feminist agenda. We need Her to have a dignified and healthy life in our own benefit, just for us and for our communities. So, we have to treat Her carefully. We must treat Her with love, and we ask permission to withdraw Her from a piece of wood, to enter the woods, to hunt etc. She, as mother and woman, also has Her moods and cycles and we have to understand them and to respect them. (Avelin T. Kambiwá)

In this last dimension, indigenous proposals, basically of a collective and group character, surpass the liberal and capitalist individualism in an enriching way. The five dimensions find common ground here, converging, highlighting the importance of collectivity, reciprocal care, simultaneous care with each one and also with other beings of nature, as well as with the entire environment.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS As we know, apart from all economic and material exploitation, Latin American native people were overwhelmingly expropriated by Catholic hierarchical and discriminatory order, that were both patriarchal and sexist, and also by a violent

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

119

capitalist and colonizing westernized modernity that claimed itself to be universal and undermined completely the experiences of traditional knowledges. This history of deep oppression reveals elements where patriarchy, sexism, and racism have also formed countless oppressive junctions, including genocide. These junctions are lived up to the present day by the corporeal dimensions of indigenous and Afro‐American women (in a different way) in the region. In this chapter, we tried to establish some epistemic dimensions that addressed to these forms of oppression, as well as create alternative languages to overcome them. The resistance of Latin American indigenous women, the new facets of their efforts to contribute to feminist struggles today is unique. This study, in our opinion, is also an effort of giving voice to those huge indigenous feminists’ efforts. We tried to rescue and to make visible new analytical categories that are extremely needed in our westernized understanding of the world. We can understand them as situated proposals that, in turn, can be responsible for other patterns of thought and sociability. Epistemic patterns coming from Latin indigenous societies, indigenous feminist categories, increasingly diversified and converging in ideas that add voices of self‐determination and autonomy by and for indigenous (and non‐indigenous) women, in contexts unfavorable even to their own survival. These categories challenge the social, political, and economic contexts of national states in the region that used the colonial paths, not considering or making no effective and responsible commitments to such peoples, but only to the proposal of “progress” and “order” in a positivistic westernized mode of science. But, for sure, this is only one fragile step and there is still a long way to go before the consolidation of a true and just epistemological bridge with their knowledge and our occidental science. As we saw here, there are interesting possibilities of reciprocal learning through feminist’s languages and those knowledges (and their new cosmovisions or paradigms) being produced in different geopolitical women’s contexts can really contribute to the urgent process of questioning our authorized canons and methods in social and political sciences, mostly individualistic and reductionist ones. This is certainly one of our greatest contemporary challenges: we really need to learn again how to live a good life together; especially we need to live well based upon recognition and respect of our inevitable differences. It seems that we have already passed the phase of urgency for overtures between our worlds, because now it is not only the native people who are at risk, but all of us are now at risk. Here we just outlined a very beginning step to the challenge of constructing and edifying dialogues, as we described the novelty of some categories we use to ignore. For sure, what we briefly described here can address possibilities of overcoming some paradoxes that have limited our western gender and feminist understandings and theories. Some of the categories presented can significantly contribute to (re)construct further forms of decolonized and depatriarchalized knowledge and perhaps also may help us to build a more inclusive feminism, a more rich one, a democratic, and just form of feminist activisms, inspired in another experience of resilience, that one of indigenous women who struggles in different contexts but for sure are producing from other geopolitical contexts, thus questioning already authorized canons and authorized methods.

120

MARLISE MATOS AND AVELIN BUNIACÁ KAMBIWÁ

NOTES 1  Indigenous woman of the Kambiwá ethnic group, sociologist, and speaker on the themes of indigenous and women’s rights. 2.  In the original: “Toda acción organizada por las mujeres indígenas en beneficio de una buena vida para todas las mujeres, se traduce al castellano como feminismo.” 3.  In the original: “El protagonismo de las mujeres indígenas y sus organizaciones en los procesos de cambio en la relación de los pueblos indígenas y los Estados es hoy incuestionable, tal como se ha describió en el primer capítulo de este documento. En la actualidad estas demandas se concentran en las profundas desigualdades étnicas, de género y generacionales que les afectan. Con una extraordinaria capacidad para conformar alianzas nacionales, regionales e internacionales, las mujeres indígenas han logrado conferir contenido y propuestas a su protagonismo político, promoviendo los derechos de los pueblos indígenas en las diferentes instancias internacionales” (p. 88). 4.  In the original: “Las mujeres somos la mitad de todos los pueblos. Y en todos los pueblos, hemos generado un pensamiento crítico a la organización desigual de los poderes entre hombres y mujeres, en beneficio de los primeros. Si las mujeres de los pueblos originarios le llaman feminismo o no, en buena medida, es un problema de traducción. ¿Qué es el feminismo? ¿Una teorización liberal sobre la abstracta igualdad de las mujeres y los hombres o la búsqueda concreta emprendida por las mujeres para el bienestar de las mujeres y en diálogo entre sí para destejer los símbolos y prácticas sociales que las ubican en un lugar secundario, con menos derechos y una valoración menor que los hombres? Si la palabra feminismo traduce la segunda idea, entonces hay tantos feminismos cuantas formas de construcción política de mujeres existen” (Celentani Gargalo, 2014, p. 11). 5.  In Brazil, the term epistemicide is a term that has been used by Sueli Carneiro (2005) to designate the exclusion of other forms of knowledge other than those established by the canon of the western sciences. According to the author, the genocide that punctuated European expansion so often was also epistemic. Foreign people were eliminated because they also had strange forms of knowledge. This idea allows to think the inability of diverse social groups to live with the diversity, creating unequal mechanisms of social reproduction. In the case of indigenous people and blacks, epistemicide still acts today, for example, as a set of disfavoring educational practices and everyday social constraints, aiming at hindering the trajectory of indigenous and black subjects as subjects of knowledge. 6.  In the original: “A diferencia del sujeto cartesiano que encarna en el individuo moderno occidental ‒idéntico a sí mismo, central, separado de la naturaleza, inamovible, incapaz de transformación, fijo‒, el tik tojolabal es un sujeto no esencialista, en devenir, que se postula desde la interdependencia entre personas‐sujetos que hacen realidad una comunidad. Al integrar una comunidad, la existencia de cada una/o se hace libre en cuanto todos se reconocen entre sí como iguales que necesitan una/o del trabajo de otro/a: escuchar, comprender y respetar la palabra de quien convive en el lugar colectivo implica comprenderlo/a aun cuando no se coincida; pues, implica no confundir, no ocultar, no contradecir su palabra, es decir, no intentar controlarla” (Gargalo Celentali, 2014, p. 70). 7. For more information see: https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/310791-primeraagencia-noticias-mujeres-indigenas#.XKtS_Qzoo5U.facebook. 8.  Translated here as “originnary people.”

REFERENCES Carneiro, S. (2005). A construção do outro como não‐ser como fundamento do ser. Tese de doutorado (Educação), Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo. Celentani Gargalo, F. (2014). Feminismos desde Abya Yala. Ideas y proposiciones de las mujeres de 607 pueblos en nuestra América. Editorial Corte y Confección, Ciudad de México, Primera edición digital, enero de 2014. Retrieved from https://francescagargallo.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ francesca-gargallo-feminismos-desde-abya-yala-ene20141.pdf. Accessed on June 20, 2016.

Recent Changes in Indigenous Feminist Agenda in Latin America

121

CEPAL/ECLAC. (2014). Relatório Los pueblos indígenas en América Latina, Síntesis. LC/L.3893/Rev.1, Noviembre de 2014, Naciones Unidas, Santiago, Chile. Retrieved from http://repositorio.cepal. org/bitstream/handle/11362/37050/4/S1420783_es.pdf. Accessed on June 30, 2016. Cusicanqui, S. R. (2003). Las fronteras de la coca. Epistemologías coloniales y circuitos alternativos de la hoja de coca. El caso de la frontera boliviano‐argentina, IDIS/UMSA/Ediciones Aruwiyiri, La Paz, Bolivia. Gargalo, F. (2006). Ideas feministas latinoamericanas. México City: Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México. María, L. (2007). Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–209. María, L. (2014). Rumo a um feminismo descolonial. Estudos Feministas, 22(3), 935–952. Matos, M. (2010). Movimento e teoria feminista: É possível reconstruir a teoria feminista partir do Sul global?. Revista de Sociologia e Política, junho, 18(36), 67–92. Matos, M. (2015). The fourth feminist wave in Latin America. Paper presentation sociologists for women in society, SWS Annual Meeting, Unpublished. Miñoso, Y. E., Correal, D. G., & Ochoa Muñoz, K. (Eds.). (2014). Tejiendo de otro modo: Feminismo, epistemología y apuestas descoloniales en Abya Yala. Popayán: Editorial Universidad del Cauca. Paredes, J. (2010). “Para que el dinero se esfume”, en Amaia del Río Martínez y Marisa Sanz Mora (compiladoras). Actas del Encuentro: Feminismos en la agenda del desarrollo, 27 y 28 de, Bilbao, HEGOA y ACSUR‐Las Segovias. Retrieved from http://publ.hegoa.efaber.net/assets/pdfs/239/ Actas_Encuentro_Feminismos.pdf Paredes Carvajal, J. (2011). “Una sociedad en estado y con estado despatriarcalizador” conferencia. Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, Cochabamba, diciembre 2011. Retrieved from http://www.gobernabilidad.org.bo/documentos/democracia2011/Ponencia.Paredes.pdf Scherer‐Warren, I. (2010). Movimentos sociais e pós‐colonialismo na América Latina. In Revista Ciências Sociais Unisinos, São Leopoldo (Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 18–27, jan/abr 2010). Segato, R. L. (2010). Los cauces profundos de la raza latinoamericana: una relectura del mestizaje. In Crítica y Emancipación. Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, año II, núm. 3, CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 1er semestre de 2010, pp. 11–44. Segato, R. L. (2012). Gênero e colonialidade: em busca de chaves de leitura e de um vocabulário estratégico descolonial, e‐cadernos ces [Online]. Retrieved from http://eces.revues.org/1533. Accessed on June 27, 2016.

This page intentionally left blank

PART 2 YOUNG FEMINISTS AND DIGITAL APPROACHES TO SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVISM

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 6 BEH TOU CHEH? (WHAT’S IT TO YOU?): FEMINIST CHALLENGES IN IRANIAN SOCIAL MEDIA Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi

ABSTRACT Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post‐revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Social media has helped to tease apart government statecraft that continually touts and reemphasizes Islamic values, at the same time providing a platform for a feminist consciousness that more recently has passionately supported individual rights, especially the right to privacy. This chapter delves into this move toward a more individualized form of dissent, surveying the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women’s activists following popular uprisings that have been happening domestically since 2009. Keywords: Feminism; Iran; women’s movement; My Stealthy Freedom; social media; individualism

A woman sits down on a pale blue seat in a Tehran metro station. Her hijab is loosely wrapped around her shoulders, and her attention seems to be on the arriving train. A cleric wearing an Islamic robe passes in front of her, apparently reminding her to fix her headscarf. Across the platform, a cellphone camera Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 125–146 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031007

125

126

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

captures the scene’s crescendos: the aforementioned woman becomes irate, scolding the cleric seated to her right, and yells, “You ruined our country and now you’re telling me what to wear! No one can tell me what to wear!” Applause erupts among the straphangers, seemingly in solidarity with her words; loud whistles are heard in the periphery when, suddenly, she is met by a smaller woman wearing a black chador. She, too, berates her for not wearing her headscarf. Voices grow louder. The unveiled woman seems to become bolder by the second and stands up to confront both the cleric and the chadori woman, insisting they leave her alone. Defiantly unveiled in public, she is participating in an ordinary act of resistance that instigates both alarm and praise among passersby. “Beh Tou Cheh?” is a colloquial phrase used in Persian to mean a rhetorical blend of “What’s it to you? Let me be!” Impolite, direct, and slightly aggressive, it is the kind of phrase that instructs listeners to promptly mind their own business. It is the firing of a last salvos before a potential argument may ensue. While Persian etiquette informs that using such terms is disrespectful, the video of the Iranian woman refusing to comply with compulsory hijab policy had gone viral.1 Its popularity speaks to the surge in tensions and heated interactions between Iranian women and state representatives that are happening so openly – in this case, between a cleric who believes in observing and reinforcing the state‐mandated hijab, and an Iranian woman who neither tolerates his admonishments nor what he stands for. Moreover, it reveals the explicit verbal support among many within the crowd to her act and voice of defiance – her public rejection of compulsory hijab, which has been in place since the first years after the 1979 Revolution. This woman’s vocal criticism of Iran’s clerical authority is part of a trend of other acts of individual defiance captured by thousands of videos and photographs that have been posted online – chiefly through the Facebook page, My Stealthy Freedom (Azadi‐ye Yavashaki Zanan dar Iran). Yet, little did those within Iran’s government and women’s activist communities know that such a site would become increasingly popular. For some, the webpage elicits dissent in its offering of a public platform for women to similarly express “Beh Tou Cheh?!” brazenly across Iran. The macro‐force of such actions has not been lost on the multiple audiences sharing these videoclips. Copycat sites and solidarity actions in Europe and the United States have since sprouted while the Iranian government remains on the defensive, tactically denouncing the social media campaign and the persons behind it as “whore(s),” corrupt, etc. (see Alinejad, 2014). In many respects, online activism in the form of My Stealthy Freedom has opened a different path for ordinary people who are not necessarily versed in post‐revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are they familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers over the four decades of the Islamic Republic’s existence. Social media is surely to blame, as the uncontrollable networking and sharing of contrarian ideas and information not only teases apart the Islamic Republic’s statecraft that has touted hijab as a stable political signifier and culturally and religiously accepted practice of Iranian women, ipso facto. But it also provokes a kind of feminist consciousness that previous women’s activists of the post‐revolutionary era did not typically champion. Women are becoming more unabashedly passionate in their defense of individual rights, especially the right to privacy;

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

127

moreover, they are often not using or appealing to religious references to back up their claims.2 The move toward a more individualized form of dissent is where this chapter takes its point of departure. Indeed, since the summer of 2009, in what became known as the Green Movement against the widely reported fraudulent reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there have been bifurcations and shifts in Iran’s women’s rights movement, given the exile and immigration of some of Iran’s most prominent women’s rights activists to other cities around the world. In the past decade, feminists have transitioned from pursuing on‐the‐ground activism to cyber‐feminist projects, which has proven to be both uneven and stunted. Numerous rights‐based platforms have fallen into disarray due to poor exposure, infighting, funding problems, internet filtering, and mixed messaging. This is in addition to the changing demands of Iranian publics, who are becoming less familiar with the names of Iran’s women activists now residing abroad; the names of pioneers from the post‐revolutionary period no longer feature prominently in newspapers, journal articles, and blogposts about women’s affairs in Iran. Moreover, there is the parallel rise of social media celebrities among a younger generation of Iran’s feminist diaspora (as is the case for the aforementioned online campaign, My Stealthy Freedom) whose message and spotlight are gaining audiences among both expatriate Iranians and those living inside Iran. These developments necessitate an in‐depth look at the present challenges and potential vulnerabilities facing Iranian women activists amidst the emergence of a special form of activism from Iranian youth that increasingly makes use of self‐ promotive strategies through social media platforms to articulate their demands on a whole range of sociopolitical issues. What roles, if any, do discourses of feminism, gender equality, and/or anti‐discrimination have in this novel form of women’s rights activism? Moreover, will the younger successors of Iran’s women’s movement, who are social media savvy and armed with cellphone cameras, succeed in regaining lost ground, and even advance women’s rights? Does the rise of individualized forms of protest against compulsory hijab mean that reforms in both the law and social policy that disproportionately impact women are no longer necessary? Would public pressure in the form of online activism eventually force Iran’s clerical authority to seek change? The dividing line between activists appears more generational than ideological. Young women with no direct experience of the 1979 revolution, and having little familiarity in the Islamist or leftist feminist discourse of their forebears, are challenging the authority of the state in ways strikingly different from the post‐revolutionary cohort of women’s rights pioneers (See Tabari, 1986; Beck & Nashat, 2004). Suddenly, the generation that experienced firsthand the revolution and the generation of today are not bothering to unify their messages. Those pioneering women revolutionaries versed in Islam and Marx-Lenin, for example, seldom work together with a younger, social media savvy group who learned about the Revolution from anecdotes and history books. This chapter studies the implications of this growing divide by reading four recent episodes of Iranian women’s activism in an effort to make sense of the turn toward individualized forms of protest among urban women. It will do so by considering how they collectively inform us about changing trends from traditional, collective,

128

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

and feminist resistance activities to individualized and often celebrity‐driven online campaigns to promote civil and political rights in Iran. The diverse activities of Masoumeh (Masih) Alinejad, The Girls of Revolution Street3, protestor Vida Movahedi,4 and teenage dancer Maedeh Hojabri will be analyzed as part of a larger movement toward an online women’s activism whereby self‐branding and individual rights are becoming the generational currency by which gender and anti‐discrimination awareness is raised among Iranian publics.

EXPRESSING DISSENT THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA, IN SECONDS It is no surprise that smartphones increasingly play a “leading role in the mobilization of social and political protests around the world” (Mutsvairo, 2016, p. 3). Their rapidly improving technological advances have provided better portability, size, agility, and intelligence, ensuring that smartphones will continue to enable fast communication and information‐sharing despite geographic and political challenges – which has been particularly impactful in authoritarian states. The contours of public space are being altered by changing technologies that have affected social norms and political structures (Tufekci, 2018, p. 6), in what Tufekci describes as a twenty‐first century “digitally networked public sphere” of an increasingly interconnected, transnational, and global network that completely reconfigured the whole public space. Rasmussen (2016) goes further to describe how the digital public sphere has become more personalized, whereby international issues are constantly being discussed, “even if in individual and local ways.” The sheer diversity of voices reflects a public sphere that enables the individual to voice opinion directly to public power, to participate in campaigns and social movements, and to exchange opinions on online for a in her own ways and language, drawing upon personal experiences, knowledge, engagements, values and judgments. (Rasmussen, 2016, p. 79)

Bruce Mutsvario (2016) argues that activism is made easier through social media and technological changes because they provide “platforms for debate and knowledge‐sharing while also enabling a message to reach its target audience in unprecedented fashion, within seconds” (p. 6). Though commenting on new media technologies and their relationship with aspirations for sociopolitical change in sub‐Saharan Africa, Mutsvairo (2016) writes that activists in general “join the fray, astutely bypassing hegemonic mass media gatekeepers by navigating through the online sphere to inspire collective political and social involvement across the continent” (p. 3). David Faris and Babak Rahimi have written extensively on the spread of social media in Iran post 2009 presidential elections. Describing the utility of social media to unite activists and dissenters in diaspora and homeland communities to interact in an “arena for digital contestation” (Faris & Rahimi, 2016, p. 1). The authors note, The Internet makes it possible for groups living in diaspora to maintain ties more closely and routinely with those living in homelands – and even to have significant impact on discourses, strategies, and actions back home. (Faris & Rahimi, 2016, p. 6)

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

129

Faris and Rahimi’s point is especially resonant in the case of expatriate Iranian women’s activists, some of whom are mentioned above. Cyberspace has helped bridge geographic distances, providing a virtual space for assembly and strategizing across continents, enabling active participants to plan, organize, and implement activities potentially inside Iran that would remain both out of government reach and control. Theoretically, this virtual space offers a forum for free speech and political networking, whereby social media users engage in some form of cyberactivism, defined as “the act of using the internet to advance a political cause that is difficult to advance offline” (Howard, 2010, p. 145). Howard (2010) adds, “the goal of such activism is often to create intellectually and emotionally compelling digital artifacts that tell stories of injustice, interpret history, and advocate for particular political outcomes” (p. 145). Ideally, this leads to movement building among those who access social networks and websites – as was the main aspiration of ZananTV described later, which sought to generate new feminist discourses and raise gender awareness. But as was demonstrated elsewhere in the Middle East region, in the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, which led to the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak, followed by the takeover of the government by a former military general through a coup‐ d’état, the effectiveness of social media was diminished once large numbers of people were unwilling to physically participate in social protests and ignored the grave personal costs for doing so (Khamis & Vaughn, 2011, “Cyberactivism in the Egyptian Revolution”). That is to say, “these new media were nothing more than powerful tools and effective catalysts …. In short, social media was not the cause of the revolutions, but vehicles for empowerment” (Khamis & Vaughn, 2011). For many Iranian feminists, much of that analysis rings true. They have faced similar challenges when relying too heavily on social media to mobilize a women’s rights movement whose impact could be felt both online and on‐the‐ground (Batmanghelichi & Mouri, 2017; Gheytanchi & Moghadam, 2014).

CYBERACTIVITY IN IRAN Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Technology (ICT) reported in 2018 that there are more than 53 million mobile internet users in Iran (Jafari, 2018), due in part to years of government ownership and investment in the telecommunication and information industry infrastructure (Sreberny & Khiabany, 2011). Previous statistics from September 2017 showed there were “47.3 Million mobile internet and 10.4 million landline internet subscribers” (Jafari, 2018). With a population of well over 80 million people, this means that “30% of the local population use Instagram,” online statistics service Statista reported (Financial Tribune, 2018). Moreover, Instagram is the second most popular social media network in Iran. The messaging app Telegram, which is also used as a social media platform, has an estimated 40 million Iranian users. (Financial Tribune, 2018)

Notably, “the share of Persian‐language content in cyberspace has increased from 1.2 percent in 2016 to 1.9 percent … thus propelling Iran ahead of China and Turkey,” said the Deputy ICT Minister (Mehr News, 2018).

130

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

Iranian authorities have worked aggressively to respond to the unmonitored and unfiltered usage of messaging applications like Twitter, Telegram, and WhatsApp and social media networks like Instagram5 and Facebook. These applications are viewed by the authorities as being “especially threatening given they challenge the Iranian government’s long‐standing monopoly over media and communications,” says Anderson and Sadjadpour (2018, p. 10). Except for Instagram, many of these messaging apps and websites are blocked – though the accounts of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani are updated frequently.6 The government even launched a cyber army unit within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to target its “so‐called internal enemies that Tehran’s leadership fears” who are mostly based in Iran and among the large Iranian diaspora (Anderson & Sadjadpour, 2018, p. 6). A 2018 report on Iran’s cyberwarfare program details, Between December 2009 and June 2013, a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army defaced websites associated with Iran’s political opposition, Israeli businesses, independent Persian‐ language media, and social media platforms, posting pro‐government messages. (Anderson & Sadjadpour, 2018, p. 11)

Activists against the Iranian government and the cyber army are engrossed in a cat‐ and‐mouse dynamic, whereby the former traverses the globe to denounce and delegitimize the latter’s claims for authority and relevance using multiple media outlets while the latter engages in a “soft war” against state enemies, which in some cases has led to the arrest, torture, and murder of dissidents.7 Akhavan (2013) explains, While new technologies continue to be heralded for their utility in confronting state powers, the ruling structure in Iran survived a series of challenges that the Internet magnified, in the process emboldening some of its most reactionary elements. In addition, government entities took to digital media, using them to disseminate cultural products that strengthened the government’s position. (p. 1)

The Iranian government has become particularly sensitive to online activities that allegedly “damage public virtue through the organized spreading of anticultural” activities (Radio Farda, 2018). Those sharing posts of women dancing and/or wearing so‐called improper hijab on popular accounts on Instagram – the Facebook‐owned photo and video‐sharing social networking service – fell under government scrutiny and surveillance, for, according to government officials, they were allegedly sharing “indecent” content. Instagram has around 24 million users in Iran (Esfandiari, 2019), and according to a senior Iranian official, it has become a “‘slaughterhouse’ for the youth and claiming that ‘many scholars, professors, and students’ were demanding it be blocked” (Esfandiari, 2019). Reigning in online information‐sharing and postings about women’s status in Iran has been of particular concern for the government, especially if this information highlights critical viewpoints of compulsory hijab and how the state has responded to Iranian women’s material and economic conditions. Gholam‐Hossein Mohseni‐Eje’i, Iran’s judiciary spokesman, has said that the women protesting against compulsory veiling are “acting under the influence of ‘synthetic drugs’ or receiving instruction from ‘organized criminal groups’” (Amnesty International, 2018). In February 2018, after peaceful protests against discriminatory practices of compulsory veiling that took place in December 2017, when 35 women were

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

131

attacked and arrested in Tehran, municipal police warned that the women would be charged with “inciting corruption and prostitution,” which would carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison (Amnesty International, 2018). Any proliferation of feminist ideas and consciousness raising are almost immediately met with denunciations not just about women’s activists and their ideas, but also about their unseemly family relations and lifestyles. Private tensions between family members, for example, are teased out for public consumption and judgment. The drama is relayed through the promotion of just one side: in many cases, a relative will go on state television denouncing her “prodigal” family member and uses phrases like “they’re no longer the same” when reflecting on how she has “tarnished” the entire family’s reputation. For instance, in a television program called Bedone Tarof (loosely translated to “Without Pleasantry” on the state Channel IRIB2), Hamid Emami and Ali Rezani from the Islamic Republic’s Seda va Sima (state‐run national broadcasting corporation whose head is appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) traveled to Mazanderan province to interview family members of My Stealthy Freedom’s founder, Masih Alinejad. Posing questions to Alinejad’s older sister and niece, both dressed in Islamic chador, the reporters inquired about Alinejad’s quest to challenge compulsory hijab by encouraging Iranian women to remove their veils and post photographs of this act of defiance online. By putting Alinejad’s family in a position to publicly denounce Masih and her political activities, Iranian authorities attempt to legitimize its widespread campaign against not only her, but also My Stealthy Freedom. Promoting a traditional morality discourse, the Seda va Sima reporters engage in statecraft, portraying Alinejad as a prodigal daughter who flouts traditional Islamic family values, much to her family’s embarrassment. On national television Alinejad is portrayed as one who sullies her family’s reputation, bringing shame to her sister and niece. And to the core audience of Seda va Sima, this sentiment might resonate with many of the conservative religious families among them. Videos and photos that have gone viral are now providing great source material for both news programs eager to report on activism taking place in Iran and government officials looking to pinpoint the culprits for inciting disturbances to public morality and social order. For instance, buzzworthy videos circulating on Instagram and Facebook of women unveiling on public streets, dancing solo, and/or interacting too freely with the opposite sex apparently jeopardizes state narratives that have typically illustrated a general public acceptance of mandatory hijab. Newly minted Instagram “celebrities” who have featured in these viral posts have been subsequently detained by the authorities. In many cases, their releases were secured after videotaped confessions of their culpability had gone public – though it is highly probable that they were obtained under duress. Here, the arrests of two women in particular, teenager Maedeh Hojabri and 31‐year‐old Vida Movahedi are worth exploring. The latter, mentioned earlier, was the young woman photographed standing on top of a telecoms box in Tehran holding her white scarf on a stick; the former was accused of provocatively and lewdly dancing, albeit in her home. Their names have become synonymous with a younger generation of women whose expressions of defiance are not couched in the feminist discourse of Iran’s women’s activist pioneers.

132

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

OUT OF EXILE, ENTERING THE CYBERWORLD More than a decade since the June 2009 uprisings, feminist and women’s rights activities in Iran have undergone significant changes. The blogging wave of the early 2000s that coincided with the proliferation of women’s NGOs under the Khatami regime has given way to a period of dislocation: many of Iran’s women’s rights leaders are now scattered across the globe, and simultaneously, generational shifts in both feminist awareness and technological usage have emerged, catching many off guard (see Akhavan, 2013). For some women’s activists, their roles and even the clout they once carried when weighing into issues of public discussion have diminished. Mansoureh Shojaei, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, Shadi Sadr, Shirin Ebadi, Parvin Ardalan, and Mehrangiz Kar8 are some of the prominent Iranian feminist activists of the post‐revolutionary women’s rights movement now residing in the United States and across Europe. Given their sentencing of prison terms and lashings handed down in absentia, accusations of performing “acts against national security through conspiracy and collusion intended to disrupt public security, disturbing public order and defiance against government officers” (Women Living under Muslim Laws, 2010) as was the case for Abbasgholizadeh and Sadr, it is unlikely that they will ever be able to return to Iran under the current regime. Now settling into life in exile, many have continued working on behalf of women’s rights through various human rights campaigns that remain funded by diaspora communities, NGOs, and wealthy donor states.9 Alternatively, a few of them have sought to foster an online and satellite television media presence to voice their dissent. The primary means to connect and broadcast their programs for Iranians living in Iran are different; via Persian and English‐speaking websites and/or popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and more recently Instagram and Clubhouse, the voice-based social media application founded in March 2020 and to which Iranians have since gravitated for unfiltered discussions and debates. Abbasgholizadeh, for instance, created an alternative online platform called ZananTV, in an effort to develop social actions, campaigns, and feminist discourses “to [influence] the democracy movement in Iran” (Women Living under Muslim Laws, 2011). However, like many foreign‐funded projects, it was short‐lived, curtailing its activities after funding sources began to diminish (Batmanghelichi & Mouri, 2017). Some, like Sadr and Shadi Amin (the latter is an Iranian feminist and political activist who has lived in Europe for more than two decades) have co‐authored works through a German publishing house to document sexual torture of political prisoners in Iran’s prisons during the 1980s (Sadr & Amin, 2012). Ebadi, the former 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate, recently went on record asking for regime change in Iran, moving away from past declarations of promoting reform to issuing public statements questioning the validity of its government structure (Lake, 2018).10 Notably, she also suggested that Americans should in some way be involved, “establish[ing] a channel to the legitimate and independent Iranian opposition” (Lake, 2018). Living in exile has not rendered any of these activists reticent or silent in the face of continual denunciations and dismissals made by government officials of their public opinions and causes; in fact, for some it has resulted in galvanizing

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

133

efforts to promote and sustain an online media presence that can push for on‐the‐ ground change to raise political activist and even feminist awareness using traditional media sources such as European and American‐based TV channels and radio stations, and more recently social media platforms and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which were established to enable regular user interaction and information‐sharing online. Yet, keeping afoot with the dizzy pace of technology and constantly communicating their feminist message through social networking are challenging feats. There was no identifiable trace or marker of their presence and influence in the December 2017 demonstrations of civil disobedience against compulsory hijab that took place near Enghelab (Revolution) Square in Tehran (BBC Persian, 2018). The proliferation of selfies and videos of women dancing and unveiling in public – made to rouse attention and support – brought to the surface a new reality: that the women’s activism of recent years was no longer trafficking in the discourses of feminism and Islamic legal reform, as was the case for Ebadi et al. A younger generation of activists had started breaking new ground through their skillful use of online platforms and mobile technologies.

ONLINE EXPRESSION MEETS OFFLINE CONSEQUENCES In the past seven years, a mostly younger generation of Iranian women has seemed to willfully engage in social commentary about their own conditions and constraints despite a number of government restrictions by promoting their individual grievances via social media applications like Instagram and Telegram. Alinejad’s (2014) online campaign exemplifies the kind of social movement that emerges from within virtual communities and networks, forged over grievances about key sociopolitical issues that have zigzagged over too many of the government’s red lines to be socially and politically acceptable. Parallel online campaigns have also taken the form of individual acts of defiance, such as wearing white scarves or clothing on Wednesdays to forge a solidarity with other women critical of mandatory hijab. In the case of Iranian eighteen‐year‐old Maedeh Hojabri, her Instagram account fell under government scrutiny once her dancing videos went viral. The act of performing dance routines for her Instagram followers – and noticeably without wearing a veil – was enough to cross government redlines of tolerated online behavior. Hojabri had uploaded around 300 video clips of herself dancing in what is presumably her bedroom to a variety of music, from Western to Iranian pop. Mostly unveiled in each video, though in some she wears a hat and in others a scarf, she looks directly into the camera and at times lip syncs to background music. Her Instagram account had already acquired 88,000 followers, and once it was suspended following her arrest in the early summer of 2018, it reportedly grew to almost 600,000 (Kamali Dehghan, 2018). The public became aware of her arrest during a recorded confession broadcast on the state‐run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) television program called Mostanad‐e Bi‐rahe (Deviated or Wrong Path). It is a “documentary‐style” news program where eerie music plays in the background as men and women whose faces are obscured, though their silhouettes and voices are visible and recorded, confess to

134

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

committing various “crimes” and sins. In this July 2018 broadcast, the teenager is visibly distraught, crying to the male interviewer, who asks her a series of questions related to her dancing – in particular if anyone had directed her to create such videos and if she were paid to do so. The program also featured two other women, who were also arrested and released on bail, provided that they appear on Iranian state television as part of a campaign to publicly shame them, and thus deter others from committing similar offenses (Lipin, 2018). Hojabri was indeed a frequent user of social media apps, from Instagram to Periscope. Archived YouTube clips document her conversations on Periscope, where she frequently interacts with viewers and responds to their comments about her dancing style, her schedule, and her clothing, among other examples (“Maeda Hojabri ba Lahjeh Gashangesh Migeh keh az Iran Nimireh Choon Ashegheshe”). In the particular IRIB interview mentioned above, Hojabri insisted, “It was not done for the purpose of getting attention” (Regencia, 2018). She explained, I had some followers and these videos were for them. I did not have any intention to encourage others doing the same … I didn’t work with a team, I received no training. I only do gymnastics. (Kamali Dehghan, 2018)

Her detention and subsequent TV confession (likely made under duress) sparked a flurry of solidarity videos posted online in support of Hojabri. Both men and women recorded themselves dancing and many women especially did so while not wearing hijab or any other form of Islamic clothing promoted by the government. Posted under the hashtags beraghs ta beraghsim (Let’s dance) and “dancingisnotacrime,” and promoted even by Amnesty International’s social media account, people began posting their private films of themselves dancing in crowded streets and in their living rooms. For some, the exact locations were obviously in London and New York whereas, other sites were less obvious because people filmed themselves in their homes, with their backs turned to the camera. Notably, most of the women disguised themselves in an effort to not be recognized by disapproving (government) eyes. Notably, men did not seem to be as concerned about hiding their identities. In subsequent Perisicope videos, apparently recorded almost eight months after her arrest and posted on YouTube, Hojabri confided to her viewers that she was simply dancing in her videos and nothing more. When asked by a viewer why she had not already left Iran, to immigrate elsewhere, she emphasized “pool,” or money, alluding to reasons of financial constraints. She followed by commenting that only Iranians themselves should be responsible for solving their problems and did not elaborate further. Similarly, much has been written by the Persian‐language press about the viral video of Movahedi, mentioned earlier in this piece, who stood on a telephone utilities box in Tehran, silently protesting compulsory veiling in December 2017. She inspired a wave of copycat protests, which grew into mass demonstrations (Kamali Dehghan, 2018). Through this purely political act – and unlike Hojabri’s– Movahedi, who was possibly inspired by My Stealthy Freedom’s online campaign of Masih Alinejad, she became a prominent symbol of protesting compulsory hijab in Iran. Movahedi apparently had neither affiliation nor association with Iran’s women’s movement and its network of NGOs and activist groups. Yet, she

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

135

can be credited as being among the very first public protestors against the Islamic Republic’s forced hijab since the March 1979 International Women’s Day protests, which were directed against the threat of impinging civil and political rights under the new regime led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As her photo was shared across social media, Movahedi’s iconic act grew to symbolize the bravery of a younger generation of Iranian women who challenged the government policy in a more blatant, improvised, non‐violent and provocative way.11 As of April 2019, Movahedi remained in detention at Gharchack women’s prison, situated on the outskirts of east Tehran, despite being eligible for release. Her lawyer reported that she had been sentenced to a year in prison, charged with “encouraging people to corruption and prostitution” (Center for Human Rights in Iran, 2019). Soon thereafter, a second woman named Narges Hosseini was photographed standing defiantly on an electricity box on the very same street: she had removed her veil, “waving it in the air as a flag of victory,” according to one report. Sentenced to two years’ imprisonment (of which 21 months were suspended), Hosseini was accused by Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi of attempting to "encourage corruption through the removal of the hijab in public” (Kamali Dehghan, 2018). According to one report, police claimed that women “had been ‘tricked’ into removing their headscarves by a propaganda campaign conducted by Iranians living abroad.” However, Hosseini was apparently undeterred: “Even though I have been convicted, I believe more than ever that the compulsory hijab law in Iran should be resisted,” she said. Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, interviewed by The Guardian, reacted to the news reports about these protests: “Her message is clear, girls and women are fed up with forced [hijab]. Let women decide themselves about their own body” (Kamali Dehghan, 2018). One cannot ignore the impact of Facebook and Instagram, in particular, in having provided a platform for Iranian women to break the taboo of publicly protesting compulsory hijab and subsequently sharing their private photos with an audience that is not confined to any particular border or community. These fora paved the way for challenging compulsory hijab as a core act of promoting individual rights – in which freedom of choice and expression are as fundamental to women’s rights as is their right to divorce, custody, and marriage protections. The three cases above, when viewed collectively, demonstrate how simple, individual acts spontaneously performed by ordinary people can transmogrify in meaning and significance, once they enter the digital realm of observation subsequently leading to public judgment. In this digital transitory space, the uncontrolled contagion of social media leads to the diversification of interpretations, which in turn adds multiple (political) meanings that might not have been originally intended by Movahedi, Hosseini, or Hojabri. In many respects, social media has provided a broader platform for individual contestations of the status quo to be witnessed on a bigger and more critical scale. The actors may not know who watches them online, as their recorded and often live‐streamed acts become transformed into a news soundbite, an internet meme, and/or even a feminist rallying cry. They may not even fully grasp the significance of what they have done and how it will be interpreted by onlookers. Still, the attention and reaction their acts garner – coupled with televised confessions wherein they admit to participating

136

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

in morally corrupt and deceptive activities – reflects each woman’s participation in a localized struggle to recapture individual rights that have historically been overshadowed in the post‐revolutionary period by discourses of the collective (Shahidian, 2002, p. 147), community, social justice, and women’s rights – the latter of which was couched in a language of traditional, Islamic gender roles such as the dutiful, modest, and pious wife and mother. Among the Iranian left in particular, individuality (fardiyat) was jettisoned as the decadence of the capitalist West, antithetical to commitment to the collective (especially the family) and the revered values of modesty and “purity;” … Society should be protected against the “deviations” of the individuals. (Shahidian, 2002, p. 147)

Aliakbar Jafari (2007) has offered some explanations for the context within which this particular shift in discourse from community to individual might have emerged: […] on its journey to modernity, Iran is experiencing a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, the current market economy has given rise to a form of social liberalism that promotes individualism. On the other hand, the institutional/traditional forces (e.g., state policies, social beliefs, family values, etc.) impede individuals’ freedom. The youth are aware of the presence of globalization and the diversity of choices that it offers them. The self‐actualization projects of individualism have also given them the privilege of making deliberate choices of their own favorite lifestyles, identities, and meanings. While the genuine development of the ’self for the youth requires them to experience ’the novel,’ the hindering forces in their society resist their enthusiasm for novelty. That is why, quite contrary to the readings of those who interpret youth culture within the framework of Westernization, most of these youth do not regard consumption of Western culture (which brings novelty to them) as Westernization. They believe that using such terms is either because of a lack of knowledge about the conditions of today’s world (presumably globalization) or the result of a conspicuous conspiracy to place more limitations on them. (p. 379)

Jafari contends that (consumerized) cultural globalization has occasioned an increasing awareness about individuality and individual identity among Iranian youth. When media enables them to peer outside their geographic borders, they compare themselves to other individuals in other societies, and in turn “these youth discover their own ‘selves’ and critique their cultural structures, which had traditionally shaped their collective identities” (Aliakbar, 2007, p. 378). This heightened self‐consciousness of other people’s desires and individual demands has engendered a modeling of this type of behavior online. It can be described as a form of online “self‐branding,” employing social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to curate one’s social activity and activism for wider public attention – irrespective of the consequence, viewership, interpretations, and mixed messaging. In this sense, social activism emerging from within a consumerized, globalized culture is characteristically bound to the immediacy of the moment, and not necessarily to the long‐term strategizing that a protest movement typically demands. Hence, social media has enabled other alternatives to emerge for articulating demands when traditional political work, in the form of committee meetings, study circles, recruitment gatherings, training sessions, and so forth are viewed as tedious, laborious, and time‐consuming. Individualized disruptions of discontent seem the most facile outcome of this self‐branding turn. In this sense, the rise of celebrity activism in Iranian feminist social media is also a

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

137

predictable consequence of globalization: the methods and strategies themselves are bred by consumptive inclinations of newer generations for whom comparison to “the outside” is being nurtured through advertising, satellite television, and social media. (This was certainly not the case for an older generation of women’s activists like Sherkat, Ebadi, et al., who participated in the Iranian Revolution.) Consider a prime example, the celebrity‐oriented “outspoken feminism” of Masih Alinejad, who is discussed further in the following section. Her global profile as the recognizable face of the online movement, My Stealthy Freedom, and campaign against the Iranian regime has expanded through the interplay between news media outlets, smart phones, fashion magazines, and social media platforms, which collectively facilitate in sustaining her presence and her campaign’s wider visibility.

CELEBRITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISM: MASIH ALINEJAD AND MY STEALTHY FREEDOM CAMPAIGN Approaching its seven‐year anniversary, My Stealthy Freedom centers on criticizing Iran’s compulsory hijab policy, encouraging “not women activists, but just ordinary women talking from their hearts” to post photos of themselves not wearing a headscarf in public (Hebblethwaite & Irani, 2014).12 As the piece de resistance of Iranian‐born journalist and feminist Masih Alinejad‐Ghomi, who lives in self‐ imposed exile in New York, this campaign draws attention writ large to gender discrimination and inequality in Iran. Iranian women send their photos and videos to Alinejad, and she publishes them online. In various outdoor settings – on city streets, in front of major monuments and squares, and in parks – both men and women have added photographic evidence of their belief in a woman’s right to choose whether or not to wear the veil; moreover, they appeared daring to face the unknown consequences. In many respects, the collection of videos is an online archive of acts of civil disobedience against Iran’s veiling policy (Batmanghelichi & Mouri, 2017). My Stealthy Freedom has no apparent political affiliation, yet clearly, it aligns itself with critics of the regime and its policies on public morality and dress, among other issues. In a June 2016 post, the campaign issued a statement: By sending their unveiled photos to the entire world, these Iranian women have been striving to change this oft‐circulated misconception that the compulsory veil is part of Iranian culture. In fact, the compulsory veil has never been part of Iranian culture. This is merely a backward law imposed by the Islamic Republic, which has been trying to convince the entire world that the compulsory veil is part of Iranian culture. This distinction is very important. (Alinejad, 2016)

In spring 2017, My Stealthy Freedom commenced another social media campaign called WhiteWednesdays using the hashtag “#whitewednesdays,” whereby women would wear white headscarves or pieces of white clothing as symbols of protest (Hatam, 2017). Its Facebook site has accumulated 1,085,682 fans (as of March 2019; this number had fallen to 1,067,073 by June 2021), and features photos of Iranian women of all ages who have momentarily removed their veils. It has been identified as “one of the main online spaces known for generating discourse on various social, cultural, and political issues in Iran” (Tahmasebi‐Birgani, 2017, p. 186).

138

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

Alinejad’s campaign continues to garner both criticism and support as the founder herself becomes more of a household name. Its rising media profile in the European and American press has made it a “global social media” campaign (Lacey, 2018), garnering as much praise and criticism from both Iranians and Iran’s authorities who comment on Alinejad’s strategy, appearance, upbringing, and lifestyle. The American high‐fashion magazine Vogue described Alinejad as an “Iconoclast Inspiring Iranian Women to Remove Their Headscarves” (Fathi, 2015). Some have accused Alinejad of sending “corrupt messages” that provoke sin among young people, especially young women and/or daughters (Nasseri, 2014). She has been called a “whore,” and unfounded rumors have circulated of her having been sexually assaulted in front of her son in an attempt to tarnish her reputation; she has vigorously denied these claims (Alinejad, 2014; Batmanghelichi & Mouri, 2017). In less than a decade, Alinejad has become the go‐to analyst and media personality for many mainstream media and Western feminist sites eager for insider perspectives on both contemporary Iran’s social realities and, more recently, on global perspectives on Muslim women in general (see Batmanghelichi & Mouri, 2017; Taylor & Kanso, 2019). According to Financial Times, Reuters, The Independent, Foreign Policy, The New York Post, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian, among many other English‐language publications, the My Stealthy Freedom project has become synonymous with its administrator and founder (Grant, 2015; Hafiz, 2014; Kamali Dehghan, 2014; Laneri, 2016; Zakaria, 2018). Financial Times in its “The Inventory: Life and Arts” section of the series “Women of 2018: The Changemakers” headlined the December 2018 article on Alinejad with the following excerpt from the interview: “We were told if you showed your hair, you would be hung by it in hell,” followed by questions on her childhood, schooling, and, among others, her physical fitness (Lacey, 2018). Notably, she replied, I’m healthy and I am beautiful. The government of Iran call me an ugly duckling any time they want to attack me. They don’t know the end of the duckling’s story. (Lacey, Financial Times, December 2018)

Indeed, her personal story, in particular details about her so‐called untamed hairstyle and conservative upbringing in a village in northern Iran, has captured much of the media’s attention. Her experiences as a young girl with curly hair who was forced to wear hijab and subsequently felt discomfort and indignation is widely reiterated by press outlets to reaffirm Iran’s constraining Islamic veil policy (Holslin, 2016; Itkowitz, 2016; Lloyd, 2018). Further, Alinejad is a polarizing figure in the eyes of many Iranian women’s activists. In February 2019, Iranian social media was ablaze with reader comments when she posted a photograph documenting an official meeting between her and the then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director and member of the ultraconservative Tea Party within the US Republican Party. The two had apparently met in Washington DC, and afterwards, each issued a statement via social media. Using Twitter, Alinejad briefly described her 35‐minute meeting: “I tried my utmost to be the voice of all those who put their trust in me.” Assuming the role of representative or diplomatic envoy of anti‐Iranian government opposition groups across the globe, she enumerated three points she mentioned to Pompeo:

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

139

1) Many Iranians want an end to the Islamic Republic. Opposition’s voice should be heard 2) Intl community should focus on 40 years of human rights violations by the regime 3) #TravelBan hurts human rights activists, not the regime.

Criticism of this meeting can be summed up in the following response tweet by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, gender adviser to the UN Department of Political Affairs’ Standby Team of Mediation Experts and founder of the NGO Inter­ national Civil Society Action Network: Great! Did you also tell him sanctions are killing ordinary people & toughening the hardliners? Did you tell him #JCPOA was a critical step in the right direction? Did you tell him cosying up with #Saudi against Iran & buying their snake oil is detrimental to the entire world?

As of this writing, Alinejad had not offered any counterpoints. Naraghi Anderlini’s critique alluded to the possibility that her meeting with Pompeo was likely just a photo opportunity for American President Donald Trump (Pompeo’s boss) to demonstrate that he was siding with Iran’s opposition and a supporter of Iranian women’s rights. In the first two years of Trump’s presidency, he unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May 2018, the nuclear accord between Iran and Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and United States, and reimplemented punitive economic sanctions after pulling out of the deal. This was in conjunction to additional diplomatic measures taken to put “maximum pressure” on Iran to change course (US Department of State, 2019), either through the government giving in to American demands or through provoking a popular uprising against the clerical regime due to the rising food costs and overall economic pressures. Hence, Alinejad’s emphasis of human rights to Pompeo would likely fall on deaf ears, having little impact on American policy in Iran and the Middle East. However, there are likely two possible takeaways from this meeting: the first that Alinejad was unaware that she was being drawn into a tangled geopolitical web and being used as a political pawn to advance the Trump administration’s objectives; or, the second, that Alinejad herself was already aligned with a faction of diaspora Iranians who have proposed regime change in Iran. The latter would mean that she, too, promoted this meeting with Pompeo to selfishly advance her own cause, to raise her own political status, and to reaffirm that her own and President Trump’s goals for regime change in Iran were in fact compatible.

IRANIAN WOMEN’S ACTIVISTS CHIME IN Given the rising media profile of Alinejad in parallel to the viral spread of isolated acts that defy purported social norms (according to the Iranian government), several Iranian women’s activists who had already been working toward policy reform during the first two decades of the post‐revolutionary period are voicing criticism against the promotive strategies of online campaign stars. In an interview with German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s (2019) Persian division, Abbasgholizadeh and Azadeh Davachi, the Iranian writer and researcher living in Australia, were asked to comment on the emergence of celebrity activists leading social media campaigns to promote change in Iran. Davachi, whose comments focused primarily on activists living in Iran, emphasized that multiple

140

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

strategies must be employed when the political environment is constricted for citizens. She praised the role of celebrities in making a profound impact on a younger generation of Iranians, for whom rapid changes in society were taking place and who looked to these figures for guidance. Abbasgholizadeh was particularly critical of celebrity‐advanced social movements. Using the example of the immediate relief efforts necessary to respond to natural disasters like earthquakes, Abbasgholizadeh claimed that it was indeed civil society organizations who truly followed up after these disasters. With the triage of infrastructure, mobilization strategies, and organization already in place, NGOs were able to meet community demands in both the short and long terms, even though credit is often extended to celebrity activists that might have first taken part in publicizing the need for immediate help through their broad, international networks. She reasoned that the temporality of celebrity‐led movements should be considered when analyzing these kinds of movements, for they do not typically lead to a mass social movement rooted in any kind of process, ideology, and structure. Celebrities, particularly those living outside Iran, were to be viewed cautiously, for “it is not clear under which circumstances, through what political groups and with what projects they emerged,” she reasoned (Deutsche Welle Farsi, 2019). In an ominous warning, she said that celebrity‐led movements would possibly lead to the “choking” of civil society in Iran (Deutsche Welle Farsi, 2019). In one example, she explicitly mentions the “big mistake” of Alinejad’s meeting with Pompeo, highlighting the political maneuvering she viewed in Alinejad’s actions. She argued that the former wrongly represented herself as speaking on behalf of the Iranian people and Iran’s civil society, when it would have been more appropriate to claim that she was representing only herself. Ahmadi‐Khorasani (2018), the writer and prominent activist known for her involvement in the One Million Signatures for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws campaign,13 is also another key activist living in Iran who has commented on the rise of online activism campaigns. In the March 2018 editorial published on her website, she published the article “The Girls of Revolution Street and Political Populism.” Ahmadi‐Khorasani observes a fundamental difference between the older generation of Iranian women, who as young women witnessed the first decades after the Revolution, and the new generation of Iranian women for whom the Revolution is treated as a historical event. She recalls, After the 1979 Revolution, among our generation [older generation], either those who were raised in traditional and religious families or those who were raised in non‐religious families, with all the differences that we had in opinion and points of view, [we] believed in “having a simple appearance” as a value. We did not have a deep difference in our appearance [in terms of clothing] with our families that would have created any conflict with them or [compel us to] fight to defend our clothing rights,’ which would have been our first steps towards a [form of] social activism when we were young. (Ahmadi‐Khorasani, 2018).

Ahmadi‐Khorasani argues that for women of her generation, fighting against mandatory hijab was a social, collective demand. She adds, “We cared about its impact on women’s social, economic and political status. We did not consider it as an attack to our ‘individual identity.’” Here, Khorasani points to a shared understanding of what she witnessed forming among her peers of their collective responsibility

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

141

toward each other, whereby common causes motivated her generation to work for change for their collective goal. She does not observe the same push for a common cause among the younger generation of activists, whom she characterizes as having prioritized what they are wearing over fighting for their civil and political rights. Her description of their “clothing rights” means that she pinpoints this key comparative difference between older and younger generations and cites it as being the “reason for the birth of Girls of the Revolution Street” (Ahmadi‐Khorasani, 2018). Ahmadi Khorasani was asked why they had not expanded. She explained in her response (2018): "Family" in Iran plays an important and influential role not only in one’s personal life, but also in the social and political life of its members (especially in the lives of girls). Naturally, such a position plays an essential role in the evolution of social, political and cultural developments in society, and the way these changes take place. In this way, it seems that “intergenerational relations” have had their own influence on the way of struggle and its scope in the social and political arena. Therefore, it seems that in our country, the developments that are taking place are radical and explosive, but in fact they are calm and continuous.

What Ahmadi‐Khorasani and Abbasgholizadeh are alluding to is that for four decades, the women’s rights movement was able to mobilize various religious and non‐religious groups in an everyday politics that resisted “imposing the veil.” However, “Girls of the Revolution Street,” albeit more expansive in its reach via online platforms, ignores the necessity of fostering solidarity between disparate ideological forces and viewpoints around the imposition of the veil – and does so irrespective of the complex political discourse surrounding it.

TOWARD AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE: IRANIAN FEMINISM SHEDS ITS SKIN The subject of women’s rights in Iran has become a crowded collection of diasporic and insider soundbites being drowned out by those who are more tech‐savvy, telegenic, provocative, and that seem to be more adept at holding the spotlight. Still, it is unclear if these newer strategies will have any bite: social media campaigns are often echo chambers for those who go online and consult the same networks. Although more than 53 million Iranians are reportedly Internet mobile users (Jafari, 2018), this does not mean their exposure to gender awareness campaigns will lead to wider public pressure that insists upon gender equality in the law. Moreover, there is the very serious consequence of pursuing these kinds of activities. “Dabbling in feminism” has been treated as a crime (Montreal Gazette, 2016). Many questions still remain about the limitations, efficacy, and impact of feminist and women’s rights campaigns launched and administered primarily via social media. It is uncertain what will transpire given that political activism in Iran has shifted largely from grassroots campaigning which proliferated in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then, empowering women as civil society members meant ICT training and NGO capacity building. This has given way to an amorphous digital activism where collaboration and strategizing do not necessarily involve coalition building, fostering a healthy and vibrant civil society, and/or

142

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

working toward reform within the government system. How can long‐term gender awareness and consciousness be cultivated with the purposes of effectuating actual policy changes that improve women’s status countrywide? Will Iranian women continue to be persuaded to challenge gender‐discriminatory legislation and policies eventually, using emancipatory language, be it feminist, liberal, Islamic, and/or human rights, in order to compel fundamental policy changes? Or does the swirling celebrity echo chamber and fast‐paced news cycle merely request that one submits an online post on feminism temporarily – and, as is the swift nature of social media, proceed with moving on with one’s life by clicking on the next hot topic issue? Will the woman straphanger highlighted in the opening paragraph of this work, who defiantly stood up to a cleric challenging the way she wore her hijab, spark and continue a movement for gender equality? The individualization of protest may partly be seen in terms of the neoliberal understanding of the self (no community, only individuals; no collective struggles, only self‐branding through separate nodes of protests). But it may also be seen in terms of the layers on which the internet is built, according to Zajacz (2013). One may, for example, have Facebook discussion groups, though it is still not possible to create shared accounts. That begs the question of how indigenous women’s activism will ultimately be triumphant. There no longer appears to be an insistence or need to help train women to cultivate a gender consciousness in their own lives through these kinds of activities. The immediacy of response enabled by social media platforms and the growing number of Iranians dependent on mobile technology have made many of these methods ineffective – in the span of a decade. Perhaps the answer lies in that constant which has always held true over the past 40 years: Iranian women will not be dismissed. Political losses are only blemishes incurred during the season. The Iranian women’s movement is like a chrysalis; it continuously sheds its skin, reemerging the moment it is second guessed (Batmanghelichi, 2019). To speak of feminism in post‐revolutionary Iran is to speak about a social movement crystallizing through repeated acts of resistance against state ideology and policy, though its cumulative force has become vulnerable to fragile coalitions within its women’s activists base and the exigencies of surviving exile of which many of its leaders now face. To anyone familiar with this movement, there is some hope that personality clashes that seem to befall any assembly of politically minded persons under high pressure will be eventually set aside for the unifying purpose of improving women’s status.

NOTES 1.  The video has been viewed on Facebook over 226,000 times and shared by 3,549 and elicited over 724 user comments as of its posting on September 13, 2019 (Alinejad, 2018). 2.  Posted on the home page of My Stealthy Freedom is the statement: “The right for individual Iranian women to choose whether they want hijab.” “Campaign:#MyStealthyFreedom,” MyStealthyFreedom.net, accessed June 26, 2015, http://mystealthyfreedom.net/en/. 3.  See Another woman arrested in Iran for protesting compulsory veiling, RFE/RL, 2018. 4.  In initial press reports, her name appeared as Vida Movahed. 5.  Instagram is owned by Facebook.

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

143

6.  Facebook and Twitter were banned in 2009 and Telegram in May 2018. 7.  See Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti dies after arrest (2012, November 8). BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20259533. 8.  Shojaei is a leading women’s activist and co‐founder of the One Million Signatures Campaign for women’s equal rights; she resides in the Netherlands. UK resident Sadr is an Iranian lawyer, journalist, and co‐founder of Justice for Iran. Ardalan is a co‐founder of the One Million Signatures Campaign, and co‐founder of Women’s Cultural Centre, along with Tehran-based Noushin Ahmadi-Khorasani, who will be discussed later in the chapter. She permanently resides in Sweden. 9.  The United States, Hong Kong’s The Institute for Women’s Empowerment, and the Netherlands’ Hivos Foundation are just three examples. 10.  Ebadi has demanded a United Nations‐supervised referendum for Iranians to choose their own form of government. She called for changes to the Islamic Republic’s “constitution to a secular constitution based on the universal declaration of human rights.” She and 14 other activists, politicians, lawyers, and intellectuals in Iran published a signed declaration in the Journal of Democracy’s February 2018 issue urging “a peaceful transition from the Islamic Republic to a secular parliamentary democracy based on free popular franchise, complete respect for human rights, and the lifting of all institutionalized discrimination, especially complete equality for women, ethnic groups, religions, and all matters of cultural, social, political, and economic choice.” https://www.iranrights.org/library/document/3362 11.  Compulsory hijab has been one the main pillars of the Islamic Republic’s Islamization policies, and challenging it in such a demonstrable manner would subject one to severe punishment. This is likely the reason for its de‐prioritization among Iranian women’s activists in the last two decades until Movahedi’s act. 12.  My Stealthy Freedom has no apparent political affiliation, yet it clearly aligns itself with critics of the regime and its policies on public morality and dress, among other issues. A new online campaign called Chaharshanbeh‐ha‐ye Sefid (WhiteWednesdays) was born from the My Stealthy Freedom campaign, encouraging women to remove their hijab in public on Wednesdays and record and share it on social media. It spread rapidly across the country; the recorded videos also became testimonies of brutal reactions of both the police and paramilitary groups such as Basij in suppressing these women. Eventually, the slogan/hashtag of “My Camera My Weapon” became a campaign, aiming to raise awareness of the constant harassment and assault that women and girls face in Iran’s streets as a result of forced hijab laws. See Amnesty International (2019), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/03/ iran-pro-government-vigilantes-attack-women-for-standing-up-against-forced-hijab-laws/. 13.  The One Million Signatures campaign (Yek Milyun Emzā barā‐ye Laghv‐e Qavānin‐e Tab‘iz Āmiz) was a public petition organized by women in Iran to gather one million signatures to challenge gender‐discriminatary legislation and laws and was founded in 2006. The campaign sought to secure equal rights in marriage and inheritance, and an end to polygamy, among other objectives. Its participants and founders have faced government persecution.

REFERENCES Akhavan, N. (2013). Electronic Iran: The cultural politics of an online evolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Ahmadi-Khorasani, N. (2018, March 6). The girls of Enghelab street and the emergence of a new generation of social activists. Wordpress.com. Retrieved from https://noushinahmadi.wordpress. com/2018/03/06/%D8%AF%D8%AE%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AE%D B%8C%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%82%D9%84%D8% A7%D8%A8-%D9%88-%D8%B8%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1-%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF-%DA%A9%D9%86/. Aliakbar, J. (2007). Two tales of a city: An exploratory study of cultural consumption among Iranian youth. Iranian Studies, 40(3), 367–383. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311904 Alinejad, M. (2014, June 4). Iranian state television faked my rape. Time.om. Retrieved from http:// time.com/2820082/iranian-state-television-faked-my-rape/

144

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

Alinejad, M. (2016, June 19). My stealthy freedom Facebook page. Facebook. Retrieved from https:// www.facebook.com/StealthyFreedom/timeline Alinejad, M. (2018, September 13). My stealthy freedom Facebook page. Facebook. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/StealthyFreedom/ Amnesty International. (2018, February 26). Iran: Dozens of women ill‐treated and at risk of long jail terms for peacefully protesting compulsory veiling. Amnesty International. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/iran-dozens-of-women-ill-treated-and-at-riskof-long-jail-terms-for-peacefully-protesting-compulsory-veiling/ Amnesty International. (2019, March 12). Iran: Pro‐government vigilantes attack women for standing up against forced hijab laws. Amesty.org. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/ latest/news/2019/03/iran-pro-government-vigilantes-attack-women-for-standing-up-againstforced-hijab-laws/ Anderson, C., & Sadjadpour, K. (2018, January 4). Iran’s cyber threat: Espionage, sabotage, and revenge. Cyber Policy Initiative Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Batmanghelichi, K. (2019, February 13). Iran’s women are not for turning. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-13/iran-s-women-won-t-be-muzzled. Batmanghelichi, K. S., & Mouri, L. (2017). Cyberfeminism, Iranian style: Online feminism in post‐2009 Iran. Feminist Media Histories, 3(1), 50–80. doi:10.1525/fmh.2017.3.1.50 BBC Persian. (2018. February 6). 22 Ravayat az ‘Dokhtaran‐e Kheyaban‐e Enghelab’; Edameyeh yek Keshmesh‐e Chehel Saleh [22 Narratives from the girls of revolution street: Continuing a forty‐year struggle]. BBC.com. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/persian/blog-viewpoints-42947653 Beck, L. & Nashat, G, (Eds.). (2004). Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Center for Human Rights in Iran. (2019, April 16). Hijab protester Vida Movahedi remains detained despite eligibility for release. Retrieved from https://iranhumanrights.org/2019/04/hijab-protester-vida-movahedi-remains-detained-despite-eligibility-for-release/ Deutsche Welle Farsi. (2019, February 21). Koneshgari‐ye Ejtimai‐i va Siasi‐ye Celebriti‐ha: Chera va Chegooneh?. Deutsche Welle. Retrieved from https://www.dw.com/fa-ir/iran/av-47617264 Esfandiari, G. (2019, January 2). Instagram next up for Iranian censorship?. Radio Free Europe. Retrieved from https://www.rferl.org/a/instagram-next-up-for-iranian-censorship-/29688302.html Faris, D., & Rahimi, B. (Eds.). (2016). Social media in Iran: Politics and society after 2009. New York, NY: SUNY Press. Fathi, N. (2015, April 20). Meet the iconoclast inspiring Iranian women to remove their headscarves. Vogue. Retrieved from http://www.vogue.com Financial Tribune. (2018, February 4). Iran ranked world’s 7th Instagram user. Retrieved from https:// financialtribune.com/articles/economy-sci-tech/81384/iran-ranked-world-s-7th-instagram-user Grant, K. (2015, October 19). Masih Alinejad: The Iranian hijab campaigner who won’t be silenced. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/masih-alinejadthe-iranian-hijab-campaigner-who-wont-be-silenced-a6688626.html Gheytanchi, E., & Moghadam, V. (2014). Women, social protests, and the new media activism in the Middle East and North Africa. International Review of Modern Sociology, 40(1), 1–26. Hafiz, Y. (2014, May 12). Iranian women discard their hijabs on Masih Alinejad’s ‘My stealthy freedom’ Facebook page. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2014/05/12/iran-women-hijab-masih-alinejad_n_5309861.html Hatam, N. (2017, June 13). Why Iranian women are wearing white on Wednesdays. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40218711 Hebblethwaite, C., & Irani, N. (2014, May 12). The women in Iran taking off the hijab. BBC Trending. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-27373368 Holslin, P. (2016, February 9). Masih Alinejad: “My hair was like a hostage in the hands of the Iranian government. Women in the World. Retrieved from https://womenintheworld.com/2016/02/09/ masih-alinejad-my-hair-was-like-a-hostage-in-the-hands-of-the-iranian-government/ Howard, P. (2010). The digital origins of dictatorship and democracy: Information technology and political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Itkowitz, C. (2016, August 9). This Iranian activist fights for women’s rights not to wear hijab. But Donald Trump has complicated her effort. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08/09/in-era-of-trump-being-pro-womenand-anti-muslim-can-seem-the-same-but-its-not/?utm_term=.000033eaf5d8

Beh Tou Cheh? (What’s It to You?)

145

Jafari, H. (2018, May 29). 53 million mobile internet users in Iran until March 2018. Techrasa. Retrieved from http://techrasa.com/2018/05/29/53-million-mobile-internet-users-in-iran-march-2018/ Kamali Dehghan, S. (2014, May 12). Iranian women post pictures of themselves without hijabs on Facebook. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/ iran-women-hijab-facebook-pictures-alinejad Kamali Dehghan, S. (2018a, January 29). Second woman arrested in Tehran for hijab protest. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/29/second-womanarrested-tehran-hijab-protest-iran. Kamali Dehghan, S. (2018b, July 9). Woman arrested in Iran over Instagram video of her dancing. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/08/iran-womanarrested-instagram-video-dancing. Khamis, S., & Vaughn, K. (2011, May 29). Cyberactivism in the Egyptian Revolution: How civic engagement and citizen journalism tilted the balance. Arab Media & Society Journal Online. Retrieved from https://www.arabmediasociety.com/cyberactivism-in-the-egyptian-revolutionhow-civic-engagement-and-citizen-journalism-tilted-the-balance/ Lacey, H. (2018, December 7). Masih Alinejad: ‘We were told if you showed your hair, you would be hung by it in hell.’ Financial Times. Retrieved from http://www.ft.com Lake, E. (2018, April 5). Iran’s Nobel Laureate is done with reform. She wants regime change. Bloomberg. Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-05/shirinebadi-is-done-trying-to-reform-iran-she-wants-regime-change Laneri, R. (2016, May 25). Iranian women are cutting their hair and dressing as men. NYpost.com. Retrieved from http://nypost.com/2016/05/25/iranian-women-are-cutting-their-hair-and-dressing-as-men/ Lipin, M. (2018, July 10). New details revealed of Iranian women arrested for dancing videos. VOA News on Iran. Retrieved from https://www.voanews.com/a/names-revealed-of-iranian-womenarrested-for-dancing-in-videos/4476040.html Lloyd, A. (2018, July 16). One woman’s battle against mandatory hijab. The Weekly Standard. Retrieved from  https://www.weeklystandard.com/alice-b-lloyd/masih-alinejad-wind-in-my-hair-onewomans-battle-against-mandatory-hijab Mehr News. (2018, August 4). Persian content in cyberspace hits significant growth. Mehr News Agency. Retrieved from https://en.mehrnews.com/news/136394/Persian-content-in-cyberspacehits-significant-growth Montreal Gazette. (2016, June 26). Concordia professor jailed in Iran for ‘dabbling in feminism, security.’ Retrieved from https://montrealgazette.com/news/concordia-professor-jailed-in-iran-fordabbling-in-feminism-security Mutsvairo, B. (2016). Dovetailing desires for democracy with new ICTs’ potentiality as platform for activism. In Digital activism in the social media era: Critical reflections on emerging trends in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cham: Palgrave McMillan. Nasseri, L. (2014, May 16). Iranian conservatives hit back at Facebook campaign on headscarves. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-16/iranconservatives-hit-back-at-facebook-campaign-on-headscarves Radio Farda. (2018, July 16). Iran arrests 46 in fresh crackdowns on Instagram models. Retrieved from https:// en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-arrests-46-in-fresh-crackdowns-on-instagram-models/29368324.html Rasmussen, T. (2016). The Internet soapbox: Perspectives on a changing public sphere. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. RFE/RL. (2018, February 16). Another woman arrested in Iran for protesting against compulsory veiling. Retrieved from https://en.radiofarda.com/a/woman-protests-against-compulsory-veiliran/29043773.html Regencia, T. (2018, July 9). Iran, Instagram and the Case of Dancing Teen Maedeh Hojabri. Al Jazeera. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/iran-instagram-case-dancing-teenmaedeh-hojabri-180709093540610.html Sadr, S., & Amin, S. (2012). Crime and impunity: Sexual torture of women in Islamic Republic. London: Justice for Iran. Shahidian, H. (2002). Women in Iran: Gender politics in the Islamic Republic. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

146

KRISTIN SORAYA BATMANGHELICHI

Sreberny, A., & Khiabany, G. (2011). Blogistan: The internet and politics in Iran. London: I.B. Tauris. Taylor, M., & Kanso, H. (2019, March 26). New Zealand women face praise and protests for donning the hijab. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com Tahmasebi‐Birgani, V. (2017). Social media as a site of transformative politics: Iranian women’s online contestations. In V. Peyman (Ed.), Iran’s struggles for social justice: Economics, agency, justice, activism (pp. 181–198). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978‐3‐319‐44227‐3_11 Tabari, A. (1986). The women’s movement in Iran: A hopeful prognosis. Feminist Studies, 12(2), 343–360. Tufekci, Z. (2018). Twitter and tear gas. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. US Department of State. (2019, April 22). Advancing the US maximum pressure campaign on Iran. US Department of State Office of the Spokesperson. Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/r/ pa/prs/ps/2019/04/291285.htm Women Living under Muslim Laws. (2010, July 2). Iran: Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh sentenced to 2 ½ years in jail and 30 lashes for ‘Acts against National Security’. Women Living under Muslim. Retrieved from http://www.wluml.org/node/6306 Women Living under Muslim Laws. (2011, December 6). “Iran: Zanan TV launches!”. Women Living under Muslim Laws. Retrieved from http://www.wluml.org/media/iran-zanan-tv-launches Zakaria, R. (2018, July 3). The woman whose hair frightens Iran. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/books/review/masih-alinejad-wind-in-my-hair.html Zajacz, R. (2013). Wikileaks and the problems of anonymity: A network control perspective. Media, Culture & Society, 35(4), 489–505.

CHAPTER 7 DIGITAL ACTIVISM GHANAIAN FEMINIST STYLE Akosua K. Darkwah

ABSTRACT Since the advent of digital activism, a lot of scholarly attention has been paid to the use of the internet, especially in Africa, for effecting changes in authoritarian rule. This chapter extends the work done by such scholars focusing on the work of African digital feminist activists, thus adding to the growing body of work on digital feminist activism. Drawing on interviews and analyses of digital material produced by four different feminist groups in Ghana, this chapter explores the variety of ideas that such digital feminists express, and the manner in which such ideas are received by the larger Ghanaian society. It argues that, indeed, digital feminists are making a positive impact on the larger Ghanaian society. While these digital feminists are subjected to cyberbullying, there are also many ways in which other individuals, both Ghanaian and otherwise are showing support for these women and their ideas. Increasingly, with particular reference to the newest of these groups, it is clear that they have institutional support for their views as evident in public and private organizations sanctioning employees or associates whose digital language they have critiqued. As with activism targeted at authoritarianism, digital activism targeted at patriarchy gets results, changing mindsets and penalizing sexist behaviors. Keywords: African feminism; digital feminism; activism; social change; sexuality; digital feminism

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 147–165 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031008

147

148

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

INTRODUCTION African feminism has come of age. This is evident in a number of ways, including the burgeoning scholarship on Africa written by African feminists, the creation of journals dedicated specifically to this body of work, the growth of women’s movements on the continent, the creation of spaces on the continent to affirm the work of African feminist activists and/or scholars, as well as the increasing recognition of the importance of women’s rights by African institutions. First, with respect to scholarship, over the last four decades, a group of feminist intellectuals from across the continent have developed a body of work that can be described as contributing a uniquely African understanding and appreciation of feminist ideas. Based on an acute awareness of their continental realities, these scholars have contributed a uniquely African perspective to the larger body of work on feminism. They have focused on a range of topics including politics, sexuality, family, gender‐based violence and work. In the area of politics, scholars such as Aidoo (1985) and Manuh (1988) have noted the role of Akan women in traditional governance, thus, offering a countervailing body of work to the literature on women’s limited participation in modern governance structures not only on the continent but globally. Others have offered critical perspectives on the unique role African first ladies, particularly in military regimes played in movement building on the continent in the 1980s. Amina Mama (1995) is perhaps the most well‐known scholar working in this area. More so, other scholars working on politics have explored the nature of women’s organizing (Manuh, 1991; Tsikata, 1989, 2009) as well as women in parliaments on the continent (Tamale, 1999). In the area of sexuality, scholars such as Adomako Ampofo (1999) have criticized the heavy emphasis on African sexuality as pathological, while others have pointed out the ways in which some African cultures placed value on sex as pleasure and not just for men but for women as well (Tamale, 2005). In the last decade, in a groundbreaking edited collection, a range of African scholars offered fresh perspectives on the complex relationships between gender and sexuality on the continent, focusing on themes such as sexual integrity, sexual rights, sexual pleasure, and the often‐contested topic on the continent, sexual orientation (Tamale, 2011). With respect to gender and constructions of the family, some scholars draw on cultural practices on the continent to unsettle our understandings of progeny. For example, Apusigah (2005) writing on Ghana and Amadiume (1987) writing on Nigeria, point out ways in which women are able to become progenitors in the absence of male heirs. In the literature on gender‐based violence, some of the issues discussed are the ways in which a misinterpretation of scripture (Armah‐Koney, 2009), and a male‐dominated application of scriptural doctrine, such as forgiveness (Adomako Ampofo & Okyerefo, 2014), makes the recognition of gender‐based violence and its resolution difficult (Oduyoye, 2009). With literature on women and economic life, while some like Manuh (1994) focus on the constraints to women’s economic well‐being after the implementation

149

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

of structural adjustment policies, others such as Darkwah (2007) discuss the limits to capital accumulation even for those who ostensibly were able to take advantage of the opportunities that neoliberal trading policies presented. In addition, an increasing number of African feminists, both on the continent and in the diaspora have created journals specifically devoted to the publication of works written by Africans about Africa. Two of such journals, established in the early 2000s are Jenda and Feminist Africa. Both offer open access to scholars in recognition of the difficulties with access to digital academic databases particularly for scholars on the continent. Since 2001, Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies has been published under the able leadership of a team of African women co‐editors based in the global North, who are explicitly committed to publishing works that do not devalue Africa. In the first editorial, outlining the purpose of the journal, they point out that, they desire that the journal will provide a “critical space to ideas that have not been accorded visibility in the global arena due to lack of representation.” Similar in motivations to the goals that underpinned the establishment of Jenda, since 2002, African feminists on the continent have published in the journal Feminist Africa. Initially housed at the African Gender Institute, based at the University of Cape Town, the journal production is currently being transitioned to the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. With over 20 issues published so far, the journal represents a diversity of academic and activist voices on the continent. The journal issues have explored a range of subjects of interest to feminist academics and activists on the continent, including feminist organizing, the politics of fashion and beauty on the continent, Pan‐Africanism and Feminism, sexuality, gender and violence, militarism, conflict and women’s activism, land, labor and gendered livelihoods, diaspora voices, national politricks and intellectual politics. A unique aspect of Feminist Africa is the value it places on understanding feminist activism on the continent. To this end, each issue has devoted space to showcasing the works of activists in one particular country, including offering first person accounts of activism and the philosophy underpinning the works of these activists. Movement building has also grown on the continent. Across the continent, there are now various organizations such as the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana, that work explicitly to transform the patriarchal practices that shape the lives and experiences of women on the continent. As Tripp, Casimiro, Kwesiga, and Mungwa (2009, p. 15) point out, this marks a clear departure from the past where there was “ambivalence and defensiveness about using the term ‘feminism’ in Africa.” There are many associations on the continent now that share the same transformative ideals of feminists in other parts of the world. Support for their work comes from donors including the African Women’s Development Fund which was set up to provide feminist organizations on the continent with financial support for their ideas and projects. Furthermore, African feminist scholars and/or activists have created both digital and physical spaces for themselves that offer the opportunity to network and build community. Almost two decades ago, feminist scholars on the continent created a digital community of scholars known as the Gender and Women’s .

150

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

Studies Network. Scholars in the group share information about publications, discuss issues of pertinence to them and offer feedback to scholars working through various ideas. In the last decade also, scholars and activists have come together to create the African Feminist Forum. At the very first meeting held in Accra in November 2006, over 100 African women activists and/or academics came together to reflect on, and chart a course for growing and strengthening feminist activism on the continent. In the Charter developed at that first forum, they affirmed that: Our ideological task as feminists is to understand this system and our political task is to end it. Our focus is fighting against patriarchy as a system rather than fighting individual men or women. Therefore, as feminists, we define our work as investing individual and institutional energies in the struggle against all forms of patriarchal oppression and exploitation. (African Feminist Forum, 2015, p. 6)

Finally, one can say that African feminism has come of age because African states are also increasingly acknowledging and affirming the importance of women’s rights. This is perhaps best reflected in the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, known as the African Women’s Protocol, which came into force on November 25, 2005. This protocol is quite transformative in its vision and unique in a number of ways. As Gawaya and Mukasa (2005, p. 42) point out: It reinforces the status of women’s rights that have been established and elaborated in other international and regional instruments. But it is also the first instrument in international law explicitly to enshrine women’s sexual and reproductive rights to medical abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest, or when the continuation of pregnancy endangers the health of a mother. It is the first instrument in international law to call for the legal prohibition of female genital mutilation. And it is the first instrument of its kind developed by Africans, for Africans.

While the work of academics is to first and foremost undertake research that helps understand the world in which we live, feminist scholarship is political. It moves beyond research to seek transformation of minds, and eventually the societies we live in. As evident above, feminist ideas are changing the African continent in fundamental ways, discussed in both women’s organizing on the continent as well as continental protocols. This chapter investigates the ways in which feminist ideas have transformed citizens on the continent. It explores the manner in which feminist ideas have filtered into spaces other than academia in the African context and explores the impact if any. It seeks to investigate what young people who are non‐academics have made of the feminist ideas which they have been exposed to, and outside an academic context. Specifically, it explores young Ghanaian women’s use of the internet as a space for feminist activism and the response of the larger Ghanaian society to this activism. Much has been made of digital activism since the early 2000s. Scholars based in the West have theorized about the emergence, development and outcomes of cyberactivism (Earl, Kimport, Prieto, Rush, & Reynoso, 2010; Garrett, 2006) as well as its role in feminist activism (Vogt & Chen, 2001). In Asia, scholars such as Wong (2001) have studied the use of the internet for political and social mobilization. Similar to Asia, the interest in internet activism in Africa has been largely

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

151

skewed toward internet activism for political change with much being made of the use of the internet in toppling the regime of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt (Lim, 2012; Tufekci & Wilson, 2012), and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia (Lotan, Graeff, Ananny, Gaffney, & Pearce, 2011). Although in other parts of the world feminist activism has been explored (Stephan, 2007, 2013; Vogt & Chen, 2001), there has not been much scholarly interest in digital feminist activism on the African continent. This chapter is a first step in that direction, exploring the extent to which the internet serves as a space for African women to express their feminist ideals, and perhaps sway others in their direction while doing so. To do this, I identified a number of blogs/Facebook accounts that were run by Ghanaian women, and discussed women’s issues. One year’s publication on these sites was systematically analyzed to identify key themes of interest. In addition to the content analysis, interviews were conducted with the writers of the blogs/Facebook pages to gain more insights into who they are, the logic underpinning their choice of social media as a medium of expression, the content of the material shared via social media, as well as the backlashes they have possibly received and their responses to such backlashes (see the Appendix for a list of the interview dates). Four main social media sites were analyzed for this project: Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen, MindofMalaka, GhanaFeminism and Pepper Dem Ministries. These sites are by no means exhaustive in terms of feminist activism. There are many other individuals such as Nana Ama Agyemang Asante of CitiFM who spreads her ideas on Twitter. The first three sites were chosen because they had a significant online presence in 2015 when research on this issue began, and the fourth was chosen because of its popularity in 2018 when this work was in the process of completion. Among other things, their names were referenced in lyrics of some popular musicians.

ON AFRICAN WOMEN AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE The digital divide, which Wilson (2006, p. 300) defines as “inequality in access, distribution, and use of information and communication technologies between two or more populations” is based primarily on geographic location. Data from the International Telecommunications Union make this abundantly clear. While countries such as Iceland, Bahrain, Denmark, Korea, Kuwait, Luxemburg, Norway, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had internet penetration rates ranging between 95.9% and 99% as at 2018, in some African countries such as Burundi and Nigeria the recorded rates were 2.7% and 7.5% respectively in 2017. These numerical differences reflect the differences in the infrastructure of these states, and the discretionary income available to citizens in the different geographic locations, deficits which Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) refer to as a lack of material access. Beyond material access, there is also what Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) refer to as skill access, a lack of digital skills. Skill access is linked to age and gender. According to the International Telecommunications Union (2017, p. 1), while 21.8% of the population in Africa use the internet, the percentage is almost twice as much for the younger population.

152

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

Among Africans aged between 15 and 24, 40.3% use the internet. Similarly, the proportion of African women using the internet is 25% lower than the proportion of men using the internet (International Telecommunication Union, 2017, p. 3). The age and gender differences are in larger part a reflection of access to formal education. Across the continent, a larger proportion of the younger population have had access to higher levels of education than the older population. Similarly, the gender gap in education has only recently been bridged in many African countries. Therefore, the differences in material access and skill access suggest that the average Ghanaian woman who engages in digital activism would have at least secondary education and access to discretionary income. The section below describes some of these women who were the focus of the research project.

WHO ARE THESE GHANAIAN DIGITAL FEMINIST ACTIVISTS? As shown in Table 7.1, the Ghanaian feminist social media activists run sites that were started at different times but all after 2012. The first of these blogs, Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen was started in 2012 by two childhood friends, now in their late 30s, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah and Malaka Grant. In 2013, Malaka Grant set up a separate blog (MindOfMalaka), which seeks among other things, to respond to the “absurdity” in Ghanaian discussions of gender roles and relations. The third blog, GhanaFeminism which was started in 2015, is run by a woman in her 20s who at that time had recently graduated from law school. The blogger goes by the screen name Obaa boni, an Akan word which translates as naughty girl and the choice is intentional; she figures that embracing the subversive would take the power away from sexist men to brand her as such. She explicitly seeks to unsettle notions of femininity in Ghana. The fourth is not a blog but a Facebook account and was started by a group of seven women who go by the name Pepper Dem Ministries; Dr Louise Carol Serwaa Donkor, Noelyne Mensah, Henrietta Mercer, Felicity Nelson, Dr Ama Opoku‐Agyemang, Efe Plange and Efua Sintim. This fourth group burst onto the scene in Ghana in September 2017 in a manner that made their presence felt quite palpably. Unlike the other three groups, Pepper Dem Ministries have a Table 7.1.  Summary of Founding and Founders of Four Major Social Media Feminist Activist Sites. Name of Site

Year of Founding

Founders

Adventuresfromthe bedroomsofafricanwomen MindofMalaka GhanaFeminism Pepper Dem Ministries

2012

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah and Malaka Grant

2013 2015 2017

Malaka Grant Obaa boni Dr Louise Carol Serwaa Donkor, Noelyne Mensah, Henrietta Mercer, Felicity Nelson, Dr Ama Opoku‐Agyemang, Efe Plange and Efua Sintim

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

153

strong online presence. They are present on a range of social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In addition, they combine digital activism with offline activism in ways that the first three do not. They make appearances on radio and television programs in Ghana, run a weekly radio show on one station, are willing to be panelists on different platforms that further their agenda and have t‐shirts which they sell. In March 2018, as part of events commemorating International Women’s Day, they organized an intergenerational feminist dialogue in Accra which was sponsored by the African Women’s Development Fund. Finally, Pepper Dem Ministries uses their online platform to actively critique misogynistic practices and attitudes in Ghanaian society, and are quick to draw attention to such practices and attitudes, especially when expressed by key figures in Ghanaian society. All the women who run these social media sites are born to Ghanaian parents (one of them has an African American parent) and grew up in Ghana. All but one have tertiary education although their college experiences differ. While the women who run the blogs of GhanaFeminism, MindOfMalaka and Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen attended college in the West (two in the United States and one in the United Kingdom), six of those who run Pepper Dem Ministries went to college in Ghana, the seventh is yet to embark on a college degree. For the majority of them, university is the space in which they first encountered feminist ideas in an academic setting.

WHAT ARE THE FEMINIST SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISTS SAYING? Although the women behind these social media sites share quite a bit in common by way of educational and socio‐cultural background, their approaches and content are quite different. These four groups of activists can be compared and contrasted on both their approach and content. GhanaFeminism and Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen are similar to the extent that they are open to having guest writers on their blogs although the former has had less success with this approach than the latter. Malaka Grant and Pepper Dem Ministries, on the contrary, write all of the content on their sites themselves. A second difference between the four lies in approach. Malaka Grant and Pepper Dem Ministries use sophisticated language that points to the absurdity of patriarchal ideas. Pepper Dem Ministries takes this further by explicitly flipping patriarchal scripts to set their readers thinking. In spite of the similarities between Obaa boni and Adventuresfrom thebedroomsofafricanwomen on the one hand, and Malaka Grant and Pepper Dem Ministries on the other hand, they tackle a wide range of subjects as outlined below.

THE OPEN SITES: GHANAFEMINISM AND ADVENTURES GhanaFeminism, the Academic Approach Obaa boni, the creator of GhanaFeminism began her blog in recognition of the lack of a community of Ghanaian feminists in digital spaces. Even the availability

154

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

of the domain name – GhanaFeminism – at the time she registered her blog was enough evidence of the lack of attention to her topic of interest. Obaa boni had an explicit educational agenda; she was intending to reach 14–30 years old Ghanaian women, and slowly transform their ideas about their place in the world. She intended to undermine the strong sense of biological determinism that governed gender relations in Ghana. The tone of her language online is in her own words, “not respectable.” “I run crude and crass commentary” she says. Her writing is also more academic. Obaa boni has begun to develop what she calls Ghaminism which she defined in her May 5, 2015 blog as “a socio‐political online movement aimed at liberating Ghanaians from constricting gender oppression as part of a greater global movement for equity.” Ghaminism, she argues is for everyone, with an emphasis on women, gender – non binary, androgynous and transgender persons …. It is for persons from all ten regions, different class backgrounds, from lawyer to kayayoo,1 abled to disabled, literate to illiterate, adult to child, “half‐co2” to koo‐blackie,3 non believer ….

She goes on to argue that Ghaminism does not seek to throw away Ghanaian tradition simply because it is tradition … Ghaminism will willingly incorporate good and ethical practices from the “West” if it contributes to the liberation of Ghanaians.

Adventures, Sexuality Unscripted Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen was started three years before Obaa boni. The two women who started it have been friends for 20 years, having first met in boarding school in Ghana. Although they left for universities abroad (one to the United Kingdom and the other to the United States), they maintained close communication, writing long letters to each other about their lives in university – the men they were meeting, what they thought of them and so on. They were thus quite comfortable discussing their sexual lives with each other. Almost a decade after college, one of them, Nana Darkoa, went for a holiday in the Western Region of Ghana with a number of female friends where they spent a fair amount of time openly discussing their sexual fantasies and experiences. It dawned on Nana then that contrary to what the public discourse about women’s sexuality was, there were quite a number of women willing to openly discuss their sexuality. She came from that holiday wanting to blog about this. Her childhood friend in the meantime wanted to do a book on a similar topic. The compromise was to start with a blog and later convert some of the material into a book. They see the blog as a gift to the African feminist movement. Their approach is revolutionary to say the least. Its importance can best be appreciated if the content of the blog is contrasted with the mainstream literature on African sexuality. A large body of work on African sexuality is written from a pathologizing perspective (Mama, Pereira, & Manuh, 2005) – witness the quite large body of work on HIV/AIDS produced since the 1980s documenting the incidence of the disease on the continent (Chin, 1990; Hervish & Clifton, 2012), the factors that contribute to the high rates of the disease on the continent (Jewkes, Dunkle, Nduna, & Shai, 2010) or mechanisms for reducing the incidence of the disease (Bastien,

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

155

Kajula, & Muhwezi, 2011; Gallant & Maticka‐Tyndale, 2004). Other scholars, such as Caldwell and Caldwell (1987) focused on explaining Africa’s “obsession with fertility.” While scholars have written about sexuality from a pathologizing perspective, citizens and public officials alike have perceived African women’s expressions of sexuality as problematic as evident in incidents of policing women’s clothing across the continent which led to the “My Dress My Choice” protest in Kenya on November 17, 2014. In other places, the state makes laws inhibiting women’s sexuality such as laws against the wearing of mini‐skirts in places like Uganda or the application of Sharia law in northern Nigeria. The journal, Feminist Africa, has done quite a bit to undermine the poor perceptions of African women’s sexuality. Four of its twenty‐two issues have been devoted to the topic. In the pages of this journal, the feminist African writers have sought to reclaim African women’s voices and perspectives on sexuality in its widest sense. Similarly, the collection of poems, short stories and essays in the edited collection African Sexuality: A Reader offers insights into what African women are thinking about sexuality. The blog, Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen, does for non‐academics what Feminist Africa and the edited collection do for the academic audiences on the continent and beyond. The site allows average Africans the opportunity to describe their own understandings and embodiments of sexuality. In so doing, writers acknowledge the reality that African women can and do have sexual desire. The expressions of sexuality made visible by the adventures blog in a non‐moralizing manner is groundbreaking for the continent. The founders of the blog come at it from two different ideological perspectives. One of them is unabashedly feminist. She does not write anonymously for the blog and has pictures of herself available online. She says of this approach, “My whole point is not to be anonymous; it is a deliberate, conscious, political decision. I’m writing about my sexuality and this is what I look like.” The other, does not describe herself as feminist. She embodies the feminist paradox (Leaper & Arias, 2011; Swirsky & Angelone, 2016), the situation where although women believe in the general principles underpinning the feminist movement, they are unwilling to be tagged with the label “feminist.” She also started out anonymously, largely because she is married to a pastor but outed herself later. In spite of their different ideological perspectives, they have managed to create an online space where founders and guest editors alike can share their thoughts on sexuality in a non‐judgmental manner. Two entries will suffice to illustrate this. On May 7, 2016, the blog entry, written by Nana Darkoa was titled International Masturbation Day – Yippee, I touched myself today and included the following text: “Oh my gawd, I’m horny.” I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Ermmm, why are you so excited to be horny.” Sigh, Girllllllll let me tell you what has been going on. This progestin only pill I have been on has completely killed my sexual desire. For the past 3 months I’ve rarely felt horny, I don’t randomly feel the need to use my vibrator … I miss the old me. The horny me. The one who would reach over and start stroking F because I wanted to get my groove back. And this morning I felt like, “Oh my goodness, my groove is not completely gone, dead and buried.”

Such language affirms a woman’s right to not just sexual pleasure, but self‐ pleasuring, an idea that is discouraged on a continent with a large Christian

156

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

population that views any alternatives to heterosexuality as abhorrent and alien to African culture. Similarly, on January 27, 2019, a guest writer, Laquo, a single mother of two shared her sex goals for the year in the following words: I want to give myself the permission to feel sexy, attractive, fun … long story short, I’m looking forward to some excitingly toe‐curling and back‐arching orgasmic sexual experiences this year.

As with the first excerpt, this is revolutionary for establishing that sex is not only the preserve of married couples as mainstream media on the continent will have us believe.

THE CLOSED SITES: MINDOFMALAKA AND PEPPER DEM MINISTRIES MindofMalaka, Flipping the Script on All Things Malaka Grant who created the MindofMalaka blog speaks to gender issues in a humorous manner that will still make people think at the end of the day. In a typical post responding to the idea in Ghana that cooking is the preserve of women, she writes referencing the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau: Your pastor is always telling you not to sell your birthright for a pot of soup, but what he neglects to tell you is that your manifest destiny is in learning to cook your own beans in the first place.

Unlike the other three, Malaka writes on a range of topics besides feminist ideas. She spends a fair bit of her time writing on issues of governance in Ghana. The product of an African American and Ghanaian union, Malaka is also attuned to issues of race in America, and thus, blogs about that as well. In each of these pieces, the humourous yet thoughtful approach she uses in her explicitly feminist pieces is evident. Malaka’s approach is similar to that adopted by Pepper Dem Ministries although the content of this site is more narrowly focused. Pepper Dem Ministries, Flipping the Script on Patriarchal Narratives On its Facebook page, Pepper Dem Ministries outlines its goal as seeking to probe the “structures operating in the Ghanaian society [which] leave both genders imbalanced and incompatible to work in unison to advance society.” They seek to achieve this goal by unsettling commonly held assumptions about male and female behavior in Ghanaian society so as to get Ghanaians to unlearn these toxic narratives. They do so by flipping the script of narratives applied to women. By applying them to men, they make the absurdity of these narratives obvious. Unlike the two friends who teamed up to create the Adventuresfrom thebedroomsofafricanwomen blog, the seven women who eventually registered Pepper Dem Ministries met each other online. A couple of them attended the same high school but at different times. Others were in college at the same time but did not know each other. Aged between 28 and 35, this is a group of young women who grew up in the social media age and use it to full advantage. A number of them run blogs (Sankofa reviews, aoamusings.com, lcserwaablogpost and

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

157

Chichi’s ramblings) and also share their thoughts on a range of feminist issues on Facebook. They found each other because people would tag them with each other’s posts, or they would discover that a number of them had been tagged to “perform rage” in response to clearly sexist posts on Facebook. Soon they sought each other out first as friends on Facebook and eventually when all of them were in one geographical space, the capital city of Ghana, they met face to face. In private conversations among themselves, they made jokes that they were running a church ministry and that one of them was going to be the church overseer and the other the worship leader. The idea of Pepper Dem for the name of the ministry came from the Nigerian social media space and was a term they used in reference to each other’s language. In deciding to set up a Facebook page, they experimented with a number of hashtags such as Sergeant Lee (taken from a posting by a Ghanaian actress, Lydia Forson), Amazonian women, as well as Pepper Dem Ministries. For some reason, it is Pepper Dem Ministries that caught on thus the name they decided to use. While they may not have been clear about what to name the group, there was no indecision about who they were and the goals of the page. In their first press release of Monday September 18, 2017, they wrote: The #PepperDemMinistries (PDM) is a group of like‐minded women on Facebook who were already in the business of probing into the structures operating in the Ghanaian society that somehow leave both genders imbalanced and incompatible to work in unison to advance society. We are called “Pepper Dem Ministries” because we engage with the issues which are mostly uncomfortable and unpopular in our socio‐cultural space. Pepper can burn and we raise issues which can make people shift in their seats.

This task of making people shift in their seats is no easy task. They engage with issues that are rarely discussed in a public manner in Ghana and do so using language that really gets the audience questioning the dominant narratives in Ghanaian society. Their first post was in response to two incidents that took place in early September 2017. First was a public feud between two quite well‐known journalists in Ghana over standard practice in journalism, and the second was the discovery by the “husband” of a well‐known media personality that, his wife was having an affair for which he was threatening to pour acid on her. They used these two incidents to question the often‐heard phrase in Ghana that “women are their own worst enemies,” as well as the notion that sexually unfaithful men should be left off the hook even as women are held to a higher moral standard on their sexual behaviors. After three days of operating their Facebook page, it had been liked one thousand times, suggesting that they had a fairly large following of people interested in their unique brand of flipping the script to get the attention of the Ghanaian public, and cause them to begin to question the taken‐for‐granted assumptions about men and women in Ghanaian society. Since their first post, they have subsequently authored hundreds of posts to which the public both in and outside of Ghana have responded. The following are two examples of posts on the Pepper Dem page that give a flavor of both the content and language use on the page as well as the variety of writers (both founders and non‐founders) who contribute to the posts on the page.

158

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

October 3, 2017 When you state that women are getting raped often, they protest and ask why you haven’t mentioned also that “men” get raped. Then you start to talk about how young boys are getting sexually violated by older women and these same people come and protest, insisting that boys are horny and for them as men, it is a lovely rite of passage. They like it. Me with my confused face: ©Louise Carol #PepperDemMinistries #AMonthOfPDM

December 8, 2017 What you don’t understand is, even if a woman dresses like she is "selling" her body, you still need to have the correct currency to have whatever you think she is selling. When you walk into a store, things are displayed in a way to make you yearn for the product. But trust and believe if you don’t have money for that product, you can’t have it. If you steal it, you get punished. Same for a woman, at her most objectified state, she decides you don’t meet the criteria to have what she is "selling," ya can’t have her! Plain and simple. What is this barbaric notion that when a woman dresses like she is selling it, or seducing you, the normal, often endorsed reaction is that she should be raped? Even if you think she has no self‐respect, why not instead shower her with the respect you think she should have? No that would make too much sense. ‐ Isabelle Masado #16daysofactivism #PepperDemMinistries #UnlearningToxicNarratives #FlippingTheScript

AND ARE WE LISTENING? The reception to these social media sites varies. The different responses to these sites give us insight into the average Ghanaian’s perceptions of and receptivity to feminist ideas. Obaa boni has been cyberbullied many times, especially by people on Twitter. She has been ridiculed for her appearance and tormented for not only being unmarried, but also risking her chances of ever getting married with such public talk. On a continent where marriage is considered an important marker of adulthood, particularly for women, such threats are intended to get at the very essence of Obaa boni. Her detractors have come from two camps: sexist men and the women Obaa boni refers to as “patriarchal princesses.” Rather than be cowered, Obaa boni and some of her supporters took her critics on during the period when she was being cyberbullied a lot. She would copy her Twitter messages directly into her blog and comment on it. This would allow a larger audience to tell the cyberbully off beyond the word limit imposed by Twitter. She found that there were indeed enough people with a positive perspective on her blog who were willing to do this. Most of them would seek to transform the anonymous digital space into a space of intense personal ties. They would ask “what would your mother think if she came online and saw you behaving like this?” Similarly, Malaka has experienced cyberbullying and threats to her family resulting in her having pulled down the blog for some time. Responses to Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen, on the contrary, have been largely positive. There are eight consistent guest contributors in

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

159

addition to the two who started it. Four years after its inception, 199 women from across the continent had been guest contributors to the blog. The large number of contributors has affirmed the idea the blog was intended to support; which is the idea that African women are sexual beings who have a wide variety of sexual experiences to share. On average, the blog receives 20,000 hits per month comprising roughly 60% women and 40% men. The blog has received national awards – best blog and best activist blog from blogging Ghana. It has also been cited internationally as well including in a Mona EltaHawy op‐ed piece in the May 6, 2016 edition of the New York Times titled “Sex Talk for Muslim Women” after which the site received 76,863 hits and more recently on June 12, 2019, in a piece for CNN by Eliza Anyangwe titled “She wants women to have good sex. So, she started a website where they can talk about it (safely).” By far, the group which has received the harshest critique is Pepper Dem Ministries. Their perspectives so incensed a section of Ghanaian women that they set up an alternative movement, Sugar Dem Ministries, barely half a year after they came onto the scene. For Valentine’s Day 2018, Sugar Dem Ministries, led by a radio presenter Vim Lady, set up shop cooking and pampering Ghanaian men in protest to the arguments made by Pepper Dem Ministries that, it is not the work of women to prepare meals for their husbands. The debate garnered international attention earning both groups air time on BBC to state their take on feminism. Others have questioned the clearly middle‐class status of Pepper Dem Ministries which is very evident in the classy, photogenic portraits of themselves on their Facebook page. As middle‐class Ghanaians, they have been accused of disinterest in working in the trenches to liberate women from the various oppressions they face seeking instead to simply work on the mind. To that, Malaka Grant in a blog written on September 15, 2017 responds: For those whose work is to abolish witch camps, let them do their work. For those whose work is to abolish the mindset that set to the creation, sanctioning and acceptance of witch camps, let them do their work too.

Then there are those who critique them simply for having what they consider to be subversive ideas. In one particularly vitriolic comment heightened by the female writer’s choice of capital letters, she writes, LOOK AT THEM A GROUP OF MISUSED B.R.A.T.S. HOW MANY OF YOU LADIES ARE MARRIED? DON’T POLLUTE THE YOUNGER ONES COMING WITH YOUR ***barred word*** AND UNCULTURED IDEAS. AFTER YOU MISUSE YOURSELVES WITHOUT GETTING MEN TO MARRY, YOU FORM YOURSELVES INTO PDM RUBBIISSH. GOD PUNISH YOU.

As already alluded to with Obaa boni, references to them being single (not true for all of them) are made in an insulting manner to suggest that only frustrated, single women would dare have feminist beliefs. Although Pepper Dem Ministries has received backlash just like the others, they have also received support from family and the wider public. The one who runs the radio program notes that her father listens to the radio show and calls her every single time after the show ends. Another’s dad gives them topics to talk about on their page and will occasionally ask “have you girls talked about it?” Another’s older sister who does not claim

160

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

to be feminist routinely sends her information via WhatsApp as fodder for their conversations. Yet another’s father held what he called a mini Pepper Dem Ministries session at his workplace with the young women who seemed thoroughly conflicted about the ideas of the group. Other forms of support come from commentaries on the page. These contributors are both male and female, Ghanaian and non‐Ghanaian, living both in and outside Ghana. One such contribution by a man shows clearly that the feminist agenda is one that is understood by both Ghanaian men and women. Three months after Pepper Dem Ministries was founded (December 18, 2017), Kojo Osei‐Ghansah, whose Facebook page describes him as a research data specialist who studied philosophy in university writes, It’s her fault. Why did she go there? Why didn’t she scream? Why didn’t she do this? Why did she do that? And if we are not careful …. This will join the huge pile of rapes and abuse swept under the carpet with bribes and manipulation. But what do we know … We are just the people screaming from the top of the hill that this rubbish must be addressed and dealt with. We are just the people screaming that women need to be protected with better laws and stricter enforcement of these laws. We are just the people screaming that you should teach your boys that being a man is not synonymous to being a brute. We are just the people screaming that telling a boy that a girl’s only job in life is to grow into a woman who must submit to him gives him a false sense of entitlement and a legitimacy to take things from her with force if he wills. We are the people screaming that rapists are not rapists because of what people wear, they are rapists because they are sick. They have a mental conditioning that is harmful and teachable and that if we start today, we can teach the boys of today to be better men tomorrow. But anyway …. Feminists are just rude, bitter, frustrated and sex starved women accompanied by a bunch of emasculated men who come online to spew just because they have data and can speak English. Ok. We hear. Keep being nice and polite about it. See when this stops.

Beyond support on social media, others in Ghana register their support, or at the very least acknowledge the presence of Pepper Dem Ministries on the Ghanaian landscape in a myriad of ways. One newly established company

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

161

manufacturing a uniquely Ghanaian chili sauce known as shito goes by the brand name PepperDem. Stonebwoy, a Ghanaian dancehall artiste released a song in June 2018 with a chorus “I dey go Pepper Dem.” International companies are also taking note of Pepper Dem Ministries’ digital activism and acting on it in ways that pinch the most because it affects the bank balances of those who choose to encourage what Pepper Dem Ministries would call a “toxic mindset.” In November 2018, Pepper Dem Ministries was alerted to the posts of a social media comedian, Michael Owusu Afriyie, a teacher by profession. One post of his dated November 2, 2016 read: The MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL In dis school is in JHS‐1 [seventh grade] and she nor get BREAST sef. I wanna do sumtn too. Pls dos with “RAPE TECHNIQUES” how do I start it?

A second post dated May 5, 2017 read: Do u consider dat as “RAPE” even though she was forced but she was “very very veeeeeery WET”???

Pepper Dem Ministries condemned these posts in no uncertain terms and pointed out that this teacher’s “toxic mindset” was a “huge threat.” Two weeks later, these posts of Michael Owusu Afriyie had come back to haunt him. His employers, the Ghana Education Service, sanctioned him because, as conveyed in a letter circulated online, some of his social media posts “tend to objectify sex, promote, sustain and perpetuate the rape culture.” (Retrieved from https://kuulpeeps. com/2018/12/teacher-kwadwo-sanctioned-by-ges-and-fired-by-huawei-ghana-asbrand-ambassador-for-comments-on-rape/.) In addition, Huawei, a leading global provider of information and communications technology infrastructure and smart devices with branches in Ghana, issued the following press release on December 17, 2018: It has come to our attention that Huawei is being associated with an individual who is believed to have made sexually offensive and irresponsible comments on social media. We would like to categorically state that Huawei currently has no Brand Ambassador in Ghana. It believes in upholding human rights and respects every person irrespective of their Gender, Age or Race. As a socially responsible organization, we are strongly against any form of sexual harassment or abuse and we do not condone any form of illegal or unsavoury social behavior neither do we support any act or form of Cyber Bullying (Retrieved from https://www.jbklutse.com/huawei-press-release-teacher-kwadwo-was-neverour-brand-ambassador/)

CONCLUSIONS These social media sites, and especially the responses to them, provide deep insight into the extent to which feminist ideas have or have not become commonplace in Ghanaian society. On one hand, one can say, based on the backlash to the ideas

162

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

espoused in GhanaFeminism and MindofMalaka’s feminist exposes, as well as the Facebook pages of Pepper Dem Ministries, that the average online audience is uncomfortable with critiques of biological determinism. It seems that the audience largely buys into the idea that men and women have specific roles in society, ordained by God and best for ensuring harmony in families and communities at large. However, to do so would be unfair because it misses the many ways in which the ideas shared on these social media sites have been affirmed by others. In particular, the fact that strangers took on critics of Obaa boni as well as the fact that there are many more people beyond the original seven women in Pepper Dem Ministries writing narratives that flip the script on a fairly routine basis, suggests that there is enough room and opportunity to fundamentally alter gender relations in the Ghanaian context. And indeed recent events in Ghana, where both public and private institutions are penalizing employees and associates respectively for perpetuating rape culture shows that the efforts of Pepper Dem Ministries are paying off. In addition, the more positive response overall to Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen and the willingness of women across the continent from a wide variety of educational backgrounds to share their intimate sexual lives with an audience, albeit anonymously, suggests a recognition that African women’s sexuality can be for pleasure too, a point that African feminist scholars have taken great pains to establish. Given this, the future of digital feminism in Ghana looks bright. With respect to Adventuresfromthebedroomsofafricanwomen which highlights the pleasures of sexuality, a theme also addressed by African feminist scholars, it will be interesting to see what kinds of collaborations can take place between these two sets of people – the academics doing research on the subject of African sexuality and the African citizens willingly sharing their views and perspectives on their sexuality via social media. The prospects for Pepper Dem Ministries are even brighter. In two short years, it is quite clear that they have become a force to reckon with in the Ghanaian society. Average Ghanaians routinely direct them to online sites with disturbing information knowing that they will respond to it in ways that will get the rest of Ghana thinking. More recently as well, it has become clear that it is best for Ghanaians not to incur the wrath of Pepper Dem Ministries for if they do, it can cost them financially. Ghana seems well on its way to creating a non‐sexist environment where girls and women can live and most importantly thrive.

NOTES 1.  Young girls often from the Northern part of Ghana who carry goods in southern Ghanaian markets for a fee. 2.  Mixed race individual. 3.  Black individual.

REFERENCES Adomako Ampofo, A. (1999). Nice guys, condoms and other forms of STD protection: Sex workers and AIDS protection in West Africa. In C. Becker, J. P. Dozon, C. Obbo, & M. Toure (Eds.), Experiencing and understanding AIDS in Africa (pp. 559–588). Dakar: CODESRIA.

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

163

Adomako Ampofo, A., & Okyerefo, M. P. K. (2014). Neo‐popular femininity discourse in God’s name: Ambivalent masculinity rhetoric. In S. Acheampong (Ed.), African studies and knowledge production (pp. 125–144). Accra: Sub‐Saharan Publishers. African Feminist Forum. (2015). Charter of feminist principles for African feminists. Accra: African Women’s Development Fund. Aidoo, A. A. (1985). Women in the history and culture of Ghana. Research Review New Series, 1(1), 14–51. Amadiume, I. (1987). Male daughters, female husbands, gender and sex in an African society. London: Zed Books. Apusigah, A. A. (2005). Performativity, sexuality and identities of Gurusi women of Northern Ghana. European Journal of Scientific Research, 12(1), 29–38. Armah‐Koney, R. (2009). Violence against women in Ghanaian Muslim communities. In K. Cusack & T. Manuh (Eds.), The architecture for violence against women in Ghana (pp. 159–191). Accra: Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre. Bastien, S., Kajula, L., & Muhwezi, W. (2011). A review of studies of parent–child communication about sexuality and HIV/AIDS in sub‐Saharan Africa. Reproductive Health, 8(1), 25–42. Caldwell, J. C., & Caldwell, P. (1987). The cultural context of high fertility in sub‐Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, 13(3), 409–437. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.1987.13. issue-3 Chin, J. (1990). Current and future dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in women and children. The Lancet, 336(8709), 221–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(90)91743-t Darkwah, A. K. (2007). Making hay while the sun shines: Ghanaian female traders and their insertion in the global economy. In N. Gunewardena & A. Kingsolver (Eds.), The gender of globalization: Women navigating cultural and economic marginalities (pp. 61–83). Melton: James Currey. Earl, J., Kimport, K., Prieto, G., Rush, C., & Reynoso, K. (2010). Changing the world one webpage at a time: Conceptualizing and explaining internet activism. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 15(4), 425–446. Gallant, M., & Maticka‐Tyndale, E. (2004). School‐based HIV prevention programmes for African youth. Social Science & Medicine, 58(7), 1337–1351. https://doi.org/10.1016/s02779536(03)00331-9 Garrett, R. K. (2006). Protest in an information society: A review of literature on social movements and new ICTs. Information, Communication and Society, 9(02), 202–224. https://doi. org/10.1080/13691180600630773 Gawaya, R., & Mukasa, R. (2005). The African women’s protocol: A new dimension for women’s rights in Africa. Gender and Development, 13(3), 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552070512 331332296 Hervish, A., & Clifton, D. (2012). The status report on adolescents and young people in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Opportunities and challenges. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau. International Telecommunication Union. (2017). ICT facts and figures, 2017. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union. Jewkes, R. K., Dunkle, K., Nduna, M., & Shai, N. (2010). Intimate partner violence, relationship power inequity, and incidence of HIV infection in young women in South Africa: A cohort study. The Lancet, 376(9734), 41–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(10)60548-x Leaper, C., & Arias, D. M. (2011). College women’s feminist identity: A multidimensional analysis with implications for coping with sexism. Sex Roles, 64, 475–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199011-9936-1 Lim, M. (2012). Clicks, cabs, and coffee houses: Social media and oppositional movements in Egypt, 2004–2011. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14602466.2012.01628.x Lotan, G., Graeff, E., Ananny, M., Gaffney, D., & Pearce, I. (2011). The revolutions were tweeted: Information flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. International Journal of Communication, 5(31), 1375–1405. Mama, A. (1995). Feminism or femocracy: State feminism and democracy in Nigeria. Africa Development, 20(1), 37–58. Mama, A., Pereira, C., & Manuh, T. (2005). Editorial: Sexual cultures. Feminist Africa, 5, 1–8.

164

AKOSUA K. DARKWAH

Manuh, T. (1988). The Asantehemaa’s court and its jurisdiction over women: A study in legal pluralism. Research Review, 4(2), 50–66. Manuh, T. (1991). Women and their organisations during the Convention People’s Party period. In K. Arhin (Ed.), The work and life of Kwame Nkrumah (pp. 108–133). Accra: Sedco Publishing Limited. Manuh, T. (1994). Ghana: Women in the public and informal sectors under the economic recovery programme. In P. Sparr (Ed.), Mortgaging women’s lives: Feminist critiques of structural adjustment (pp. 61–77). London: Zed Books. Oduyoye, M. A. (2009). Catalyst, resource or roadblock? A critical examination of the Christian religion and violence against women and children in Ghana. In K. Cusack & T. Manuh (Eds.), The architecture for violence against women in Ghana (pp. 129–158). Accra: Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre. Stephan, R. (2007). Arab women cyberfeminism. Al‐Raida Journal, 61–64. https://doi.org/10.32380/ alrj.v0i0.211 Stephan, R. (2013). Creating solidarity in cyberspace: The case of Arab women’s solidarity association united. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 9(1), 81–109. https://doi.org/10.2979/ jmiddeastwomstud.9.1.81 Swirsky, J. M., & Angelone, D. J. (2016). Equality, empowerment and choice: What does feminism mean to contemporary women?. Journal of Gender Studies, 25(4), 445–460. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09589236.2015.1008429 Tamale, S. (1999). When hens begin to crow: Gender and parliamentary politics in Uganda. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Tamale, S. (2005). Eroticism, sensuality and “women’s secrets” among the Baganda: A critical analysis. Feminist Africa, 5(1), 9–36. Tamale, S. (Ed). (2011). African sexualities: A reader. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press. Tripp, A. M., Casimiro, I., Kwesiga, J., & Mungwa, A. (2009). African women’s movements: Changing political landscapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tsikata, E. (1989). Women’s political organisations, 1951–1987. In E. Hansen & K. A. Ninsin (Eds.), The state, development and politics in Ghana (pp. 73–93). Dakar: CODESRIA. Tsikata, D. (2009). Women’s organizing in Ghana since the 1990s: From individual organizations to three coalitions. Development, 52(2), 185–192. Tufekci, Z., & Wilson, C. (2012). Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: Observations from Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 363–379. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01629 Van Dijk, J., & Hacker, K. (2003). The digital divide as a complex, dynamic phenomenon. The Information Society, 19(4), 315–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972240309487 Vogt, C., & Chen, P. (2001). Feminisms and the internet. Peace Review, 13(3), 371–374. https://doi. org/10.1080/13668800120079072 Wilson, E. J. (2006). The information revolution and developing countries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wong, L. (2001). The internet and social change in Asia. Peace Review, 13(3), 381–387. https://doi. org/10.1080/13668800120079090

165

Digital Activism Ghanaian Feminist Style

APPENDIX: INTERVIEWS Name

Medium

Date

Obaa Boni Malaka Grant Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah Dr Louise Carol Serwaa Donkor, Dr Ama Opoku‐Agyemang, Efe Plange and Efua Sintim

Phone interview Skype interview Skype interview Focus Group Discussion, Fiesta Royale Hotel

June 25, 2016 June 21, 2016 June 17, 2016 November 24, 2018

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 8 ARE WE THERE YET? CONTEMPORARY STRUGGLES FOR GENDER JUSTICE AND THE LEGACY OF CARIBBEAN FEMINISMS Sue Ann Barratt

ABSTRACT This chapter is a reflective evaluation of the preexisting and emerging issues and challenges which mediate contemporary efforts to sustain gender justice in the Caribbean. I use the perspectives of undergraduate feminist theory students and online feminist activists to establish how contemporary Caribbean feminist advocacy is situated. I also evaluate this situatedness by considering the salience of perspectives and sentiments inherited from a legacy of collective consciousness raising through developed Caribbean feminist theorizing and vibrant women’s movements in the region. I assert that student responses reflect an awareness of this legacy with an understanding of self as inheriting a secure agency as a collective, particularly as a collective group of women, but at the same time expressing a preoccupation with the individualistic, particularly in terms of concerns over bodily autonomy. This suggests a turn from their legacy. In addition, online feminist activists lament that change is not as evident as needed; that they still live limits, are still subject to gendered structures of power, and that struggles over legitimacy and for freedom from gender-based violence continue to undermine the attainment of gender justice. Their sentiments suggest that the “there” has been engaged but by no means arrived at

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 167–182 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031009

167

168

SUE ANN BARRATT

as a fixed end point; while some agency can be accessed, gender justice in the region continues to be a journey that is complex and requires response to an ever changing social, political and economic landscapes. Keywords: Caribbean; feminisms; gender justice; cyberfeminisms; undergraduate students; feminist legacies

INTRODUCTION This chapter is a reflective evaluation of the preexisting and emerging issues and challenges which mediate contemporary efforts to sustain gender justice in the Caribbean. I ask the overarching question “Are we there yet?” to set up the point from which I contemplate the sustainability of contemporary feminist scholarship, activism, and advocacy. Through this process of reflective evaluation, I clarify my main position in this chapter that the work of feminist advocacy in the region is an ongoing struggle, with those who have inherited the mandates of Caribbean feminisms expressing an awareness of their legacy and limits, and also expressing a preoccupation with twenty‐ first century issues and the elusiveness of changes which sustain gender justice in the region. I elaborate this position at the end of my Introduction which maps the reflective moments by Caribbean feminists that inform my approach to my own reflection, and evaluation and contemplation of ideas shared by those who continue the work of Caribbean feminist advocacy in the region. I understand contemporary Caribbean feminisms, be they online or offline, as grounded in a legacy of struggle with goals that, in part, have been realized, and in part, continue to preoccupy all involved in establishing and maintaining feminist consciousness, movement building and political action in Caribbean societies. Part of this legacy is reflexivity, with evaluative commentary on the impact of feminist thought and activism in the region. In this chapter, I therefore replicate a tradition of reflective pauses taken by Caribbean feminists. In the late twentieth century and continuing into the twenty‐first century, the relevance of and issues confronting the women’s movement, the feminist movement, feminist scholars and activists, gendered social relations and gender justice, and feminist consciousness, especially among young people, have all been contemplated. For example, Mohammed’s (1998a) reflections on Caribbean feminism in the twenty‐first century on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the then Centre, now Institute, for Gender and Development Studies. In that moment, Mohammed (1998a) asserted the value of recording feminist history in the region as an unfolding story and suggested the need to bring old and new narratives into conversation, seeing the past and present of feminist debates as intricately linked. Most significant are her reflections on student response, communication challenges, and the impact of feminisms in the region: When we teach gender studies at the campus level, many of the students who do our courses are introduced to the feminist movement and to feminism, which to them appears as another dying ism … the language of struggle, as with everything else, must change, and, as we learned years ago, it is not our place to speak for others, in this case the younger generation will define their

Are We There Yet?

169

own problems from their life experiences … the 20th century, in my view, has been the century in which the idea of gender equality has seeped into human consciousness in a manner which is difficult if not impossible to ignore. (Mohammed 1998a, pp. 138–139)

Mohammed’s (1998a) observations on the impact of Caribbean feminisms informs my contemplations, prompting me to ask, what has developed since the entry of gender equality into human consciousness in the Caribbean? Crucially, I am now concerned with what can be said of student engagement in the contemporary, how have they responded to the language used to discuss and evaluate feminist struggles in the region, and how do they identify the issues relevant to their own lived experiences. The 2000s also featured another example of a moment of reflection, with multiple scholars gathering their thoughts in a special Guest Editorial (2002) of CAFRA News to evaluate where Caribbean feminism is going. They together took a moment of self‐reflection, as the editorial was billed, and evaluated a number of issues of relevance and impact. These included what feminism meant to young women and the struggles faced by young feminists, the development of the women’s movement and the divides that remain as a challenge, students’ thoughts about feminism, and the conversation between feminism and masculinity. In that same decade, Castello (2008) also took a reflexive pause to review the feminist movement in the region and examine how issues and strategies of the 1970s were politicized or implemented as relevant to the academy. She recognized as challenging issues, the perceived separation of activism from academia, and the difficulty for many to identify with feminism (Castello, 2008). Castello (2008) asserted the need for feminists in the region to reclaim feminism as a politics of transformation, and deliberately utilize the classroom as a space for activism and for inspiring students to advocate for gender justice. She also envisioned the future of feminism in the Caribbean as resting in remaining committed to working with partners, and reexamining the content of feminist politics. Later in the 2010s, Hosein (2012) took another reflexive pause in her contemplations of activism in academia and twenty‐first century Caribbean feminist dilemmas, she used student activism‐based projects and the debates they provoked to reflect on the politics of Women’s Studies, the changing meaning of “gender,” issues raised when engaging men, and the role of academic feminism in identifying and addressing continuing issues of gender justice. (p. 355)

She cited consciousness raising and movement building as the necessary preoccupation. In addition to Hosein’s reflections, contemplations by Weir‐Soley (2014), as she laid claim to Audre Lorde’s legacy in her consideration of a Caribbean feminist consciousness, are also inspiring. I am further prompted to delve into my own reflections as I consider Weir‐Soley’s (2014) evaluations of her student’s perspectives: My students are a constant reminder of how important it is to practice what you preach. They assume that competition between women is the natural order and that any other model renders you naïve and vulnerable to attack and annihilation. Our job is not done, sisters …. My students honestly believe that feminism is about women wanting to dominate men and, as a result, they do not want to identify with the label. They have no clue that birth control, abortion, and so many other gains they take for granted, were won by this movement.

170

SUE ANN BARRATT

Agreeing with Weir‐Soley’s (2014) observation that the job is not done, I am motivated, in this contemporary moment, to revisit the extent to which actions and knowledge production have taken hold. In addition, I ruminate over McDonald’s (2016) exploration of how the perspectives of key Caribbean feminists on feminism and their involvement in the movement shifted over time, particularly 1980s to 2000s. Her reflections are informative especially as they focus on how activists have made their own claims on the difficulty of forging a radical, transformative project in the context of institutionalization, and on demonstrating the scope of criticism and self‐criticism in the Caribbean women’s movement. In addition, her reminder to focus on the assessment of the relationship between sexuality and power in the movement, the continued importance of oral history reflections, and the significance of engaging in progressive, critical relationships between past and present generations of feminist activists, crucially informs my reflexive purpose (McDonald, 2016). Inspired by this legacy of reflexivity, I consider, especially, how the expressed insights gained through earlier moments of reflective evaluation appear manifest in the response of students and activists in the contemporary, as they are situated at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine Campus and in the online environment. To this end I articulate my reflections through perspectives shared by a selection of undergraduate feminist theory students, along with a group of online feminist activists. Therefore, during the final class meeting, I conducted group interviews with students completing the course Feminist Theoretical Frameworks (a 49 member second level cohort in academic year 2015/2016, and a 36 member second level cohort in academic year 2016/2017), while contemporary online feminist activists were participants at a symposium on Caribbean Cyberfeminisms hosted by the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), St Augustine Unit, in 2018. The symposium engaged Caribbean cyberfeminists from five countries, with four participants joining remotely through Zoom and 13 attending face‐to‐face. At the symposium, participants contemplated how “trenches” were being redefined, if they were being redefined at all. Students, during class interviews, were asked reflective questions which focused on how they saw themselves as feminist and their definitions of feminism at the end of the course, along with what issues they thought Caribbean feminists still continue to grapple. In addition, they were probed to further contemplate what they saw as their inheritance from Caribbean feminist activism and scholarship, what about this inheritance made sense to them, and what they felt still needed to be done as part of the ongoing Caribbean feminist mandate. I used student responses and participant discussions to establish how contemporary Caribbean feminist advocacy is situated, particularly in terms of how self‐ identified Caribbean feminists occupy this positioning, how such feminists view opportunities and challenges in the contemporary, and where Caribbean feminists are located in this work that is not yet done. I aim to understand if we can imagine an end point, the “there” that we may think of reaching that signals that we have arrived at the place we want to be in terms of gender justice and feminist

Are We There Yet?

171

consciousness in the Caribbean. I visualize this possible endpoint as sustained gender justice through political commitment, as gender justice is conceptualized by Barriteau (2003): A commitment to gender justice would mean working to end hierarchies embedded in the current gender ideologies that construct and maintain particular configurations of gender identities and the often punitive roles that flow from these for women and men. It includes working towards closing loopholes in the access, allocation, or distribution of material and non‐material resources. Promoting the ideal of gender justice seeks to remove inequalities in the control over and the capacity to benefit from these resources. (p. 68)

If this is taken as a plausible endpoint, it prompts a focus on the structural, collective, ideological elements that mediate Caribbean societies. I thus reflect to understand how these elements are being engaged in the contemporary. I also evaluate feminist consciousness in the contemporary by considering not only the tradition of critical self‐reflection, but by also contemplating the salience of perspectives and sentiments inherited from a legacy of scholarship and activism in the region. These are summarized below. Therefore, through this chapter, I assert a response to the larger questions posed by this volume, in particular those questions which focus on the factors which shape the positionality and identity of feminist scholars/activists in the global south, the possibilities that multiple and shifting conditions in global south societies offer for new insights into feminisms, and the particular forms and responses asserted by youth and other feminists activists who operate especially on social media and the wider online environment. Through my reflections, I assert that student responses illustrate an awareness of the legacy of Caribbean feminist scholarship and activism and the consciousness of gender equality, identified by Mohammed (1998b) as a feature of the twentieth century Caribbean society. In addition, students understand themselves as inheriting a secure agency, particularly as a collective group of women. However, they also express a preoccupation with the individualistic, particularly in terms of concerns over bodily autonomy, which I suggest signals a turn from the legacy of Caribbean feminist scholarship and movements. Meanwhile, online feminist activists at the symposium shared the sentiment that change is not as evident as needed; that they still live limits, are still subject to gendered structures of power, and that struggles over legitimacy and for freedom from gender‐based violence continue to undermine the attainment of gender justice. The sentiments expressed by students and activists establish feminist struggles in the region as ongoing, as still preoccupied with matters that scholars and activists have long grappled with, and also as having an impact, though that impact can never be taken for granted.

CARIBBEAN FEMINIST LEGACY: HETEROGENEOUS WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS AND FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP This legacy, with particular reference to the Anglophone Caribbean (the context from which students and activists were selected), has been well mapped by multiple scholars who theorize the study of gender and feminist activism in the region. In summary, these scholars not only account for the history of feminist

172

SUE ANN BARRATT

theorizing and activism in the Caribbean region but critique trends and reassert mandates that persist as most relevant to gender justice, equity, and equality in the region. Trotz (2015), in her keynote address at the IGDS 20th Anniversary celebrations in 2013, considered the inescapable entanglements that continue to mediate Caribbean feminist engagement. Her evaluations of Caribbean feminisms elaborate issues that are structural and collective: And it is an uphill battle. We see this in the anxieties about boys and men – a critical concern, to be sure, but one that has far too frequently diagnosed male marginalization as the consequence of women’s achievements, as Eudine Barriteau has shown. In the face of the work being done to increase women’s political participation, we can almost taste the backlash …. The work is being done in a climate of public cutbacks, creating competition for scarce resources on a turf that is seeing NGOs playing an increasingly important role … we inhabit the contradictions of institutionalization, of staking out interdisciplinary integrity for Gender Studies while simultaneously facing the territorializing imperatives that come with disciplinary specialization … [we] grapple with contradiction …. (Trotz, 2015, pp. 182, 191)

Massiah, Leo‐Rhynie, and Bailey (2016) reflect similarly on the academic development of feminist scholarship in the region, especially in terms of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies. Like Trotz (2015) they evaluate gains and challenges and, similarly, remind scholars and activists of the constant need for vigilance to counteract backlash. In addition, they call for Caribbean feminists to commit to the 30‐year vision of promoting gender justice and social equity within and beyond the academy (Massiah et al., 2016). These twenty‐first century statements on the pressing mandates for feminist scholars/activists/educators reflect that part of the legacy that I consider as crucially relevant to students, and thus I evaluate where they, and contemporary activists, find themselves located in their consciousness, in other words, with what understandings of Caribbean feminisms do they confront these mandates? Students and activists inherit from scholars the evaluation of the sociopolitical response to efforts to assert a feminist and gender consciousness, and, most significantly, the relevance of feminism as philosophy to Caribbean women in particular. Barriteau (2003), described this work by Caribbean feminist scholars as a solid record of research on women. Crucially, developing from this evaluative position, Barriteau (2003) issued a still relevant mandate for feminists in the region: […] feminists should understand the significance of grappling with our own need to exercise power and to claim it to inform political practices. We need to be up front and explicit that we are leaders or that we are seeking to be leaders both within feminist and wider social movements. Having identified the terrain in which we operate, we should attempt to respond to a series of questions that should tease out a particular vision of society governed by a set of democratic practices, a principal one being a commitment to gender justice. (p. 68)

This mandate asserted by Barriteau (2003) represents a core part of the legacy that I suggest students will encounter in the classroom and activists will engage as they embark on their advocacy. In addition, also salient would definitely be Antrobus’ (1999) establishment of Caribbean feminisms as rooted in consciousness raising, movement building, recognizing multiple roles, collaborations and alliances, and facilitating access and linkages. So too would be Reddock’s (2001) reminder that Caribbean feminist conceptualizations are “conceptualisations that

Are We There Yet?

173

should highlight our interconnectedness as well as our separateness and that, most importantly, provide the basis for collective social action” (p. 208). Incidentally, Hosein and Outar (2016) engage Reddock’s view of such conceptualizations in their explorations of Indo‐Caribbean feminist thought, its emergence, its engagement with culture and discourses of differences, and its mediation by political and economic relations and transnational movements and intersections (p. 5). In addition, scholars have demonstrated how issues which have long preoccupied women’s movements and feminists in the region have always been viewed as interconnected, requiring speaking across differences, and concerned with economic, social, and political issues that preoccupy society in general and women’s struggles in particular – both in the private and public spheres. Mohammed (1994) clarifies this perspective well in her explanation of the feminist project in the region: The fertility of gender studies as it has evolved in the Caribbean lies in its inability to separate itself from other oppressive features endemic in society, that of discrimination created by class and race or ethnic differences. The systemic oppression of women and men have continuously varied by their class or ethnic affiliation and it makes little sense to understand the complexity of gender without this intersection of class and race (p. 144) ….The extent to which this has informed the ongoing construction of masculinity and femininity, and posed challenges to patriarchal power and political ideology is a crucial question for gender to pursue in its search to fully understand the origins and ongoing development of … Caribbean societies. (p. 166)

Mohammed’s (1994) evaluation elaborates the established position in the region. For instance, in the 1998 volume of the Feminist Review which focused on rethinking Caribbean difference, Reddock, Baksh‐Soodeen, and Mohammed too, in different articles, also explained the perspective and preoccupations of Caribbean feminisms. Reddock discusses women’s organizations and movements in the Commonwealth Caribbean, illustrating the “interlocked nature of women’s struggles with the economic, social and political issues which preoccupy the region’s population,” and asserting the feminist movement in the region as continuously evolving, engaging women of different classes and groups and built on past experiences (p. 57). Baksh‐Soodeen (1998), in her discussion of the need to build Caribbean feminism as more multicultural, cites as a tendency, the building of networks and coalitions, along with the tendency to be ultimately embracing rather than divisive (p. 83). Mohammed asserts feminism as “nurturing … a recognition of a shared condition, despite sexual difference and despite obvious inequalities” (p. 28). The Caribbean feminist legacy, which also reflects third world feminist perspectives in its attendance to intersectionality and understanding of movements as collective (Johnson‐Odim, 1991), is one of collaborative action that is deliberately and unapologetically political. From the reflections and evaluations I have summarized it is clear that narratives of Caribbean feminisms clarify Caribbean feminist action and discourse as having multiple influences, from international feminist discourse to nationalist struggles in the region. However, feminists in the region have always subject scholarship and movements in the region to critique, questioning explanations of human relations in general and the conditions of women’s lives in particular. Understanding the need to speak across multiple

174

SUE ANN BARRATT

differences, Caribbean feminists have closely accounted for class, race, and nation as always relevant to participation and struggle. Activism has been preoccupied with collective struggles, for example, such action began with a concern for wages, consumer rights, marriage and family and later developed to advocate for women’s rights in all forms. Significantly, Caribbean feminists have never devalued men and masculinity in the promotion of gender justice and feminist consciousness. Caribbean feminisms, especially in the twentieth century, have been characterized by a strong underlying message of sisterhood, but with a clear understanding of the significance of difference because of the diversity and complexity of women in the region, their intermingling histories, and the sociocultural and political factors that mediate each woman’s life differently. Caribbean feminisms have been built on movements of women propelled by challenges to gender justice, emerging in multiple political, social, and economic sectors, such as representational leadership, labor, religion, social development, and health. These issues, as Trotz (2015) reminded, are structural and systemic and have been theorized as the social, material, and cultural relations of gender. They affect all women though the effects may be felt differently depending on the intersection of social identities such as race/ethnicity, class and religion, gender identity, and sexuality. Feminisms in the region also continue to contend with what Hosein (2012) describes as a twenty‐first century moment characterized by “the mainstreaming and de‐politicization of gender, men’s gender consciousness and the masculinist backlash against feminism, and the success of liberal feminism as well as a wave of ‘post‐feminisms’ (p. 375). Such a review of feminist knowledge and activism in the region reveals a complex legacy, featured by a tendency to reflexivity and critical self‐evaluation. While it also features gains or achievements it also outlines issues, mandates, and challenges that persist as unresolved. I contemplate my students from this point of departure, the ultimate aim to reflect on and evaluate impact. To determine if we are “there,” that is, if we are closer to achieving persistent gender justice. I suggest we must determine if we have conscious actors (our students who we expose to a deeper feminist consciousness) to take up the struggle to achieve this goal of gender justice. Their perspective is crucial, however, much or little it pays homage to the legacy they inherit.

CARIBBEAN FEMINISMS: CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS AND EVALUATIONS Students encounter from the feminists who have built theory and led movements in the region, a positionality and identity that is expected to shape their consciousness in the classroom and beyond. However, for students in particular, they appear to express their engagement with Caribbean feminisms from a standpoint that shifts away from their inheritance. I base this on the focus of their in‐class discussions and choice of topics for final projects (discussed further below) over two academic years (2015–2016 and 2016–2017). Their apparent focus away from the structural and collective prompted my reflective evaluation, with the intent

175

Are We There Yet?

to further understand their standpoint and to reflect on the significance of that standpoint in relation to insights they inherit. Therefore, through end of semester group interviews I explored how they assert their own feminisms. I supplement their perspectives with those of symposium participants who reflect more pointedly the position of feminist activists (especially in the online environment), a role that the students hardly occupied at the time.

FEMINIST THEORY STUDENTS Student discussions suggest an awareness of the legacy of Caribbean feminisms in the Anglophone Caribbean. They have moved beyond their peers discussed by Mohammed (1998b) and Weir‐Soley (2014), both in their presumptions about the continued relevance of feminisms and in their understanding of sexism. However, their talk also reflects a perception of and fear of backlash in response to any expression of a feminist identity or consciousness as discussed by all who have reflected on the challenges of feminisms in the region. Their expressed consciousness reflects, though, a shifting from the historical commitment to collective movement building in the Caribbean to a more individualistic turn where the personal is viewed as more personal and less political. This individualistic turn is demonstrated first in the focus of their topic choices for final advocacy‐based projects. These include by academic year the following:

• 2015–2016 • Stop labeling us tramps. • #No shame in my game. • Are you a player or a pawn? End the labeling of women as T.H.O.T. • Sex map: Exploration of the cyberslut. • 2016–2017 • End rape culture. • #Rape culture. • Titty talk. • FemTube: Call for Caribbean YouTube feminists, don’t subscribe to the backlash. • We are feminists not manhaters. • Cybergirl in a patriarchal world. • Sign on to cyberfeminisms. As I consider these topics I contemplate the mandate to commit students to transformative, collective, and collaborative feminist movements that speak across differences in the region. While some topics for the academic year 2016–2017 suggest a scope beyond the individualistic and a politics of liberal, autonomy‐ based empowerment (e.g., End rape culture or Sign on to cyberfeminisms), topics

176

SUE ANN BARRATT

generally do not elaborate the larger social, political, economic consciousness so endemic to Caribbean feminist scholarship and activism. These features are covered in their 13‐week course and are reinforced as crucial to an understanding of feminist theory. However, students’ concerns emerged as less steeped in legacy. I do not suggest that their preoccupation with the embodied, with policing of choices, with feminist identity and the threats to personal identity is any less legitimate or relevant. What I do suggest is that having settled on a view that their “now” no longer resembles past inequalities, that in their “now” they are in fact “there” where they need to be in terms of equality and equity, they express a tendency to look inward with the personal as personal, if upsetting, rather than necessarily political. This is a view which they use to precise their contributions during class discussion and which they explained, in part, during class interviews. This is troubling and reflects Castello’s (2008) observation of a still relevant issue for Caribbean feminists in the academy, that is, “the perception of the gains that have been made for women,” and the risk of being “foolhardy” enough to “imagine that patriarchy is in remission” (p. 149). In addition, in a very contemporary moment, Barriteau quoted in Sinclair (2019), expressed concern, not about students in particular but about those young in Caribbean movements. She asserted that these young feminists seem less interested in the issues of gender development, economical development, analysis and some of the things that the older movement used to do. There’s a clear focus on issues of sexuality sovereignty and combating gender‐based violence, and the work they are doing is paramount. They are putting their lives and well‐being on the line to guard it – but I’d like to see a synthesis of that and a focus on soci‐economic development because they are both equally important.

As for my students who are not yet fully engaged in such advocacy, they expressed during interviews a willingness to be privately feminist, a caution or a fear observed in the region from inception to contemporary, with many choosing not to assert themselves as self‐affirmed feminists. Castello (2008) most precisely asked in her reflections, “Where have all the feminists gone,” which indicates the trend, as she observed that the comment “I am not a feminist, but … is one encountered often in discussions with students” (p. 139), both those enrolled in women’s studies and gender studies classes and those who are not. The students in my class prefer to live their consciousness privately more so than engage in public advocacy because of the fear of backlash that is anti‐feminist, misogynist, phobic in multiple ways, and that insidiously undermines gender justice. Their perception of backlash is by no means imagined. Not only is it also cited as a major concern for online feminist activists who participated at the evaluative symposium on Caribbean feminisms, but as discussed above, it has troubled reflections by Caribbean feminists over the years. Backlash is also well demonstrated as symbolic violence, especially in the online space (Barratt, 2018). Some students, especially those who were members of the IGDS mentorship program, IGDS Ignite, asserted a clear understanding and uptake of the inheritance that is Caribbean feminist scholarship and activism, as one female student said: there is so much knowledge and is just like you just realise like oh my gosh this makes so much sense and you could like watch it and apply it and that feeling like when you realise like all your life you have been experiencing it and you just didn’t know how to identify it.

Are We There Yet?

177

These students, who were in the minority in the class but who were most vocal, were also more open to being publicly feminist and participating in collective movement building. One female student explained: an important thing for me is that feminism isn’t just about theorizing but it is also about a lot of activism, yeah it’s um it’s praxis.

And two others discuss, Male Student: “feminism offers like change and transformative change so I mean if you privately feminist how are you going to execute that?” Female Student: “well adding to what he said, I don’t stay at home and like look at all the issues happening … and like talk to myself, I go out and advocate um through like different groups or through like the University like popular actions and what not.” However, the majority of students were more reserved, with one more vocal female student explaining what was a consistently shared position: I think sometimes we have to deal with issues within ourselves that deals with feminism but afraid to put it out there so we deal with it internally as opposed to dealing with it externally and letting the public know this is my present issue because we afraid of the consequences of putting it out there that may be threatening to the woman in a sense that you know some things that we face that you know in our home space you know we wouldn’t want to put out there right … well at times women tend to keep it inside because they don’t know how to deal with the external reality so that’s why they don’t put it out in the public.

These issues that may or may not be expressed publicly were identified as sexual politics, sexual rights and sexuality, gender‐based violence, reproductive rights, street harassment, gender socialization and the construction of gender, sexualization of women in media, rape culture, sexual division of labor, and the valuation of women’s work. Many cited as their inheritance a clear theoretical framework that helped them understand their own experiences and interpretations of those experiences and feminist ways of thinking. What was most significant is how they explained themselves as inheriting a secure agency. One female student asserted, “I have the freedom to choose who I want to be and be comfortable to have a comfortable space in which to be me”; and another female student assured, “I have the freedom to be me, to do what I want, I have never been in a situation where I wasn’t able to do what I want, that is my inheritance.” They see limits to freedom, agency, equality, and equity as an experience that their mothers and grandmothers fought to overcome on their behalf. I suggest that this indicates the influence of neo‐liberal empowerment consciousness, which is so much more accessible and visible on social media and the online space than even readings or other resources assigned for the course. In addition, I cite as additional influencing factors, the visibility of mainstream Western celebrity/ popular feminisms in both traditional and online media, a distancing of self from

178

SUE ANN BARRATT

the material reality of their local environment and feminist movements in that space, and the fear of backlash against these movements and gender justice issues (in the offline but especially the online) that they experience. Though they are definitely aware of the larger sociopolitical issues that undermine gender justice in the region, I suggest their sense of their own position has influenced what they choose as the focus of their advocacy. The positions expressed by students, many of them minoring in gender studies at the UWI St Augustine Campus, indicate that as it relates to gender justice the journey continues, the need for consciousness of the local and regional that mediate the international remains necessary. Fear of feminism is in itself an inheritance but ever visible backlash due to the speed and reach of online social media continues to have the potential to push the goal of gender justice further away, especially as it is even more immediate, aggressive, persistent, and visible in the online space. With this in mind I see the perspectives of contemporary feminist activists and activist/scholars as especially relevant. These individuals, mostly women, came together in June 2018 to discuss the sustainability, reach, and global relevance of Caribbean feminisms, especially as these are asserted through cyberspace. At least on one issue – that is, backlash in the offline and online environments – they do express similar thoughts to the students, though as practitioners, their contemplations are more comprehensive.

CONTEMPORARY ONLINE FEMINIST ACTIVISTS It is crucial in this reflective moment to contemplate the standpoint of online feminist activists in the region as more and more, the online environment is seen as a space of opportunity due to its speed, accessibility, and reach. Movement building can be propelled efficiently through these platforms. Barriteau quoted in Sinclair (2019) evaluated Caribbean cyberfeminism as successful, asserting: I believe that change has to come from the ground and that’s why I admire these women. Two things unite these feminist groups – cyberfeminist strategies and a strong emphasis on sexual sovereignty …. These women are highly mobile as they harness information and digital technology to operate simultaneously online and in physical locations …. They are skilled media campaigners, whose feminist commitment is unwavering, admirable and already ripe for the future of our region. They have shifted the paradigm of feminist organizing and they demand the respect from Caribbean states and individuals for women’s bodily and existential integrity. They have shaken the status quo and dragged the women’s movement into the 21st century. (Sinclair, 2019)

Tonya Haynes (n.d.), in a most comprehensive mapping of Caribbean cyberfeminisms, also asserts the absolute significance of online activism to Caribbean feminist scholarship and movements, recognizing online sites as “important consciousness‐raising and pedagogical sites for Caribbean feminists.” Haynes recognizes these online feminist activists as multigenerational, multiethnic, transnational, and Pan‐Caribbean, building community, organizing, and mobilizing through the use of the internet and cyberactivist practices, but still confronted by the challenges of working across differences, dealing with inequalities of access

Are We There Yet?

179

and privilege, and the risks of reproducing and reframing long‐standing inequities and oppressions. Considering these reviews and the roles online feminist activists clearly perform, I entered into a conversation with these dynamic advocates to determine their standpoint on where we are in relation to the “there,” that is, sustained gender justice in the region. Two themes, which have previously been subject to reflection by feminist theorists and activists, dominated the conversations between contemporary online feminist activists. They explained that they still feel confronted by the tensions between the perceived elite/academic and the everyday/grassroots interests, and that they continue to contend with concerns over the material reality of “change.” They explain as tense, their understanding of change as more impactful if revolutionary as opposed to gradual change that does not seem to directly connect with those who most need it in the most pressing moment. For them, small wins over time seem less profound. The thirteen participants gathered, five of them also graduate students at the IGDS UWI St Augustine at the time of the symposium, explained tensions as resting in political and economic structures which maintain unequal access and legitimacy between members of the activist community and that present a challenge to advocacy and movement building. They also explained tensions as resting in the language of academia which they saw as alienating what they cited as “the everyday woman” (i.e. woman without tertiary or specialist education and/ or training). Despite this critique, they also asserted that feminist and gender consciousness must be built on a language rooted in theorizing in order to facilitate precise and clear articulation of the issues relating to gender justice. From their discussions it is apparent that though the legacy of Caribbean feminist efforts is to establish and maintain activism and academia as intimately connected, this has not resonated with contemporary feminist activists. Participants also explain that this tension becomes salient when outrage is expressed, be it by activists or by the general public; with skepticism constantly expressed over “who” deserves outrage, “whose” story is represented, and “whose” reality is given visibility. They lament the constant debate over valued victims even in the face of the severity of gender‐based violence evidenced in almost daily deaths of women in several Caribbean territories. They explained that they continue to grapple with ideas that invoke questions about why one woman as opposed to the other, citing as the resulting challenge the lines that are drawn around class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality, even when those who are outraged are speaking across these lines. This tension is also seen as relevant to the competing interests that groups and individuals represent, with struggles experienced over who attains more or less recognition and legitimacy, if not justice, and in what timeframe with what level of assistance. One activist from Guyana explained contemporary feminisms in the Caribbean as always intersectional and speaking across differences: We recognize that if you are an intersectional feminist then you need to ensure that you are targeting different populations and the issues that might be affecting them in very specific ways, so while a lot of people tend to ask well what does LGBT rights have to do with women’s rights, well there are LGBT women so the issues are all interconnected and you can’t necessarily separate them from one another.

180

SUE ANN BARRATT

Thus, the second is closely connected to the first with participants explaining that many not directly involved in activist efforts (both online and offline) express the sentiment that change is not as evident as needed; that their lives are still featured by limiting traditional gender relations, that their opportunities are still structured around heteronormative beliefs about masculinity and femininity that dictate the legitimacy of their presence in public and private spaces, and that their lives are still featured by violence daily without much hope of escaping such. For example, though there has been unrelenting efforts to prevent and address domestic violence and sexual violence with some gains along the way, some who live in situations featured by these forms of violence, are convinced that nothing has changed or is changing. This breeds apathy and disenchantment and in some cases hostile conflict. Along with these tensions that continue to challenge contemporary feminist activist and scholars, other major issues also preoccupied participants. These included an ongoing concern with the risks of feminist activism and anti‐feminist backlash, and like students, they are concerned with the tensions of bravely claiming space in the nation; being unapologetically feminist, political, and challenging the status quo publicly. One activist from Barbados explained this concern as she discussed her approach to addressing it: As Feminist we know our constant, constant backlash is unfortunately men, and so when we started the hashtag we knew as activist that there was going to be backlash and we knew where it was going to come from so we just quickly mobilized … and what is important is that we come together in solidarity and drown out the misogynistic noise, like just support each other.

In addition, reflecting Haynes observations about reproducing and reframing inequalities they too are concerned with the design of messaging that connects with the most relevant audiences, does not overwhelm and that proactively achieves the purpose of building consciousness and advocating for gender justice. Though their efforts have received positive reviews, they are preoccupied with the need for training for proactivity, readiness, capacity building, especially in terms of who applies for the funding, who gets the funding, who manages the funding and the challenges of competing interests. One activist from Trinidad and Tobago explained this thrust for building consciousness and capacity building, as a motivating factor for her work: In doing that work I met a lot of women, you know, when we were talking about the issues of gender and discrimination felt that it did not affect them personally, and I realized that there was a problem in terms of building a constituency behind the issues of feminism and ending discrimination against women because many women simply didn’t recognize that these issues also affected them, so we started off as a community building forum ….

This concern reflects well the continued entanglements confronting Caribbean feminisms discussed by Trotz (2015). The online feminist activists who participated in the symposium understand well how much they put on the line. Though they are not blind to the courage and strength Barriteau, quoted in Sinclair (2019), commends them for, they are concerned about their ability to manage networks and expectations of respectability especially in terms of their relationships with those most significant to them. They remain troubled about sometimes having

181

Are We There Yet?

to reject or ignore family, friends, and colleagues who criticize or force a more tempered or even private politics, disconnecting from those who try to silence their voice. They struggle to negotiate perceptions of authenticity and credibility which rest in varying perceptions of their intersectional social identities. One activist from Trinidad and Tobago explained the challenge “to achieve the balance of knowing when to engage” and also reflected on shared sentiments about the bridge between academia and activism, the process of achieving change, and the validity of issues address: So engagements online that we really feel like we breaking new ground around perspectives around this, like you sharing with me something I didn’t know or I’m speaking with somebody who I think is really invested in learning about this thing that they didn’t know before, and then sometimes you’re just engaging with a troll. So it’s this balance of knowing when you want to engage … I would like to believe that all of my personal life is a reflection of my feminism, the way in which I deal with the sexual harassment I may meet from men in the street, to the way I would have conversations with men in my family who like, obviously they know that you do certain kinds of work and they treat it like it’s a hobby, and you humour that to a certain extent because every time you don’t want to have a fight up about every single thing, but every now and again you will have a family engagement and something serious will come up and you really will be faced with an opportunity where you will really have to check people or engage in particular things, and in your personal life you have to become very political about your feminism but you can’t do it in this way that’s academic and jargony because it doesn’t work, to me those are some of the most important spaces.

CONCLUSION: ARE WE THERE YET? One feminist activist, with the agreement of her peers, says “you can’t win” because structures of power and inequality remain firmly in place; and one student, also with the agreement of her peers, says “not enough is being done to get the message out there.” Considering their sentiments, I suggest that “there” does not quite exist. Contemporary struggles for gender justice continue to grapple with very similar challenges to those that have always plagued feminists in the Caribbean. What I view as especially functional is that even though cyberspace presents several threats, it affords multiple opportunities for immediate and constant reflexivity and evaluation and for easier dialogue across difference (though I acknowledge that it is by no means a utopia since all do not have access to the space). I suggest that the legacy is not lost but sometimes exists in the background as new generations of Caribbean feminists struggle to assert themselves while occupying lives that are both agentic and significantly undermined by persistent gender injustices.

REFERENCES Antrobus, P. (1999). Women in development programmes: The Caribbean experience (1975–1985). In P. Mohammed & C. Shepherd (Eds.), Gender in Caribbean development: Papers presented at the inaugural seminar of the University of the West Indies Women and Development Studies Project (pp. 35–50). Kingston: Canoe Press UWI. Baksh‐Soodeen, R. (1998). Issues of difference in contemporary Caribbean feminism. Rethinking Caribbean Difference. Feminist Review, 59, 74–85. Barratt, S. A. (2018). Reinforcing sexism and misogyny: Social media, symbolic violence and the construction of femininity‐as‐fail. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 19(3), 16–31.

182

SUE ANN BARRATT

Barriteau, V. E. (2003). Confronting power and politics: A feminist theorizing of gender in Commonwealth Caribbean Societies. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 3(2), 57–92. Castello, J. (2008). Where have all the feminists gone: Learning the lessons of a long time passed in the women’s movement in the Caribbean. Caribbean Quarterly, 54(1–2), 139–154. Guest Editorial. (2002). Caribbean feminism in the 21st century: Where are we going? CAFRA News, 16(1), January–June 2002. Haynes, T. (n.d.). Mapping Caribbean cyberfeminisms. SX Archipelagos: A Small Axe Platform for Digital Practice. Hosein, G. J. (2012). Activism in academia: Twenty‐first‐century Caribbean feminist dilemmas. In V. Eudine Barriteau (Eds.), Love and power: Caribbean discourses on gender (pp. 354–380). Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. Hosein, G. J., & Outar, L. (2016). Indo‐Caribbean feminist thought: Genealogies, theories, enactments. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson‐Odim, C. (1991). Common themes, different contexts: Third world women and feminism. In C. T. Mohanty, A. Russo, & L. Torres (Eds.), Third world women and the politics of feminism (pp. 314–327). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Massiah, J., Leo‐Rhynie, E., & Bailey, B. (2016). The UWI gender journey: Recollections and reflections. Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. McDonald, E. (2016). What is this t’ing t’en about Caribbean feminisms?: Feminism in the Anglophone Caribbean, circa 1980–2000. Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, 10, 43–66. Mohammed, P. (1994). Nuancing the feminist discourse in the Caribbean. Social and Economic Studies, 43(3), 135–167. Mohammed, P. (1998a). Stories in Caribbean feminism: Reflections on the twentieth century: CGDS 5th anniversary keynote address. Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, A Journal of Caribbean Perspectives on Gender and Feminism, 9, 111–142. Mohammed, P. (1998b). Towards indigenous feminist theorizing in the Caribbean. Rethinking Caribbean Difference. Feminist Review, 59, 6–33. Reddock, R. (1998). Women’s organizations and movements in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The response to global economic crisis in the 1980s. Rethinking Caribbean Difference. Feminist Review, 59, 57–73. Reddock, R. (2001). Conceptualizing ‘Difference’ in Caribbean Feminist Theory. In B. Meeks & F. Lindahl (Eds.), New Caribbean thought (pp. 196–209). Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. Sinclair, L. (2019). Celebrating the next generation of Caribbean feminists. The Voice, August 24. Trotz, A. (2015). Inescapable entanglements: Notes on Caribbean feminist engagement. 20th Anniversary keynote address. Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, 9, 179–194. Weir‐Soley, D. A. (2014). The forging of a Caribbean feminist consciousness: Laying claim to Audre Lorde’s Legacy. The Feminist Wire. Retrieved from https://thefeministwire.com/2014/02/theforging-of-a-caribbean-feminist-consciousness-laying-claim-to-audre-lordes-legacy/. Accessed on August 16, 2019.

PART 3 FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN APPLIED CONTEXTS

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 9 “I CAN WEEP BUT NOT WAIL”: CONTEMPORARY YOUNG AFRICAN MASCULINITIES Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Akosua‐Asamoabea Ampofo

ABSTRACT Decades after feminist scholars first applied the lens of patriarchy to explain gender inequalities, and wrestled with the consequences of the patriarchal order, masculinity studies have moved from an emphasis on hegemonic masculinities to more nuanced constructions of men’s gendered performances. However, many analyses about men’s social interactions still focus on a limited set of behaviors, and men’s relations with women are often presented as problematic. Many accounts pay insufficient attention to changing contexts and men’s own explanations or perspectives, so we do not see men’s struggles or fully understand why and how some men resist patriarchal norms and perform less conventional masculinities, and what the costs and benefits of contesting dominant constructions are. One of the abiding ideologies of manhood is related to the role of the provider. In this chapter, we propose that the persistence of the social expectation that men should be the (main) family providers, despite changing economic circumstances and historical evidence to the contrary, is profoundly implicated in the tenacity of social expectations for men to perform dominant roles. We explore this contention through conversations with young African men in six cities on the continent and in the diaspora, namely Accra, Kampala, London, Nairobi, Philadelphia and Pretoria. Keywords: African men; breadwinner; masculinities; patriarchy; provider; decolonial Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 185–209 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031010

185

186

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

INTRODUCTION That’s very damaging … telling these kids there something wrong with you because you’re male; it’s the patholization of masculinity again, and the kind of damage that does to their psych, we’ve barely began to look into it. – Darius, Nairobi There are two types of crying: first there is wailing and then weeping. I can’t wail yet I can weep. – Alex, Mathare, Nairobi

Social science scholarship has paid a lot of attention to how women in so‐called “traditional” African societies enjoyed considerable autonomy because of, among other things, the sexual division of labor (Abu, 1983; Adomako Ampofo, 2007; Aidoo, 1985; Amadiume, 2015; Clark, 1994; Darkwah, 2007; Guyer, 1980; Oppong, 1970; Tashjian & Allman, 2000). Other scholars have pointed out that, even under ostensibly more equitable traditional systems, if we apply the criteria usually employed in social stratification analyses – power, wealth, and status – women as a group, enjoyed fewer of these than men (Afonja, 1990; Date‐Bah, 1986; Fayorsey, Adongo, & Kajihara, 1994; Isiugo‐Abanihe, 1994; Khalifa, 1988; Manuh, 1998; Tibaijuka, 1994). Further, women’s economic autonomy notwithstanding, marriage – which remains almost universally preferred – and the domestic responsibilities and expectations it places on female household members enables husbands to exert significant authority over wives (Adomako Ampofo, 2001; Mustafa & Mumford, 1984; Zulu, 1998). Much has also been written about how women’s traditionally accorded autonomy was eroded by the imposition of colonial gender constructions and roles, including a very deliberate side‐lining of women from positions of authority, often in collaboration with African men (Achebe, 2003; Oppong, 1980; Oyewumi, 2002; Robertson, 1976) and the creation of a cult of domesticity (Gaitskell, 2005; McClintock, 2013). The concept of patriarchy, introduced to help explain male dominance as a social, rather than biological, phenomenon, as systemic rather than a result of individual male personalities or harmful behaviors, has been extremely useful in feminist analyses, gender‐equality advocacy, and changes in policies and laws as efforts have been made to transform institutional cultures and thus social relations. However, decades after feminist scholars first applied the lens of patriarchy to explain gender inequalities, and wrestled with the consequences of the patriarchal order, and as masculinity studies have moved from an emphasis on hegemonic masculinities to more nuanced constructions of men’s gendered performances (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Shefer et al., 2007), popular narratives about men have not changed correspondingly. Accounts about men’s social interactions have remained rather static, focusing on a limited set of behaviors and roles. Popular narratives about black and brown men, especially from the perspective of the white mainstream media, are particularly devoid of the complexities of context (Atobrah & Adomako Ampofo, 2016; Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Dery & Apusigah, 2020; Ratele, 2008). They are more frequently problematized and caricatured – the context for accounts about them often boiled down to modern, urban life with its stresses and temptations, resulting in analyses of violent, criminal, dangerous, shiftless predators or deadbeat fathers; or alternatively sexual studs, and celebrity sportsmen and entertainers. Social problems, including in terms of relations with women, are then

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

187

explained as a “crisis of masculinity” (Kimmel & Wade, 2018), which is further associated with explanations about men viewing their manhood as threatened, responding by over‐compensating with performances of dominant masculinity (Willer, Rogalin, Conlon, & Wojnowicz, 2013). These popular narratives also pay insufficient attention to changing contexts and men’s own accounts and imaginaries. Nor do they allow us to see men’s struggles or help us to understand why and how some men contest or at struggle with patriarchal norms, perform less conventional masculinities, and what the costs and benefits of contesting dominant constructions are (Adomako Ampofo, 2020). One of the abiding ideologies of manhood is related to the role of the provider (Adomako Ampofo & Asiedu, 2012; Andoh‐Arthur, Knizek, Osafo, & Hjelmeland, 2018; Atobrah & Adomako Ampofo, 2016; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Dery & Apusigah, 2020; Gibbs, Sikweyiya, & Jewkes, 2014; Miescher, 2007; Salo, 2007).1 As is the case all over the world, as women’s roles have expanded, men have not necessarily stepped in, leaving reproductive work to women under the fiction that men are the providers.2 While this is indeed a global phenomenon, it appears to be particularly resilient in black communities, long histories of women’s provisioning notwithstanding (Adomako Ampofo, 2020; Harley, 1990; Matlona 2016; Salo, 2007; Smith, 2017). In this chapter, we propose that the persistence of the social expectation that men should be the (main) family providers, despite changing economic circumstances and historical evidence to the contrary, is profoundly implicated in the tenacity of male dominance, and hence, the subordination of women. We suggest that this male‐provider ideology is so powerful that it even constricts men who do not uphold it. We explore this contention through conversations with young African men in six cities on the continent and in the diaspora, namely Accra, Kampala, London, Nairobi, Philadelphia, and Pretoria. The work presented in this chapter forms part of an on‐going collaborative project between two African women – one, a professor of gender and African studies for over 30 years, and the other, a young filmmaker. We believe that a better understanding of how young African men see themselves as gendered beings, and how they view, accept, or feel able to be liberated from their society’s (gendered) expectations of them, is a critical part of the African feminist knowledge production project (Beoku‐Betts, this volume; Gouws, 2012; Mama, 2011; Okeke, 1996; Salo, 2001). In order to better understand the performance of masculinities, we need to understand how men themselves understand their place both within the larger society and also within shared male spaces, and how they respond within these. This chapter is thus situated within African gender studies and feminist theorizing about masculinities, and men and women’s (relative) contributions to household economies (Adomako Ampofo, 2007; Darkwah, 2007; Osirim, 2007; see also the volumes edited by Harley, 2007; House‐Midamba & Ekechi, 1995). In the rest of this chapter, we first offer a brief summary of the state of the field on “African masculinities.” We then go on to provide a more detailed discussion of the literature on men as providers in African contexts. The third section of the chapter presents our methodology. In the final section, we use extracts from the focus group discussions to illustrate how the men understand, explain, struggle with and respond to gendered expectations of men, and the male‐provider role

188

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

in particular. We conclude by suggesting how we might read the interrelationships between the male‐provider role, women’s subordination, and opportunities for more balanced relationships.

DISCUSSING AFRICAN MASCULINITIES The discourse that focuses specifically on how constructions of masculinity have been challenged and transformed within the contexts of African history is not a new subject within black studies generally or African gender studies in particular. Rooted in centuries of colonial encounters and slavery, the black male is frequently racially and sexually objectified and fetishized for a white imaginary (Matlona 2016; Orelus & Brock, 2014; Ratele & Shefer, 2012). Scholars who work on former slavery and apartheid contexts have paid particular attention to the emasculation and infantilization of men that has occurred as their ability to work and provide for their families was denied them, and as women often became the main family providers (Ratele, 1998; Salo, 2007). In this context, a so‐called “threat” to black masculinity has been used to explain men’s criminal activity, rape, domestic violence, mass shootings, and suicides, and the media present us with images of black men that provoke anger, disgust, fear, and pain. Alternatively, the black male is frequently racially and sexually fetishized. African men are frustrated with these caricatures, and as one participant in our study noted, “I want to be more than just be like a black male.” African feminist scholars have long examined men’s gendered performances and how these are associated with, and impact gendered relations and women’s lives. For example, they have theorized changing gender relations in the areas of work, the division of labor, family systems, women’s health, sexualities, women’s leadership to name but a few. In the 1990s, influenced in part by Connell’s (1987) argument that in Western societies there are different forms of masculinity, structured by hierarchy and power, African scholars began to look more intentionally at the subject of men’s behaviors from the perspective of men and not only from the perspective of women. Connell argued that at any point in time there is a dominant, or hegemonic form of masculinity, which gains the most from patriarchy, and exists in relation to other forms of masculinity thereby resulting in a complex array of interactions and performances at various levels. However, African‐centered scholarship, initially predominantly male voices such as Kopano Ratele and Robert Morrell, but also predominantly Southern African feminist scholars such as the late Elaine Salo and Tammy Shefer, critiqued the notion of a hegemonic form of masculinity as limiting and argued for a more nuanced approach. Ratele (2008, 2014) pointed to ruling masculinities and also argued that it was not only the dominant forms of masculinity that had the power to influence, but that marginal and marginalized masculinities also impacted the dominant forms. He also argues against a notion that subordinated masculinities are necessarily more egalitarian (Ratele, 2008, 2014). African centered, and especially African feminist scholars’ perspectives also insist on analyses of the impact of slavery, colonialism, and current global economic processes

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

189

on the creation or at least support of masculinities that perpetuate fictions of men as sole or major providers (Darkwah, 2007; Ekejiuba, 1995; Manuh, 2001; Salo, 2007). African feminists also point out how empirical work focusing on a concept of what was later described as hegemonic masculinity stripped women of agency and explained women’s status and conditions from a limited perspective of male control (Oppong, 1970). Literature is often used as a window into examining African post‐colonial masculinities. For example, in the popular novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1959) we see in Okonkwo’s son Nwoye’s coming of age, the dilemmas of a young African man caught between an idealized African masculinity and an idealized so‐called modern masculinity masquerading as Christian and civilized while essentially seeking to replace one culture’s version of who a man is with another’s. Over the years since Connell first proposed the concept of hegemonic masculinity, the schools of thought in critical studies of men and masculinities have evolved. Connell herself subsequently provided a more nuanced explanation in her paper with Messerschmidt, in which they acknowledge that the concept does not equate to a model of social reproduction and requires a more complex model of power, that recognizes internal contradictions, social struggles in which subordinated masculinities also influence dominant forms as argued by Ratele, and the need to account for women’s agency (Connell & Messerschmidt, (2005). An edited volume by Shefer et al. (2007) is one of the early collections that brings together feminist and masculinities scholars who, together, argue that the experiences and perspectives of boys and men should be included in all research and intervention work studying gender equality and transformation. Many of the studies look at the ways in which young men’s practices hold contradictory consequences for women and men, as old notions of masculinity and male privilege are challenged and destabilized (Morrell, 1998). While some men seek more nuanced, even “feminine” expressions of manhood, others hold on to more familiar routines (Dery & Apusigah, 2020; Walker, 2005). For example, drawing on interviews with young men in northwestern Ghana, Dery and Apusigah (2020) discuss how men in their study acknowledge the possibility of negotiating expressions of masculinities which are more progressive, while simultaneously remaining heavily invested in retaining certain behaviors, practices, and patriarchal structures which legitimize the currency of traditionally hegemonic masculinities. Bridges and Pascoe’s (2014) concept of hybrid masculinity allows us to look at the intersections of men’s experiences, especially for black men in the diaspora. The term refers to men’s selective incorporation of performances and identity elements associated with marginalized and subordinated masculinities and femininities. They use the concept to critically review theory and research that seeks to make sense of contemporary transformations in masculinity.

MEN, WORK, AND PROVISIONING African women are well noted for their economic autonomy, situated within cultural norms that encourage their participation in the labor force and reward

190

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

industry (Ekejiuba, 1995). Traditionally, women were expected to engage in independent productive activities from their husbands, or else a gendered division of labor principle applied if they were involved in the same industry. The idea of a woman being merely a “housewife,” a concept introduced by European colonialism and cultural Christianity, is still frowned upon and women who are not engaged in productive work are viewed as lazy. One husband, in a study among Asante market traders in Kumasi, commented that he would feel ashamed as a father “to satisfy his vanity and convenience by keeping a wife at home to wait on him at the expense of his children’s higher education or food supply” (Clark, 1994, p. 339). Further, because inheritance systems did not necessarily assure women economic assets through marriage either in a matrilineal or a patrilineal system, this made it necessary for a woman to have economic assets of her own. In contrast to European notions of household units as sites of pooled resources, most spouses in Africa maintain separate accounts and spending obligations, whether co‐residential or not. This has been argued to translate into a level of female autonomy (Oppong, 1970, 1980). Miescher’s (2005, 2007) work on the Kwawhu, one of the Akan groups of southern Ghana, discusses three ideal notions of masculinity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all of which involve looking after and providing for family: adult masculinity signified by marriage (and providing for a wife/wives and children, siblings, parents, and lineage members); senior masculinity reflected in the figure of an elder who guides and provides for not only his own lineage, but the larger community; and the status of the big man (who distributes largesse; see also Smith, 2017). Miescher (2005) and others (Uchem, 2003) discuss the impact of Western, Christian religious and cultural gendered traditions, and how the church and mission schools helped promote new notions of masculinity that included having a “noble profession” and looking after a wife and children. This revised form of manhood completely erased women’s roles in providing for their children, siblings, parents, or lineage. Uchem (2003) argues that these revisions effectively cemented among Africans a “belief of women’s inferiority to men and women’s acceptance of their own oppression” (p. 26). Colonial employment policies also impacted notions of masculinity and restructured gender relations by training men for paid work, paying them a so‐called family wage that assumed wives merely managed, but did not contribute resources to the home (Adomako Ampofo, 2001; Adomako Ampofo et al., 2009; Lindsay, 2005; Miescher, 2007; Smith, 2017). In the British colonies, a woman who worked in the civil service was required by law to give up her employment when she got married. The notions described here are not limited to the former colonies but also travel quite fluently as work on African migrants in Europe and North America show (see e.g. Manuh, 2001 on Ghanaian migrants in Canada). Today, masculine ideals are associated with men’s supposed roles in capitalist economies as heads of households, income earners, and providers (Adinkrah 2012; Adomako Ampofo et al., 2009; Lindsay, 2005; Manuh, 2001; Matlona 2016; Smith, 2017). Failing to meet these societal expectations of being a “real” man weakens a man’s social position and may contribute to extreme stress, conflict, depression and other mental illnesses, and even suicide (Adinkrah, 2012, 2014). In their study on

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

191

suicides among men in Ghana, Andoh‐Arthur et al. (2018) found the attainment of, or the loss of economic control, to be a precondition for accomplishing or failing to fulfill masculine aspirations. They conclude that an important aspect of the loss of economic control included an inability to support household welfare functions or secure a future home. The authors refer to a “breach of patriarchal norms,” as captured by perceived role reversals such that the wife becomes the main bread winner (Andoh‐Arthur et al., 2018, p. 661). This idea, as the men in this and other studies articulate, is in contradiction to the harsh reality that the opportunities for employment and income earning are shrinking in the neoliberal contexts (Miescher & Lindsay, 2003). The current precarity of work and employment practices in Africa as a result of globalization creates new forms of hybrid masculinities. In an inaugural lecture delivered at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences on September 20, titled “Addressing the crisis of work in Ghana: What role for transformative social policy” Dzodzi Tsikata (2018) evoked the image of thousands of young people standing in long queues, chasing a few jobs that they are probably overqualified for. Young people in Africa are caught in a state of what Honwana (2019) refers to as “waithood,” with little indication when this period of waiting to enter adulthood will end.

EXAMINING “AFRICAN MASCULINITIES”: A DECOLONIAL APPROACH Methodologically, this study foregrounds a decolonial and an intersectional approach to exploring young African men’s masculinities, and in tracing the conceptual maps with the discussion partners. In other words, we deliberately seek to disrupt Euro‐centric, homogenized notions of gender, class, and race in the framing of the issues around young African men’s experiences, including drawing out perspectives on the place of colonialism, the post‐colonial state, and neoliberal capitalism. The specific questions posed, how they were posed, and the analytical approach to the data also consciously seek to destabilize, or at least avoid, Eurocentric assumptions about experiences. Further, in this approach, the young men are not simply the research subjects or the “other” that we seek to know from a position of curiosity, or according to our own worldviews, but we see them as co‐knowers. In this set up, the young men questioned each other, questioned the first author as she led the discussions, suggested alternative ways of observing things, and also theorized about why things are what they are. The approach also recognizes that individual agency can be promoted or constrained by the homosocial spaces men inhabit. For example, in discussing restrictions on men’s abilities to express vulnerability and pain, and as referenced in the title to this chapter, one man conceptualizes this for the group he was in when he explained that you can “weep but not wail,” which, in turn was followed by a discussion of the difference between the two. As feminist scholars who recognize that patriarchy exists, we do not assume a post‐modern stance toward male privilege – and reflect on it in our ensuing analyses. During the focus group discussions we also took note of interesting homosocial performances, especially in the discourses employed to explain phenomena. While we cannot

192

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

discount the fact that two women researchers would not have the same discussion, or illicit the same responses as two male researchers would, we are of the view that the presentations were more for the benefit of the other men in the group – to provide a shared understanding and legitimacy – than for us as women. The method for this study was focus group discussions. Admittedly, they do not offer representativeness, nor were all the issues raised, or raised in exactly the same way or order in each discussion. Nonetheless, we view this somewhat narrative approach as extremely helpful in promoting reflection, and the men’s insights provide a depth and richness that would be unavailable with an approach in which exactly the same questions were asked, in the same way, in each group. Indeed, a decolonial approach is quite critical of the so‐called objectivity that applies a sameness criterion that masks or disallows unique experiences.3 Further, as noted elsewhere, by bringing the voices of men as gendered persons into the analyses, these group discussions and performances provide shared understandings that individual interviews would not have achieved (Adomako Ampofo, 2020). In all, we held 10 focus group discussions, with men in 9 different cities between June 2018 and January 2020, and the second author filmed all 7 of the ones discussed in this chapter – Accra, Kampala, Pretoria, Nairobi (2 groups: Nairobi city and Mathare), Philadelphia (Ghanaians only), and London.4 In each city the first author found someone she knew to help organize, or find someone to organize, the focus group discussions.5 In each case a summary of the issues to be discussed as well as a consent form was sent to the local “facilitator” to be shared with prospective participants. After sharing these, interested participants had to express interest, and then a date, time, and venue for the discussion was agreed on. At the start of each discussion, after the first author had outlined in greater detail what we were interested in talking about, and after she explained that we also intended to produce a documentary, each participant had the opportunity to sign a consent form or to drop out. After the focus group discussions were transcribed, these were sent to participants, who then had another chance to decline to be included, or to indicate any sections that they would prefer to have excluded from the study.6 The discussions below are based on 7 of the focus group discussions, held with 44 men.7 While each group was relatively homogenous, the totality of participants was more diverse: undergraduates, recent graduates, and/or graduate students (Accra, Kampala, London, Philadelphia, Pretoria, and Nairobi); and members of an environmental activist group, all of whom were working, mainly self‐employed (Mathare, a Nairobi community). Participants ranged in age from 18 to 42, with a mean age of 23.8; four were married. All the discussions were held in English, in some cases interspersed with occasional pidgin.8 Both the Nairobi and Mathare groups included a visiting intern from a North American university. While most of the men had an undergraduate university degree or were still pursuing one – with the exception of the Mathare group, who had varying levels of secondary and a few with a university education – this did not necessarily imply a “middle class” background in the socio‐economic sense. Some were first‐generation college graduates, and as they themselves explain, in today’s economy a university degree does not necessarily translate into social and economic capital. In the discussions that follow their real names are used, with their permission.

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

193

The questions around which the focus group discussions were framed (see also Adomako Ampofo, 2020) included explorations of what it means to be a (black) man; the men’s views of, and response to expectations of them as men; their experiences of racism; the racialization of black bodies and the performance of black masculinity in white spaces; strategies of survival; recognition and experiences of gender privilege, and/or disadvantage; sexualities and intimate relationships; and experiences and expressions of vulnerabilities. We also asked questions about role models, or persons they admire, and a future for their imaginary sons or younger brothers. In the ensuing discussions, we share the men’s views on what they think society’s expectations for being a man and being a provider are, followed by their reactions to these gendered expectations.

EXPLAINING MANHOOD AND THE PROVIDER ROLE What are the expected and accepted forms of expressions of manhood? Several themes emerge that illuminate how the men recognize and understand society’s expectations of them – physical and emotional strength, bravery, leadership, and responsibility. Responsibilities men have toward their families – parents, siblings, wife and children, and in‐laws – loom large in the conversations, especially the responsibility to provide for their basic needs. The men, even those from more obviously economically privileged backgrounds, also discuss the challenges they experience or anticipate experiencing in living out these expectations in today’s challenging socio‐economic context. Strong, Assertive, Protector, and Head of Household Whether the phrase a “real man” is used or not, the conversations reflect a logic about masculinity that separates the “real” from the less real, the men from the boys and women – whether they accept that logic or not, it is real. A real man should be strong, courageous, and pass the rite‐of‐passage into adulthood. Being able to overcome fear and withstand pain is an expectation, explains Edson in Kampala. Having grown up in a fishing family where men braved the elements of the sea, he makes it clear that men can’t meet the standards using the same old measures: If you really want to prove to the society that you are now a man, you need to endure the pains and sufferings so that you can accomplish the given task and then you are called a man. So that is one of the biggest challenges that young boys face.

It is interesting that he mentions society, essentially “blaming” it for those expectations. And as we see subsequently, when we come to look at the role of the provider, the sentiment is more accepting, often questioning or even blaming a man who cannot provide. Here Edson seems to be saying that in order to become a man, you must be vetted by society as having accomplished something difficult, simultaneously suggesting that women can’t go off to sea. So that vetting process via braving the sea, is a rite of passage into adult manhood, probably with continuous assessment as a man moves from young adulthood to

194

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

marriage and fatherhood, and later senior manhood. These notions of strength and bravery are, however, quite open‐ended terms as we see from Stephen’s comment below: There is this stereotype that black males are strong … in general you should, have that core strength in the sense that you should be able to handle whatever’s thrown at you. … And families that I’ve seen, the father’s one of the people that’s strong and he’s capable of handling multiple things, but then he also raises you on strength and, that to me seems like the perception of a black male. (Stephen, London)

Interesting, also, is that most definitions about strength and bravery are situated within a nuclear, or even extended family setting, and not in relation to school, training, work, or even community activism or political spaces. Edson returns to this notion of bravery and meeting danger on behalf of the family. According to him, this role is signaled for boys at an early age: As we are growing up, we get to realize that for the boys, they have more things to do in comparison to the girls. For the guys, we do things and the family expect us to be that kind of an exceptional character. … A person who can exhibit good leadership skills, for example in your homestead, and maybe thieves raid the village, and as a young man, you’re expected to stand out and fight for your community, and once you leave that and decided to sleep, you are not yet a man. So, the world will judge you harshly, the world will think that you are that kind of person who’ll never stand up for a common cause. (Edson, Kampala)

Again, we see here a reference to the society again, not personal responsibility or guilt for a failure to protect. While Alex does not elaborate, he appears to be suggesting that a man who protects is not necessarily aggressive or looking for a fight; however, he should anticipate an attack, be ready to stand up to protect his family, and so place the woman behind them at all times: I have to be the leader, the warrior. Being a warrior doesn’t mean I’m a fighter. I haven’t married but husband and wife when you look at the position of the bed, the husband sleeps at the edge and the wife sleeps at the end of the bed. So that whenever there’s an attack the first to respond is the man … and also, that’s what being a man means to me and also being faithful in the society. (Alex, Mathare)

Being a man means taking initiative, seeing things through and living up to responsibilities, and thereby also being a leader, an example and a role model: I personally, I think that [being a man] can be shown by taking on responsibilities. If you promise something, say, “I’ll pay this bill,” maybe at home, “I’ll help in this work,” then you have to fulfil it. (Louis, Kampala) To be a man, first of all, I have to take initiative, I don’t have to wait for someone to tell me what to do, I have to do something. For example, if there’s something going wrong somewhere instead of acting, I just tell it, “you know what, go and do this you” [shakes head], what I’m supposed to say is “you know what, come and help me do this.” (Alex Nakua, Mathare) Based on the African set up, a man should be a role model because most of the time, they use the man as an example to the society, when a kid wants to do something, mummy always says, “be like your dad”; when you want to cry, they tell you have you ever seen your dad cry so meaning a dad should be a role model. (Robert, Mathare)

Specifically linking these characteristics with masculinity implies that the bar for women is lower. Interestingly enough, however, when asked about leaders and

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

195

role models not many of the men mention their fathers as, while many specifically refer to the roles their mothers have played, including suffering to take care of the family. Paul, raised by a single mother, is aware from his own experience that women can and do play the roles that society’s narrative claims is for the man. Here he underscores the importance of a partnership, including the importance of a man’s physical and emotional presence: I don’t know much, I was raised by a single mum, (but) I think a man in a home should be there to support the family mentally, physically and spiritually. I feel when a man is there, he’s capable of giving encouragement to the woman, talking to the woman and making the woman psychologically free … he has to be there not only to provide food, clothing and protection. (Paul, Mathare)

In recognizing the fictions around these constructions of masculinity, the men are aware of the decision‐making privileges that come with the narrative, especially the notion of head of household. Susu explains it thus: For the most part, what we think about a man is the traditional roles of a man: protector, provider, head of household, final say, all that kind of thing. That’s the general idea of a man in Ghana. Maybe for the more educated people, there might be a bit more balance as to how we see masculinity now, but for most people in Ghana, the man has the final say, he is the head of household, he comes back from work, there must be food in front of him. That’s how most people in Ghana see it, I would assume. I don’t have the statistics or whatever, but that’s how I see it. (Susu, Accra)

The notion of head of household, and its attendant responsibilities, leads to expectations that a man must have a steady job which is preferred over innovating or risk taking despite the fact that men are expected to be brave. This also impacts the career path a man is encouraged to choose: A career path that you have a role to play in being a man, or the conceptions of being a man. Coming to school (University) I wanted to do theatre … but my father said, “no please … you know, go and be a lawyer.” (Elom, Philadelphia)

In high school, Elom was head boy and studied economics and geography, although he did act in school plays, so one can appreciate the practicality of Elom’s father’s expectations. Further, could a theater performer look after a family in his home country Ghana? Nana Osei agrees about the expectations to have a regular job: Nine to five. I think that’s a big thing, like, from Ghana. I think your parents expect you to, I mean most parents expect you to grow up, learn, finish school get a nine to five, a steady job. I think that’s one thing that is big and defined in the black man: “he’s not a man, he can’t provide, he doesn’t have a steady a job.”… Yeah, I think coming here, what has changed that, is that entrepreneur lifestyle where people are setting off to do their own thing. It kind of clashes with that for me, because you know, in Ghana everything is like “Osei you have to get a job, Osei you have to get a job,” that is how you do it, it’s all about finishing school, get a job and you are done. The requirement is finish school, get a job. (Nana Osei, Philadelphia)

Without exception, the men feel the pressure to get a job or have a steady income, and not to breathe until they achieve this. While many acknowledge that they are more than an economic bag, they seem to perceive themselves to be failures if they don’t have a job at all.9

196

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

Being a Provider Being the head of household, which goes with being responsible, is automatically linked with being a provider. The men are under no illusions about this expectation, a job they consider to be taxing and stressful because a man is not offered a menu with alternatives, and also because that job never ends. This is illustrated in Robert’s comment below: When you wake up early in the morning going to look for something to feed your family with, you’re like a bread winner in the family, going to look for food, you teach the kids in the house that a man should not just sleep. (Robert, Mathare)

If men must wake up early, presumably women can sleep in. Across the board, the question of provision is inevitably followed by commentary or explanations in relation to women – not so much children, or parents, even though men are expected to provide for them as well – particularly their social reproductive roles. The notion that the breadwinner operates in a battle zone also recurs, reinforcing the idea that a man will come home to a place where he will be served. Stephen captures this rather sarcastically: I heard somebody mention breadwinner, which is, I’d say, the key thing …you should bring the food, and then your wife prepares it. So there’s the stereotype of the man providing and then the wife preparing or, you know, cooking … looking after the home, raising the kids while the husband is “out there,” battling against the world, trying to bring back all these resources for you to make the house a better place. That’s the way I think, it’s generally seen. It’s not necessarily the way I would see it but in terms of how I see it happening everywhere or what people expect. (Stephen, London)

Inasmuch as they may question, resist, or respond with sarcasm, the men anticipate these expectations from society, and so, when they do not achieve these markers of masculinity then their world is thrown into controversy. Another young man named Stephen, this time in Accra, explains: So, I think with the issue of being a man in our setting … there are some things that are expected of us. For instance you are supposed to be the provider as they say, the protector, you are supposed to be giving, you should buy … you know those kind of things and I think that is how our society here has constructed the idea of being a man.

David, a Nigerian graduate student in Pretoria asserts that because women themselves espouse these notions, one cannot ascribe the male‐provider versus the female homemaker roles to patriarchy. If a man’s partner and her family expect him to provide, how much agency does he really have, he argues, especially when these constricting notions of masculinity are upheld by women? There are social expectations to get married … at a certain age, or to attain a particular economic standard whether or not you’re capable. That’s also where the responsibility comes in …. The woman may also say “I am a woman you should take care of me” and when you don’t do that, every woman in the family sits you down to school you that this is your role as a man … so it’s not just patriarchy or male glorification … it doesn’t come from the men, but the women who have been schooled to constantly glorify the men, whether or not they want to glorified. (David, Pretoria)

Dickson, married, and also a graduate student in Pretoria, notes that he comes from South‐west Nigeria, and describes his own familiarity with this “support expectation”:

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

197

It [being a provider] is one of the features that the family of your in‐laws may want to ascertain before they can be confident enough, to say “okay, we are releasing our daughter to you, because you can provide support.” In the 21st century we have seen the socio‐economic and political environment being able to provide us with instances where the woman earns … more … and she has more opportunities than the man, but she will still expect from the man to support her. So, there’s this support expectation, and not only between a man and his wife, but also within the other family and the community as well.

Women, some argue, are confused about gendered expectations for women and men in today’s world, or else they merely exploit the language of gender politics for personal advantage. “They’re very confused, today you find them shouting ‘gender,’ tomorrow, you find them saying that you’re the man, you’re supposed to provide” says Alex from Mathare, Nairobi. Robert, also from Mathare, is even more critical: They protect themselves with the issue of gender but in real sense, they’re not ready to tackle gender issues … they cry out that women are being marginalised, but when it comes to where people are needed, when a problem needs to be solved, they wouldn’t be there, they leave it to the men. (Robert, Mathare)

Perhaps Robert’s comment reflects a conflict for some men between their internalization of who a man “should” be, and “gender” that makes them feel like they are being replaced, because if women can take care of themselves and solve problems, then where does that leave the man in his role? That individuals would enter a relationship where they expect both partners to also pull their weight is reasonable. However, some men seem to suggest that because they are expected to provide, when they look for partners, they don’t prioritize financial security the way women do. This notion that men must provide even if a woman earns money, or even earns more money, is explained by Kevin as a matter of (a woman’s) right to not have to provide, thereby emphasizing just how important it is for a man to play this role: According to … how I see things I don’t think women should do a lot of work even in the Islamic culture. If a woman is working and she’s earning you don’t have rights to her money, unless she herself is willing to give it to you to use for the family but you as the man should provide everything. So if you don’t have [money], you should loan for it. The woman herself should be willing to provide for the family but even if she’s earning a million and she’s not ready to provide for the family and the children, she’s right. (Kevin, Mathare; emphasis ours)

Of course, when Kevin talks about a woman “not working” he means not working for pay; domestic work is not considered as work. These kinds of descriptions are overly simplistic, ignoring contexts in which men have multiple wives (partners), or where women may lose out in the event of a divorce or death of a spouse, or, importantly, that women are not necessarily incorporated into their husbands lineages and are themselves responsible for their lineage members, especially parents. Osei (Accra) tries to rationalize these expectations, and makes an excellent point: For me, how I look at it is like, in the world, we have the two sexes. Women have a natural value to the society just by virtue of the fact that they can have children. … Your value is directly tied to what you can provide. So, as a man, if you are not able to provide or occupy a certain space in society where you have an amount of power or influence, you are pretty much cast to the side. You are not really taken seriously.

198

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

However, if men have the ability to have many children with multiple women, then in a society where men can be polygynous but women must be monogamous, where does that leave women who are meant to cook and clean, but can be replaced, based not on what the women can provide, but on whether a man (who purportedly provides the finances) has changed the family configuration? In terms of their own experiences, the men find that even though they are young, in school, recently graduated, recently married, unemployed, or only recently employed, no one is waiting for them to “settle” – society expects them to provide for parents, sisters or younger siblings, and even girlfriends even if these individuals themselves do not. They believe that the expectation to be a responsible provider has already begun for them, a role which has no end date or off‐season. In discussing expectations related to “supporting” girlfriends, Peter in Kampala laments the loss of simplicity from the days you could offer a mango to a girl you were courting. Nowadays, he laments, “[I] t’s upon how much mobile money you send her, how much airtime you can send.” When the first author asks how this expectation is influenced by the fact that women and men students both come to school with similar resources, he says: The little you have, the little that you’ve been given actually it will mean that for the (sake of the girls) you’ll have to save, and you’ll have to spend on her, that’s how it goes.

When the first author asks: Wait! Wait! Wait! The girl will save her money that her parents gave her or from what she’s doing into her pocket, and then you will take yours and give to her?

He responds: They always ask you for airtime. Immediately after you send, they expect you to call. You just bought her airtime! The moment you do not, you’ll become a laughing stock in between [sic.] her friends, and your friends would actually decide to pressure you.

To this Edson (Kampala) adds: My brother, … the world has changed right now, if you want to compete favourably you have to put in something. To be honest, this girl you are seeing in Uganda, she’s the person you are going to buy airtime and you send to her but when she wants to talk to you, she’ll “beep”10 you. When you are visiting her hostel for example, she expects you to bring something but when she’s visiting you, she’ll come without anything but then she’ll request for transport back to her hostel. So, it’s either you work hard, or you lose out.

Joel disagrees: I don’t think I should really begin saving for this lady, buy for her whatever she wants, you know, … she still has parents, she still has people to care for her. I mean, I’m a student and she’s also a student. I don’t think I should take care of her. I don’t think being a man is taking care of you girlfriend, I don’t agree …. For me right now … I cannot have a girlfriend and begin spending on her. I mean on whatever she wants, I can’t. I think it’s all about cooperating with her. … Personally, I have that one who can buy for me airtime on Mondays and I buy for her airtime on Fridays. (Joel, Kampala) Emmanuel, himself married, and also from the Kampala group, blames men for setting up this imbalance.

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

199

If as a guy you’re saying: I don’t want this girl to keep asking money from me, then why do you give it? I think even sometimes a guy with the desire to overly impress a girl would constantly give money because they think or that way will feel like a man. But I think for you to be, in my opinion, to be a real man, you don’t have to base your relationship or your feelings on something physical like money because at the end of the day, along the line, after six months of marriage, if the money runs out, will the honey also go?

He goes on to argue that women only appear to be mercenary because men essentially use them for their pleasure and then discard them: If you get Diana and you date Diana only for sex, at the back of Diana’s mind on the first date or second date, the first thing you are asking for is sex, Diana knows, “if I can give him sex, he can give me money.”

The men do talk about sexual exchange, sugar daddies, and the competition that the pressure to “support”, as it was referred to in Mathare, Nairobi, brings into a dating relationship. Explains Paul: you find a girl she’s good, she’s beautiful, she has a good job, she loves you, but you don’t have that financial support and she has someone else supporting her. That’s why you find most guys [are] not married because she realizes that you can’t take her to the picnics or the coasts, or travel with her, she will leave you because she just wants to have fun and have some change.

It would appear that women’s expectations of “support” are indeed moderated by the nature of the relationship. The rules about the provider role are relaxed if she sees the relationship as going somewhere. However, as Osei explains, this is also an “audition phase” in a relationship, and the provider role rules can be reactivated as soon as the relationship becomes more formalized: I realised that a lot of these things, they are really contingent on whether the girl likes you and whether she is really into you. Because I noticed that when a girl is into you, a lot of these things she doesn’t mind …. If a girl likes you, she doesn’t mind taking you out to dinner and spending on you or you know like covering half the check. But usually in the courting phase, I feel like in that phase it’s almost like an audition to prove yourself as a man. And all of these things … go a long way to adding up to how she sees you. Definitely, there are the girls who when you meet them off the bat, they don’t expect you to fill a certain idea or role: as being the provider man or something like that but then at the end of the day, I feel like these things add up. … In the courting phase, at least, it goes a long way to telling or informing the girl about your level of “masculinity.” And quite frankly, that’s important to a lot of women when it comes to deciding their future partner. A lot of women, I feel like, don’t want a man‐child. (Osei, Accra).

A man child would be someone who cannot provide; this is not the kind of man a woman wants. They may be willing to “support” a man, but women don’t want to be the sole providers at all, while men, it seems, though they may chafe at this, do not mind looking after a family by themselves. Nonetheless, while some men feel threatened by an inability to bankroll girlfriends, others are comfortable with sharing costs with women. Explains Tama: As far as financial goals are concerned, I mean we are all broke college students, usually what we do is that, a bill is split, usually its split down the middle. I can offer [to pay] but if someone says let’s split, then that’s never an issue for me as far as masculinity in that sense goes. (Tama, Nairobi)

200

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

We should note here that Tama studies in North America and may be dating women in a space where it is more culturally acceptable for expenses to be split. At the same time, in the Global North, the willingness to accept women’s economic advantage is not uncomplicated. Jamal’s comments exemplify this and reinforce the notion that women can do well financially, they can even do better than men, but not “too” much better: If she’s on, let’s say, 150k and I’m on a 100k, I don’t care. … If she’s on a 150 and I’m on like, 20 and then each time she’s making the decision she’s saying we’re going to this fancy restaurant, I’ll get the bill though because obviously (trails off) … that kind of stuff. Then I’m going to start … feeling insecure about myself and then that’s going to reflect in my actions and things like that. But if I’m comfortable and I’m doing well within myself, I wouldn’t really care, you know, honestly. (Jamal, London)

THE PROVIDER: STRUGGLES, RESISTANCES, AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR RECONSIDERATION The ideal version of a man as sole or main provider is unattainable in the short term, and not sustainable in the long term. Under current economic conditions, a man can easily lose his job, his position as a (future) provider, his appeal as a prospective husband, his wife if he is married, and ultimately his status as a man.11 Men are looking at life’s worst case scenarios: will they be able to care for a wife, children, and aged parents; will they be able to get married at all? An unemployed woman, on the contrary, doesn’t suffer this stigma or fate they say. We provide a series of comments below: [If you are economically unstable] you lose your status as a man, and I think that is what has caused a lot tensions in South Africa for instance, because you find black men standing outside by the road unemployed and begging cars that are passing by, and women are seizing opportunities for social mobility, for instance women are receiving bursaries to go to school. (Labablo, Pretoria) The idea of a man who has a job, has a stable‐ish family I guess, and he loses that job, there’s a lot of … the idea floating around, if that happens, you’re very liable to lose your family as well. As in, your wife might leave you, if you lose your job. Whereas if the wife was to lose her job, it’s not necessarily a thing, that people think the man’s going to walk out because she doesn’t have a job anymore … no one’s going to marry you if you can’t make money for the house …. (Stephen, London) When you are unemployed, it means everything in your life is still. You can’t get into a relationship. Most people want to marry at some point but if you are in that long period of unemployment, it pushes everything back. So, if … you get a job at thirty, it means the marriage, the earliest it’s going to come is thirty‐three, thirty‐five. So, it has pushed everything back. … It’s like your life is going away. Women don’t have that same problem because if a woman is unemployed, someone can still marry her. She’s still marriable. An unemployed man is not marriage material. (Susu, Accra)

The economic pressures lead to a sense of despondency, sometimes anxiety and hopelessness. Susu explains further: You are trying to get a job and we all know how hard it is for graduates to get jobs nowadays. Unemployment is high. … Say, my parents are old, and they’ve retired. Now I’m thinking, it

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

201

becomes my responsibility. That’s how most men are going to think. That’s how we are conditioned to think. But – the pressure it places on us because you think you have to provide. Because you are unemployed, you are dropping your CV, you are applying, you are not getting called back. It’s a lot of pressure because in your head, I’m responsible for my family but you cannot do anything about it. Our mental health issues are not being talked about, but a lot of men are struggling because they have this idea that they have to provide.

Peter (Kampala) also acknowledges how much stress expectations to be a provider places on men, and then goes on to reject the role: We are claiming to preserve culture, preserve tradition, our societal needs, time is going to come when we just break down. You cannot tell me that, I’m going to marry a wife and then I’m supposed to be the provider of everything. It has changed. (Peter, Kampala)

Men who recognize that the status quo is unsustainable, acknowledge that something must change not just in how others see them, but also in how they view women, domestic work, being vulnerable and themselves as men: I think what we are dealing with is, we are still in transition, we probably are the first generation of men to be pushed … now the whole neo‐liberalism has essentially clogged all the socioeconomic pipelines so there are really very few people making it through the system, in terms of the ability to get that schooling and make a liveable wage, and have those resources so a lot of men our generation have realised it’s not working and it needs to change. (Darius, Nairobi)

However, although some men recognize that change must happen, finding the right balance for this alternative man can be bewildering: I think that we live in a generation where these issues of masculinity are confused. That’s how I see it. There was a time when probably paying the bills alone was enough. You were a man. Now, we live in a generation where we don’t even know what it means to be masculine. So, pay the bills, and you have to be at home. Sometimes you have to cry a bit, but don’t cry too much, sometimes you have to hug us. So, who am I? When am I being a man and when am I not? Sometimes, it’s easy to blur these lines. You get confused sometimes. (Edwin, Accra)

Expressing the kinds of alternative masculinities we discussed in the groups includes being vulnerable, something men rarely have permission to be: You can’t do that [be vulnerable] in society. That’s why we were talking so much about cultivating friend hood. Because once you enter into that space with those three or four friends[s], then you guys can discuss on that level. But you know once you step out of that space, the mask has to come back on. You need to put on your armour, put on your seat belt and head out. You are not afforded that luxury. A woman can cry and people will be like what’s wrong. Go and stand somewhere and cry and see how people will laugh at you. (Osei, Accra)

Expressing vulnerability is associated with “softness,” being effeminate or gay: Another conception of being a man, growing up has been to like the harder things of life. So, like to want to play sports … you know. But growing up I’ve not wanted to play football and other things neither have I wanted to be aggressive. … I consider the softer things of life as my interest. So, like theatre, art, I would go to a dance show, you know, these things, these things are what make me happy. But people are like well, we’re not too sure about you … yeah, are you a man?. (Elom, Philadelphia)

While Elom appears to be ready to embrace this “softer” man, others, who also see the need for change, adopt it more gradually however:

202

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

For me I think my dad is the ideal Igbo man and I do not think I’m relieved from that yet even if I’m very far from home, he is the provider, the almost omnipresent person, super strict and also super attentive to details around academics, finance and things of the sort. But he does not show his emotions openly, he holds that back. I’m breaking away from that gradually. (David Ikpo, Pretoria)

So how can men change the status quo and express a manhood that will not be threatened by their inability to live up to unrealistic and unsustainable (provider) images? How can they forge a version of manhood where they can claim the right to wail, sometimes not pay bills, or even be a homemaker? How might they claim the right to be vulnerable, and protect their mental health, outside of a few limited spaces that society gives them permission to be vulnerable in? Is there space to allow fear, anxiety, frustration, or loneliness in men? One of the first things that must happen is for men to acknowledge as fiction the idea that men are and have “always” been the major providers. Women and men bring different resources to the table, and sometimes women are the major resource providers, as they have been historically; however, the male‐provider fiction is upheld so that the man can maintain his decision‐making role, and this also must change. Explains Ikenna: I grew up in a home where my mother was making far more money than my father …. My dad’s priority was, using the money, building a home back in Nigeria so he could go and kind of flex in front of his friends and also like, making sure that there were no debts …. My mom wanted to take vacations and she wanted to travel the world and she wanted to take care of her children … she was like “I made this, I worked hard for this and these are the priorities that I have”… And my dad was like “as a man, I am the one who should be able to decide how … how this money is being used”. Growing up made me not like this idea of the black man being the provider because to me, it caused more conflict in the home than it did collaboration.” (Ikenna, London). Simphiat (Pretoria) agrees. “In South Africa,” he asserts, “we have the situation where most women head households where there are no males…This then creates conflict where men want to suddenly lead, and assume responsibility over women, although they have not, in practice, fulfilled the expectations.” He continues, “[when women] want to be in leadership, want to provide a way contrary to what men want, it causes a conflict of interest, because of the fact that they are your responsibility, so it causes a leadership issue as well in the long run.” Simphiat (Pretoria) contends that the concept itself needs to be re‐thought: it not only over‐ascribes roles to men, but in essence it also infantilizes others, “[the] responsibility to take care of others, assumes that others can’t take care of themselves and that these others are also fundamentally children.”

Secondly, as argued by Stephen (London) there must be a correct acknowledgment of the value of domestic and reproductive work, currently carried out mainly by women. Presumably, then, he asserts, a man without a paid job outside the home, could manage the home without the stigma of being “unemployed” as he would provide support through domestic work. Thirdly, men need to express emotions and offer emotional support, which needs to be acknowledged as a contribution: You have in our fathers generation, “I’ve provided your food, I pay your school fees.” Now we live in a generation where it’s not enough to meet economic needs, you have to be a good mate to your partner, you have to be a good father to the kids, you have to be emotionally involved in the lives of your children. … Yes, you can pay the bills, but you have to be there emotionally for your kids. Can they say they have a relationship with you beyond you being the ATM? … It’s

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

203

that dynamic which women our generation expect men to be stepping up to, especially within a gender relational dynamic … men have to change. So, there’s a masculinity in transition element that’s happening within our generation. (Darius, Nairobi).

Fourthly, deconstructing masculinities can only happen in conjunction with a different socialization of children that frees them of the burden of gender stereotypes: That whole stereotyping contributes to that whole “boys will be boys” narrative. Parents don’t raise their children to be vulnerable. If he’s violent, its fine, “boys will be boys,” you brush to the side all those things because you have these expectations of what a boy should be, because of the way we’ve been socialised to think about a male or female dynamic. That damages your development as a child, damages the way you raise your child: you don’t raise them to be a well‐rounded human being, you raise them to exhibit these traits that you think or expect of a boy and so they don’t know how to cope or think in any other way but that. (Tama, Nairobi)

Finally, as far as our focus group discussions go, for men to think differently about manhood and their role as providers, there must be a shift in how men view human roles and a recognition and acceptance of women’s expectations in relationships. For relationships to work, it is the men who must shift in order to meet today’s woman, and not vice versa: For me, I feel like my best idea of myself as a man is pretty much … like, I should be able to provide and support myself fully first. I shouldn’t need a woman to cook or clean for me. I should be able to do all that by myself. At the same time too, I need to be able to go out and make money. Work hard and if it comes down to it, I should be able to have a house. Be able to have my car, have my social links to make things happen for me. And that in itself means that if a woman is coming into my life, she is not coming into my life particularly because she fills a certain role: she can play a certain role that I myself I’m not capable of. I don’t need a woman because I can’t cook. I don’t need a woman because I can’t wash my own things. I should be able to do all of those things for myself first before I go out and look for a woman. So that at that point, what she’s bringing into my life is probably her feminine energy: to complement me. As a woman, definitely or as a human being, or an adult, there are certain things I feel you should be able to do. And once you reach that point, anybody that you bring into your life as a romantic partner or whatever, they are not there because they play a role but they are there because genuinely, you want them there. (Osei, Accra)

The shift, for men, means that they come to a place of recognizing that they need women as much as women need them: She doesn’t have to relax … with [providing] the material things. You don’t find all the time the man providing, sometimes it’s the woman with the better job but in one way or the other, she needs you to talk to her, she needs you to assist her in the budgeting of the whole essence of life. I think we need each other and I learnt it from my own sources and also spiritually we need to be connected. (Paul, Mathare, Nairobi)

These alternative men are not phantoms beyond their reach. Peter holds up his lecturer Isaac as an example of a man with this kind of mutually supportive relationship: He [Isaac] has married a partner. …You can see, … that they do things together, they make decisions together, sometimes it’s slopes but you could also know that it yields out progress in what to do and what not to do, who should do this, who shouldn’t do this. So, that could be a kind of man I, you know, get inspired by. (Peter, Kampala)

204

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

THE MALE PROVIDER AND THE SUBORDINATION OF WOMEN Feminism, and how feminism is really the struggle for equality, the struggle to put women in the center as well as men, and then being aware of the power we have and how I can use it to carry myself. So I need to do something with the power that I have to expand other men’s minds, who might not see it that way, who might not be aware of the power. (Kojo, London)

In this chapter we have shared men’s views on masculinity, focusing on the role of the provider to suggest an underlying cause of the unyieldingness of what Kopano Ratele would refer to as ruling African masculinity, or what Stefan Miescher would refer to as adult and senior masculinity. We come to our analyses from an African centered feminist epistemology by proposing interrelationships between societal expectations for men, men’s adoption, struggles with, or rejections of these constructions, and implications for addressing male dominance in gender relations. There is no doubt that the provider role retains salience, even if only as an unattainable myth that must be demolished. We find that working class men in Mathare, Nairobi, are more likely to accept, and less likely to struggle with the concept of the provider role. However, all the men, without exception, recognize the difficulties of “providing” in today’s world and feel the stress that accompanies others’ expectations that they should occupy this role. One almost feels that the men see themselves as victims. Nonetheless the cry for permission to be vulnerable and for attention to be paid to mental health issues is significant. The experiences of highly educated and traveled men are generally associated with embracing a more nuanced masculinity, however, we found the resistances to unrealistic and unsustainable expectations across countries and social location. The perception that what attracts a woman to a man is mainly his financial means, implies that money is the main thing men are bringing to the table, and so it is not surprising that a man without assets would be dispensable. Women without assets are “marriable” while men are not. However, African women are generally lauded for being hard working, responsible, and the ones who provide for children, siblings, and elderly parents. The story of the caring adult daughter and neglectful son is well‐known. Is what the men hear about masculinity (and by definition femininity) suggestive that this African woman is invisible to them unless she earns more than her partner? And where is the place for emotional support in the current (as opposed to future) equation of contributions? Many of the perceptions of masculinity we have now that are the so‐called traditional were actually shaped by colonial systems. And now men are unsure what to do with them, because the today’s liberal, capitalist economic systems imply that unlike their fathers, men are competing for jobs in a very tight space – but so are women. So suddenly, the colonial masculinity that is being held up to them, and the reality that there are no jobs so you might have to stay home with children, or that your wife or girlfriend might even have to “look after” you for a while – that’s a hard pill to swallow for many. However, few men referred to their gender privilege – even though they concede that expectations and expressions of manhood must change, we got the sense that this was sometimes more from a strategic or practical perspective than from a place of empathy with women.

205

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

Kojo’s quote above puts forward unambiguously, the fact that men have gender power that they must use to work with other men for transformation to occur. It is noteworthy that all the respectable things a man is supposed to be, including controlling social and political capital, are referenced in a family setting and in relation to women (wives). Our line of questioning might have elicited these responses, but no one talked about access to resources in conjunction with civil, social, or political leadership. Do the men feel that society does not look at a civil leader or politician outside of being a husband and father? Further research might examine contradictions in the expectations for men within families and men within political spaces. Why are the latter not held to the same expectations to provide for the nation as men are in a family setting?12 While it is true that politicians are expected to, and do distribute largesse, male politicians’ failures to meet the most basic needs of their constituents does not seem to generate the same concerns about not performing masculinity adequately. They seem to not only not fulfill their promises, all the time, but also to receive no sanctions for this failure – why is this so? In conclusion, we can say that all the men recognize the expectation to be providers, and that “providerhood” comes with expectations that are generally difficult to achieve or are downright unattainable. While women’s equal or greater contributions are recognised by some, the fiction that the husband is the sole or main provider enables the justification of male decision making clout--something not all men see as a privilege. Suggestions for change include a redefinition of the provider counting domestic work contributions, fashioning an alternative manhood that includes expressing emotions and offering emotional support, and recognizing women’s expectations and needs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It would be impossible to name everyone who has contributed to this work; however, we would like to express our gratitude for the multitude of support we received, and acknowledge, by name, those individuals who assisted in organizing the focus group discussions in the methodological section of this chapter. We are also grateful for the comments of our reviewers.

NOTES 1.  Other ideologies center around sexual potency (Adomako Ampofo, 2020) and fatherhood (Adomako Ampofo, Okyerefo, & Pervarah, 2009; Ratele, Shefer, & Clowes, 2012). However, despite the power of these, unlike the ideology of the provider, they need a female collaborator for ratification, whereas the role of provider merely requires a female subject. 2.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that this has only been exacerbated since the advent of the COVID‐19 pandemic. 3.  This is not to devalue in survey techniques, but to underscore their limitations, especially for a study such as this one that focuses on identity politics where pre‐constructed notions could be particularly misleading. 4.  Not included in this chapter are discussions held in Dortmund (in German, translation and transcription ongoing), Dusseldorf (older men), and Oshawa (recent high school graduates).

206

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

5.  The second author also helped find some of the men in Accra and Philadelphia. We would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, the assistance we received in organizing the focus group discussions discussed in this chapter as follows: Dominica Dipio and Isaac Tibasiima (Kampala), Innocent Anguyo (London), Wangui Kimari and Martin Oduor (Mathare, Nairobi), Mshai Mwangola (Nairobi), Elom Tettey‐Tamaklo and Akosua Ampofo (Philadelphia), and James Ogude (Pretoria); the two co‐authors organized the Accra discussions. 6. To date only one participant in the Oshawa group (not included in this chapter) requested to be excluded after the discussion. 7.  The current analyses do not include the two conversations held in Germany, and the one held in Oshawa. 8.  Spoken mostly in urban towns among the youth, across social class. 9. At the time of carrying out the study no one had any idea that a pandemic like COVID‐19 would decimate the world and lead to such a severe economic recession (Dery, & Apusigah, 2020). Casual conversations with some of the men recently suggest that the current crisis has brought new nightmares of joblessness. 10.  Deliberately dropping a call so that the other person returns the call (also called “flashing” in Ghana). 11.  During the course of writing this chapter some of the men in the study did lose their jobs, and others remain unemployed. 12. As Smith (2017) notes, the politician is expected to provide to his constituents, and we see ever increasing distribution of largess around election time. But on the whole, at the highest levels of political leadership, patronage politics mean that the larger family (nation) is left out of the schedule of provisioning.

REFERENCES Abu, K. (1983). The separateness of spouses: Conjugal resources in an Ashanti town. In Allen & Unwin (Eds.),. Female and male in West Africa (pp. 156–168). London: Achebe, C. (1959). Things fall apart. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Achebe, N. (2003). ‘And she became a man’: King Ahebi Ugbabe in the history of Enugu‐Ezike, Northern Igboland, 1880–1948. In L. Lindsay & S. Miescher (Eds.), Men and masculinities in modern Africa (pp. 52–68). Heinemann. Adinkrah, M. (2012). Better dead than dishonored: Masculinity and male suicidal behavior in contemporary Ghana. Social Science & Medicine, 74(4), 474–481. Adinkrah, M. (2014). “Suicide in Ghanaian men”. Men and suicide (pp. 262–276). Adomako Ampofo, A. (2007). My cocoa is between my legs: Sex as work among Ghanaian women. In S. Harley (Ed.), Women’s labor in the global economy: Speaking in multiple voices (pp. 185–205). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Adomako Ampofo, A. (2020). Young African men’s reflections on negotiating sexual intimacy. In G. M. Torres & K. Yllö (Eds.), Sexual violence in intimacy: Implications for research and policy in global health (pp. 25–43). London: Routledge. Adomako Ampofo, A., & Asiedu, A. M. (2012). Changing representations of women in Ghanaian popular music: Marrying research and advocacy. Current Sociology, 60(2), 258–279. Adomako Ampofo, A., Okyerefo, M. P., & Pervarah, M. (2009). Phallic competence: Fatherhood and the making of men in Ghana. Culture, Society & Masculinities, 1(1), 59. Afonja, S. (1990). Changing patterns of gender stratification in West Africa. In I. Tinker (Ed.), Persistent inequalities: Women and world development (pp. 198–209). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Aidoo, A. A. (1985). Women in the history and culture of Ghana. Research Review, 1(1), 14–51. Amadiume, I. (2015). Male daughters, female husbands: Gender and sex in an African society. London: Zed Books Ltd. Adomako Ampofo, A. (2001). “When men speak women listen”: gender socialization and young adolescents’ attitudes to sexual and reproductive issues. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 5(3), 196–212.

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

207

Andoh‐Arthur, J., Knizek, B. L., Osafo, J., & Hjelmeland, H. (2018). Suicide among men in Ghana: The burden of masculinity. Death Studies, 42(10), 658–666. Atobrah, D., & Adomako Ampofo, A. (2016). Expressions of masculinity and femininity in husbands’ care of wives with cancer in Accra. African Studies Review, 59(1), 175–197. Bridges, T., & Pascoe, C. J. (2014). Hybrid masculinities: New directions in the sociology of men and masculinities. Sociology Compass, 8(3), 246–258. Clark, G. (1994). Onions are my husband: Survival and accumulation by West African market women. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and power. Cambridge: Polity (pp. 183–185). Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–859. Darkwah, A. (2007). Work as a duty and as a joy: Understanding the role of work in the lives of Ghanaian female traders of global consumer items. In Women’s labor in the global economy: Speaking in multiple voices (pp. 206–220). Date‐Bah, E. (1986). Sex segregation and discrimination in Accra—Tema: Causes and consequences. In A. Richard & H. Catherine (Eds.), Sex inequalities in urban employment in the third world (pp. 235–276). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Dery, I., & Apusigah, A. A. (2020). ‘So Kuoↄ Kye Bε Yi’: disrupting constructions of masculinities among the Dagaaba of Northwestern Ghana. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 16(1), 6–22. Ekejiuba, F. I. (1995). Down to fundamentals: Women‐centred hearth‐holds in rural West Africa. In Women wielding the hoe: Lessons from rural Africa for feminist theory and development practice (pp. 47–61). Fayorsey, C. K., Adongo, P., & Kajihara, B. (1994). The social organization in Kassena Nankana district: Assessing the contexts for reproductive change in a traditional African society. Documentation Note 10, Community Health and Family Planning Project, Navrongo Health Research Centre. Unpublished. Gaitskell, D. (2005). Devout domesticity? A century of African women’s Christianity in South Africa. In A. Cornwall (Ed.), Readings in gender in Africa (pp. 177–186). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Gibbs, A., Sikweyiya, Y., & Jewkes, R. (2014). ‘Men value their dignity’: Securing respect and identity construction in urban informal settlements in South Africa. Global Health Action, 7(1), 23676. Gouws, A. (2012). Reflections on being a feminist academic/academic feminism in South Africa. Equality, Diversity, Inclusion: An International Journal, 31(5–6), 526–541. Guyer, J. I. (1980). Food, cocoa, and the division of labour by sex in two West African societies. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22(3), 355–373. Harley, S. (1990). For the good of family and race: Gender, work, and domestic roles in the black community, 1880–1930. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 15(2), 336–349. Harley, S. (Ed.). (2007). Women’s labor in the global economy: Speaking in multiple voices. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Honwana, A. M. (2019). Youth struggles: From the Arab spring to black lives matter and beyond. African Studies Review, 62(1), 8–21. House‐Midamba, B., & Ekechi, F. K. (1995). African market women and economic power: The role of women in African economic development. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Isiugo‐Abanihe, U. C. (1994). Reproductive motivation and family‐size preferences among Nigerian men. Studies in Family Planning, 25(3), 149–161. Khalifa, M. A. (1988). Attitudes of urban Sudanese men toward family planning. Studies in Family Planning, 19(4), 236–243. Kimmel, M., & Wade, L. (2018). Ask a feminist: Michael Kimmel and Lisa Wade discuss toxic masculinity. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44(1), 233–254. Lindsay, L. A. (2005). Shunting between masculine ideals: Nigerian railway men in the Colonial Era. In A. Cornwall (Ed.), Readings in gender in Africa (pp. 141–147). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Mama, A. (2011). What does it mean to do feminist research in African contexts?. Feminist Review Proceedings, 0141‐7789(11), e4–e20.

208

AKOSUA ADOMAKO AMPOFO AND AKOSUA-ASAMOABEA AMPOFO

Manuh, T. (1998). Women in Africa’s development: Overcoming obstacles, pushing for progress. Briefing Paper #11, United Nations. Library and Publications Division, Africa Recovery Section, Africa Recovery, New York. Manuh, T. (2001). Ghanaian migrants in Toronto, Canada: Care of kin and gender relations. Institute of African Studies Research Review, 17(2), 17–26. Matlon, J. (2016). Racial capitalism and the crisis of black masculinity. American Sociological Review, 81(5), 1014–1038. McClintock, A. (2013). Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. London: Routledge. Miescher, S. F. (2005). ‘Called to work for the Kingdom of God’: The challenges of presbyterian masculinities in Colonial Ghana. In A. Cornwall (Ed.), Readings in gender in Africa (pp. 187–195). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Miescher, S. F. (2007). Becoming an ɔpanyin: Elders, gender, and masculinities in Ghana since the nineteenth century. In Africa after gender (pp. 253–269). Miescher, S. F., & Lindsay, L. A. (2003). Introduction: Men and masculinities in modern African history. In L. Lindsay & S. Miescher (Eds.), Men and masculinities in modern Africa (1–29). Heinemann. Morrell, R. (1998). Of boys and men: Masculinity and gender in Southern African studies. Journal of Southern African Studies, 24(4), 605–630. Mustafa, M. A. B., & Mumford, S. D. (1984). Male attitudes towards family planning in Khartoum, Sudan. Journal of Biosocial Science, 16(4), 437–449. Okeke, P. E. (1996). Postmodern feminism and knowledge production: The African context. Africa Today, 43(3), 223–233. Oppong, C. (1970). Conjugal power and resources: An urban African example. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 32(4), 676–680. Oppong, C. (1980). From love to institution: Indications of change in Akan marriage. Journal of Family History, 5(2), 197–209. Orelus, P. W., & Brock, R. (Eds.). (2014). Interrogating critical pedagogy: The voices of educators of color in the movement. London: Routledge. Osirim, M. J. (2007). Creatively coping with crisis and globalization: Zimbabwean Business women in crocheting and knitting. In S. Harley 9Ed.), Women’s labor in the global economy: Speaking in multiple voices (pp. 134–157). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Oyewumi, O. (2002). Conceptualizing gender: The Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Woman Studies, 2(1), 1–9. Ratele, K. (1998). The end of the black man. Agenda, 14(37), 60–64. Ratele, K. (2008). Analysing males in Africa: Certain useful elements in considering ruling masculinities. African and Asian Studies, 7(4), 515–536. Ratele, K. (2014). Currents against gender transformation of South African men: Relocating marginality to the centre of research and theory of masculinities. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(1), 30–44. Ratele, K., Shefer, T., & Clowes, L. (2012). Talking South African fathers: A critical examination of men’s constructions and experiences of fatherhood and fatherlessness. South African Journal of Psychology, 42(4), 553–563. Robertson, C. (1976). Ga women and socioeconomic change in Accra, Ghana. In N. Hafkin & E. Bay (Eds.), Women in Africa: Studies in social and economic change (pp. 111–133). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Salo, E. (2001). Empowering women for gender equity. Agenda, 16(50), 58–63. Salo, E. (2007). Social construction of masculinity on the racial and gendered margins of Cape Town. In T. Shefer, K. Ratele & A. Strebel (Eds.), From boys to men: Social constructions of masculinity in contemporary society (pp. 160–180). Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd. Shefer, T., Ratele, K., & Strebel, A. (Eds.). (2007). From boys to men: Social constructions of masculinity in contemporary society. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd. Smith, D. J. (2017). To be a man is not a one‐day job: Masculinity, money, and intimacy in Nigeria. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

“I Can Weep But Not Wail”

209

Tashjian, I., & Allman, J. (2000). ‘I will not eat stone’: A women’s history of Colonial Asante. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Tibaijuka, A. (1994). The cost of differential gender roles in African Agriculture: A case study of smallholder banana–coffee farms in the Kagera region, Tanzania. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 45(1), 69–81. Tsikata, D. (2018). Addressing the crisis of work in Ghana: What role for transformative social policy. Lecture, Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. Uchem, R. (2003). Overcoming women’s subordination in the Igbo African culture and in the Catholic Church. Critical Half: Bi‐Annual Journal for Women International, 1(1), 27–31. Walker, L. (2005). Men behaving differently: South African men since 1994. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 7(3), 225–238. Willer, R., Rogalin, C. L., Conlon, B., & Wojnowicz, M. T. (2013). Overdoing gender: A test of the masculine overcompensation thesis. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 980–1022. Zulu, E. M. (1998). The role of men and women in decision making about reproductive issues in Malawi. Working Paper #2, African Population Policy Research Center/The Population Council, Nairobi/New York.

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 10 WORKING TOWARD GLOBAL FEMINIST KNOWLEDGES AND PRACTICES Marcia Texler Segal

ABSTRACT This chapter explores issues related to building a globally conscious body of feminist gender knowledge and praxis, one that acknowledges the southern challenge to hegemonic western scholarship, develops means to hear subaltern voices on their own terms and takes lessons learned into account. Following the author’s positionality statement, the characteristics of feminist theory are briefly stated, and some current southern perspectives are reviewed. Recent published research is used to illustrate the place of gender issues in theory building, data collection, development efforts and pedagogy. The challenges related to and uneven progress toward the goal of a globally conscious body of feminist gender knowledge and praxis are acknowledged. Keywords: Feminist/gender knowledges; practice; feminist theory; Southern theory; pedagogy; development funding

The original version of this chapter was delivered as part of a panel in 20161; it was a highly personal 12-minute presentation. Since that time, I have made two related paper presentations (Segal, 2017, 2018), co-edited two volumes on gender and practice (Demos, Segal & Kelly, 2019; Segal, Kelly, & Demos, 2019), and benefited from thoughtful comments from the editors of the present volume on

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 211–227 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031011

211

212

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

an earlier expansion of the original. I have revisited nearly forgotten material including a volume of essays from an ISA RC 32 pre-conference (Demos & Segal, 2001), and examined and edited a good deal of new material, much of which will be cited below. I now see the question of feminist and gender-related knowledges in a broader and more nuanced way. While incorporating elements of my original presentation, in this chapter I explore how feminist and gender issues relate to southern and post-colonial scholarship, diverse sources and types of genderrelated knowledges, and the progress that has been made toward achieving a globally conscious body of gender-related knowledges. As in the original version, I use my position as co-editor of the Advances in Gender Research book series to draw heavily, though not exclusively, on chapters published in series volumes for illustrative material. I begin the chapter with a statement of my own positionality and some early experiences that shaped my thinking on the subject of global feminist knowledges. I then present an overview of feminist theory and summarize the growing body of southern theory, which questions the hegemony of Euro-American, Western or Northern2 theories, and assumptions. With feminism and southern theory in mind, I look at the sources, prospects and challenges for acquiring reliable gender knowledges and developing a globally conscious body of feminist theory and praxis. I conclude that, in order to understand the lives of women globally, we have to hear their voices and theorize about them in their own terms with constructs that do not force them into frames that were designed to explain Euro-American lives and that do not ignore the impacts of colonialism and neoliberal policies imposed on them.

POSITIONALITY I offer an extensive positionality statement because scholarship is not independent of its sources and because I draw upon the experiences I will mention in the development of this chapter. I am a mature white, middle class, professor and dean emerita from a master’s level public institution in the mid-western United States. This information conveys my privilege in my own country and in the world, but it is relative because I may be subject to age and gender discrimination, I belong to a minority religion and within the United States my geographic location and type of campus do not have high status. I have a modicum of power in the production and transmission of knowledges, because I have served on the editorial boards and as a peer reviewer for academic journals, and I co-edit a book series. I have some awareness of, and experience in, the wider world having lived, taught, conducted research and served as a program developer, administrative consultant and project evaluator in several nations in sub-Saharan Africa and one in Central Asia. Given my age I have had the opportunity to participate in the second wave feminist movement that raised consciousness about women’s rights and gender issues, and prompted legislation in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and in the development of gender scholarship marked by the establishment in 1973 of both the American Sociological Association Section on Sex Roles (now

Global Feminist Knowledges

213

Sex and Gender) and the ISA RC 32 Women and Society (now Women, Gender and Society). I have been a member of RC 32 for more than three decades, serving as secretary/treasurer and newsletter editor from 1990 to 1998, participating in and presenting at almost every pre-conference and conference over the decades. I have taken an active role in all discussions and have frequently served as the liaison between the RC and the International Committee of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS). In that capacity, I have tried to encourage greater awareness of sociology as a global discipline among SWS members and facilitated connections between RC 32 members and SWS members in part by helping to organize joint receptions at ISA venues. In 2016 and 2018, I co-organized the RC’s roundtable sessions selecting and grouping proposals to promote the presentation of genderrelevant research and foster connections among gender researchers. To chronicle the start of my own understanding of the issues addressed in this chapter, I relate two events that occurred in the 1984–1985 academic year, a year I spent as a visiting faculty member at Chancellor College in Zomba, Malawi. Making a presentation to the faculty seminar, I argued that government data should be disaggregated by sex, and the unit of analysis should be the individual, rather than the household because women and men were likely to have different interests. A male colleague who initially expressed surprise at such a supposedly radical notion, soon accepted it. This was actually a collegial exchange of ideas, but I am embarrassed to say that at the time I felt superior about bringing this gender-related idea from the “first world” or “center” to the “third” or “periphery” to use the concepts then current. A moment when I learned to respect indigenous knowledge was in my classroom there, teaching introductory sociology from western text material. Our textbook discussed the nuclear family and family-related issues as if these configurations and issues were universal. One of the issues was the rising divorce rate as a threat to family and social stability. The problems caused by divorce in the United States in the late twentieth century had to do with the isolation of many nuclear families owing to geographic mobility, the impact on children and economic relations between spouses, including the fact that a significant proportion of women had no experience earning a living. When one of my students said that divorce was not a problem in her community and another said the first student must come from a matrilineal community, I realized that I had failed to consider many aspects of my Malawian students’ lives. I had not taken into account the relatively high rate of labor migration of men and the rural residence and dependence on subsistence agriculture of most families. I had clearly neglected to take kinship structures into account. In matrilineal/matrilocal communities, a married woman and her children are part of her lineage; there is relatively little change in their lives if her husband leaves either temporarily or permanently. Even if she has gone to live with his family, she can take the children and go back to her own. Divorce is problematic in patrilineal/patrilocal communities where a divorced (or widowed) woman is without claim to resources. She might go home to her family, but the children are part of his. This reminded me of the early work of Ester Boserup (1970) who called attention to the critical importance of, and also the variations in, women’s roles in agricultural development.

214

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

In the 1970s and 1980s, when I was developing as a scholar and the sort of scholarship I came to do – feminist, gender-related – was also developing, you had to be there, living and working in another culture to see the gendered dimensions of social structures, your own and others. In order to question your personal assumptions and your academic paradigms, you had to teach students who were the first in their families to attend school at any level, but who brought knowledge from their communities to the university classroom, or to see raw government data just after it was collected and to speculate about how it might be used to further knowledge, and contribute to a changing society. Today, given the resources of the Internet and the internationalization of scholarship, and of social movements that make those lessons more widely accessible (see, e.g., the recently launched NGO Knowledge Collective Data Portal, ngoknowledgecollective.org, and the European Institute for Gender Equality definitions, tools and statistics, https://eige.europa.eu/), a globally conscious body of feminist knowledge and praxis seem possible. Below, I discuss and illustrate some of the barriers and building blocks for creating one. I begin with a brief statement of what I take to be the elements shared by feminist perspectives, and then turn to an overview of the emerging body of southern perspectives. Regarding gender knowledge, Nketiah (2019), the Knowledge Management Specialist at the African Women’s Development Fund, has observed: While there is an old adage that “knowledge is power,” insofar as knowledge arms you with the capacity to make better, more informed choices in the world, power also determines who and what can be known and who is allowed to be a “knower”; in this way, power is knowledge. Much of the work of feminist intellectuals, then, has been to disrupt all the ways in which institutionalized patriarchy has denied, invisibilized and exploited the very necessary and longstanding intellectual work of women and minoritized communities.

Current feminist theory is not monolithic and there is no definitive statement of it. Common to feminist thinking in the social sciences is an understanding of power relations and the role they play in creating and perpetuating gender inequity and inequality, and a recognition of the importance of everyday life and of the intellectual, social and cultural contributions of women. In feminist theories, gender as a concept is not binary or seen as a synonym for women, and is generally thought of as a characteristic of social systems as well as individuals. The intersectionality of people’s lives is recognized. Patriarchy and human rights are included in feminist discourse, but as with all concepts, their meanings have multiple local and global referents. A feminist theory expanded to take into account global gender knowledges would need to incorporate southern perspectives.

SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVES Commenting on the work of Santos, Rosa (2014, p. 3) observes, “the South corresponds not to a geographic unit but to a specific epistemological form that could be defined by its negative and repairing relationship to colonial capitalism.” Since the late years of the twentieth century a growing body of literature has critiqued the dominance of social theory, including feminist theory, developed in

Global Feminist Knowledges

215

Western Europe and North America, and exported to the rest of the world under the tacit assumption that it was universal. This critique is clearly present in the volume that grew out of the 1998 RC 32 five-day invitational pre-congress called “Feminism Challenges the Heritage of Sociology” in which I participated at McGill University. Chapters based on the presentations and discussions among the 29 participants there became An International Feminist Challenge to Theory, Volume 5 of the Advances in Gender Research series (Demos & Segal, 2001). In her chapter, Melchiori (2001) wrote: […] voices coming from the margins of our world, remind us that the global Enlightenment message, linked to development, to the Western life style, just one among the others, has succeeded in asserting its distinctiveness in a timeless and spaceless Universalism that has proved to be a bad Universalism. (p. 11)

The body of theory being questioned is the result of researchers from EuroAmerica, focusing exclusively on the metropole or using the rest of the world only as sources of data for theory building. It is also a result of scholars from other places who earned their advanced degrees in Europe and North America incorporating what they were taught and conforming to the publication requirements of journals from those locations (Connell, 2014). Practice enters this picture in a number of ways. Data often come from aid projects initiated by governments, international, local or regional non-governmental organizations (INGOs and NGOs) with agendas set externally. These projects are generally designed by staff or consultants who are based in the North (Manion, 2019). Even where they include gender-related goals, on the ground where the projects are implemented, the gender expert may be marginalized and not all the truly relevant data collected (Thierry, 2019). Scholars in the South may participate despite the fact that these projects do not necessarily incorporate their insights or research goals because such projects are among the limited options available for research funding (Arnfred & Adomako Ampofo, 2009; Obasanjo, 2018). Outsiders often portray people, especially women, in the south as victims of patriarchy, poverty and abuse. These images are challenged by the ideas of economist Bina Agarwal, who has studied power relationships and agency within families and communities. She acknowledges that local customs and gender norms may disadvantage women. However, these are not the only or even the major factors that impact women’s positions. For example, women with access to land or the potential for earning income have greater domestic bargaining power and these resources are related to and can be altered by access to extra-household bargaining power through communal or legal action (see especially Agarwal, 1994, 1997a and her collected essays published in Agarwal, 2016).3 Comaroff and Comaroff (2014) have spent their careers encouraging other anthropologists and sociologists to take account of the wider world, especially Africa, and to understand that Africa is following its own path with its own form of modernity. The argument in their recent volume is that Euro-America is now being affected by the same historical trends already experienced in Africa. Therefore, Africa will be the source of theoretical perspectives needed by the North. The project, “Universality and Acceptance Potential of Social

216

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

Sciences Knowledges: On the Circulation of Knowledge between Europe and the Global South,” led by Keim and others produced the volume Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences. Made in Circulation (Keim, Çelic, Ersche, & Wöhrer, 2014). The various contributors have differing approaches to the relationships among knowledges. Each of the contributors deals with how knowledge circulates in a general sense or with specific examples. Keim herself is especially concerned with how knowledge is transformed as it circulates either through controversy or co-construction, and how knowledge is exchanged between academic and non-academic actors. Relevant here are Connell’s (2014, 2018) essays in Contemporary Sociology, which reflect on her recent work on southern and feminist sociology (also see Connell, 2007). Noting that post-colonial gender dynamics are products of colonialism and empire, she states that a task of southern feminist theory would be to understand the construction of southern gender orders. She calls attention to the social construction of southern masculinities as well as femininities. In her view, a decolonized sociology would reshape the discipline; making it useable for those previously marginalized. The new sociology she envisions would not be a universal one or a mosaic of elements drawn from various regional and local sources, but would rather make room for both commonalities and contradictions. In her discussion of the history of feminist activism and gender scholarship in the Anglophone Caribbean, Reddock (2009) acknowledges influences from North America and the United Kingdom, and demonstrates the need for alternative theoretical constructs to understand the gender orders of the Caribbean. Reviewing her own work and that of other regional scholars, she shows that the Western ideal of the conjugal family and an intersectional feminism that focuses on Black/White divisions do not provide an adequate framework for understanding the complex Black, White and South Asian racial, ethnic and religious communities, and gender systems of post-colonial Caribbean nations. She points out that many forms of domestic partnership have long existed in the region, and multiple patriarchies now compete for power. Masson (2017) writing about the inseparability of racism and sexism in the Argentine military makes a related point about the incompleteness of intersectionality as conceptualized in the north for understanding the south. As advocates for a Southern perspective have noted, researchers often see the South as a source of data for theory building, and change agents often come to the South offering financial and technical assistance to people and places seen as victims of poverty and ignorance. Obasanjo (2018), an epidemiologist who now teaches at a university in the United States, is originally from Nigeria and served in the Nigerian Senate from 2007 to 2011. She provides striking examples of how those offering assistance assume local people, even those in positions of power such as she occupied, require explanations and instructions, in her case about health-related issues. She also offers examples of how commendable ideas may be presented with no knowledge of context and no resources to address underlying problems, as when the marriage of 15 year old girls is condemned in a community with limited resources where there is no further education available, and local norms dictate that a woman older than 20 is no longer marriageable. At the

Global Feminist Knowledges

217

same time, she has limited patience for local people who claim that some harmful practices are part of their culture as if local cultures are immutable, not products of many influences and changes over time (also see Adomako Ampofo, 2009 on this point). The creation of feminist knowledges and praxis involves several kinds of actors, and evolves in several arenas. There are scholars and practitioners from the North and various locations in the South, state and supra-state agents and agencies as well as various NGOs and INGOs, many of whom are interacting with, researching, teaching, writing about or designing programs and policies for members of local communities and students whose voices must also be heard. In addition, as Ntata and Biruk (2009, p. 2) point out with reference to their work in Malawi: Our dual challenge as feminists and researchers, then, is to find a way to imbue the analytic category of gender with power to bridge the gap between theory and the real world, to link gender as analytic category with gender as lived experience.

Gender knowledge is generated and collected in diverse contexts for diverse purposes. Knowledge, whether produced by scholars or practitioners, ultimately comes from the lived experiences of people on the ground. It is usually mediated through some process of formal or informal data collection initiated by scholars or practitioners and is filtered through the theories, paradigms or objectives of those mediators. When reflected upon it may alter, revise or even replace existing theories, paradigms or objectives. Knowledge is shared through teaching, academic presentation and publication, government or funder reports, and public communication in various forms. As critics of Euro-American hegemony note, outsiders tend to see those from the rest of the world as source material. The information they generate relates to their academic goals. Yet, their research may challenge their pre-suppositions. For example, it is generally believed that participation in the informal economy disadvantages women (Snyder, 2005), but observations among market women in towns in Ghana led King (2016) to conclude this is not always so. The women she interviewed, including those who had experience with paid employment, reported social and economic advantages including gains in skills and capital and increased social support and status. Knowledges from new situations can broaden the meanings of concepts. Our understanding of the scope and meaning of “doing gender,” that is, the performance of gender norms and expectations (West & Zimmerman, 1987) is broadened when we acknowledge the myriad ways that gender is done in such contexts as among school girls in a rural village in Nepal (Rothchild, 2005) or among māhū (liminal males/females) in Polynesia (Nanda, 2000) or Indian Trinidadian women participating in Carnival. To illustrate with the Carnival example, Raghunandan (2016) interviewed young Indian Trinidadian women who commented on the costumes and chose to participate or not in the Mas play. Those who did participate wearing the currently popular bikini, bead and feathers attire were using Carnival as a way to do gender in a sexual, and from their community’s perspective, transgressive manner. Those who chose not to play upheld traditional ways of doing gender.

218

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

The common western distinction between public and private arenas of daily life is challenged by such observations as those of Mount (2014) in Bali. She relates the story of a woman police officer whose position accorded her prestige and admiration in her family and community. At the same time, because she used some of her earned income to purchase, rather than hand-make, her ceremonial offerings, she was criticized for giving inadequate service to the family temple and reminded that temple ceremonies attracted valuable tourism. The meaning of objectives guiding research and change activities can also be broadened by examination of both their logics and their impacts as is shown in work of Kabeer (1999, 2005, 2017). Referencing her work on Bangladesh, she questions whether empowerment, a frequent subject of research and objective of development, can occur if women are unaware of their options and whether enhanced opportunities to acquire economic resources are always helpful to women given the patriarchal constraints with which they may have to cope and the unpaid work they are obliged to perform in addition to their economic activities. Gajparia (2016) challenges the prevalent view of women and girls, especially those in poverty, as victims and illustrates Kabeer’s premises in her study comparing the expressions of agency of women and adolescent girls from different social classes in Mumbai, India. Northern concepts and frames of reference can be useful especially when applied by someone in the South who has a thorough understanding of the internal dynamics of a situation. Hattatoglu (2011) attempting to make sense of the place of women in the revival of the weaving industry in Anatolia draws on Gramsci, Bourdieu and Foucault to use the ideas of hegemonic discourse and symbolic violence in showing how and why women’s labor remains precarious, sometimes paid, sometimes unpaid, always uncertain and insecure in the service of “reviving traditional handicrafts” (p. 153). Of course, the reverse is also true. Harrison and Power (2005) apply Agarwal’s materialist study of the impact of forestry decline on rural women in India (Agarwal, 1992, 1997b) to the impact of fisheries decline on women in Newfoundland showing that neoliberal policies and new technologies led to the discounting of local knowledge and the dis-empowering of women in both instances. Gender information and knowledge are also needed by those attempting to create social change, which is generally sponsored by governments or NGOs. As Adomako Ampofo (2009) notes, scholars in the South who have more limited access to research funds than their colleagues in the North are often obliged to add consultancies for these institutions to their academic roles. She points out that when they are undertaken collaboratively, they can provide added income as well as valuable data, but they do take time and energy and are usually shaped by the funders’ interests. Nkengla-Asi et al. (2019) demonstrate the need for extensive and detailed gender information in applied work as they searched for ways to combat the spread of banana bunchy disease in Nigeria and Cameroon. They found different patterns of gender relations in each of the six villages they worked in and different constraints impacting men and women resulting from government policies in the two neighboring countries. In their critiques of data gathering for purposes of

Global Feminist Knowledges

219

assessing development projects both Alloatti (2019) and Thierry (2019) point to the need to gather gender data beyond that related to the narrowly framed objectives of a project and the need for qualitative data to fully comprehend the impact of the project.

ACADEMIC APPROACHES TO HEARING SUBALTERN VOICES How do we include the voices of people on the ground in the south or indeed anywhere their voices are muted? Feminist researchers tend to favor qualitative methods such as life histories and semi-structured interviews along with group discussions and participant observation to illuminate daily lives. Chauhan (2011) successfully used these methods to depict the challenges and changes in the lives of aged widows in conflict situations in Northern India. Quantitative techniques can also be employed for feminist ends. Walby (2011) used World Bank, OECD and Eurostat data to investigate conceptual and methodological questions regarding changes in global economic inequality. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys and the World Bank, Burroway (2016) demonstrated that a number of gender-specific individual variables such as maternal education and employment and country-level ones including contraceptive use, life expectancy, and percentage of women in parliament can tell us more about the nutritional wellbeing of children than Gross Domestic Product, the commonly used measure of development. Analysis of the media has also been productive. For example, Chaudhuri, Krishnan, and Subramaniam (2019) studying media reports of a rape case in India identified three frames within which women were portrayed. Only in reports featuring women activists, politicians or bureaucrats were the voices of women themselves reported. Notably, these were the voices of urban elite women, not those of rural, lower class or lower caste women. Other reports featured the voices of men talking about women or described public events without mentioning the genders of participants. Ethical practices are crucial in data collection, but the contexts and constraints faced by research and researchers vary; written consent of interviewees typically required by Institutional Review Boards are not always feasible, and different ethical questions may arise in places where participants are not accustomed to taking part in research. Technology offers some answers to matters like informed consent. In her research in Lao Cai Province in Vietnam, Đoàn (2019) used the simple technology provided by her mobile phone to obtain verbal consent for the use of the responses of the tour guides she interviewed. Notably, some women wanted their real names used and one interviewee asked to remain anonymous. Their requests, and her empathy notwithstanding, conforming to our publisher’s standards, she was obliged to give all the women pseudonyms. In her description of her dissertation research on pregnant teens in Lesotho, Mohlakoana (2008) offers a case study in the academic, personal, methodological, logistical and ethical issues involved in doing feminist gender-related research. She discusses choosing her topic after learning about feminist action research at

220

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

an information session at the start of her PhD program. She mentions the need to conform to the standards of a doctoral dissertation including writing a literature review when there is no written academic literature to review, having discovered that most studies of the topic are either medical/public health oriented or adopt a deviance paradigm, and there are none at all from Lesotho. She writes about the value and also the pitfalls, having been a pregnant teen herself, of an autoethnographical (in her words “autobiographical”) approach, the ethical considerations of researching this topic in a closed community, the practical problems she experienced in enacting her own appropriate gender roles of single mother, eldest daughter, employee, church and community member, while trying to gather her data and write the dissertation. She mentions those – some colleagues and friends – who did and did not understand what she was doing, the pressure from interviewees’ parents to reveal confidentially gathered data about their daughters, and the fact that it was easier to put what she had learned into action within the church than within the academic community. She has gone on to use her findings to implement discussions of sexuality and gender within the church context, as well as reflect on her experience in relationship to the ideals of feminist research and activism.

PRACTITIONER APPROACHES TO HEARING SUBALTERN VOICES Gender practitioners have developed various techniques and programs to hear diverse voices. One approach is the use of checklists to gather detailed information from a sample of local people that can later be crafted into protocols for future research (see Christoff & Sommer, 2019; Ridolfi, Stormer, & Mundy, 2019). Another technique is training locals as Lakovich-VanGorp (2018) did “to research, design, implement, and evaluate their own programs” (p. 171). She describes a project where girls in the Middle East and North Africa examine the question of the safety of public spaces from their perspectives. Amin, Mustafa, Kaiser, Hussain, & Ganepola (2015) trained their students at the Asian University for Women (AUW) to gather data in their home communities. Wardani and Mangino (2018) using examples from Indonesia discuss tools, appreciative inquiry – an assets-based approach developed at Case Western in the 1980s – and participatory rural appraisal – based on the work of Paulo Freire, that facilitate hearing the voices of women who would otherwise not be heard and give local people useful information through such tools as resource mapping. Harris (2014) describes in detail the use of participatory gender analysis in a post-conflict situation in Uganda. Weekly meetings of gender- and age-specific groups were held over the course of several months. Exercises identified gender roles, daily workloads for each gender and details of property ownership. The information was then used in discussions between the age and gender groups. Technology can be used to enable others to hear and interact with marginalized voices in unmediated ways. The QUIPU Project described by Maraschin and Scafe (2016) allows visitors to an Internet website to listen and respond to the telephonic voices of rural

Global Feminist Knowledges

221

Andean women who have been subjected to forced sterilization. The voices are free from the framing that might be provided by outsiders. Infusing gender into applied work requires infusing it throughout the knowledge management systems of sponsoring agencies (Corneliusson, 2019) and the training of practitioners. Kelly (2019) shadowed a local project team in Vietnam revealing the gender dynamics within the team and how team members’ knowledge of local gender norms proved crucial to carrying out the project. Ridolfi et al. (2019) from Helen Keller International (HKI) described how, working with research and program staff, they gathered gender-relevant data and conducted a workshop to develop materials and strategies for their nutrition project in Cambodia. Not unlike the experience of the HKI team, Mangheni et al. (2019) evaluated a number of training approaches for use in East Africa and found that the one where gender and technical experts trained together over an extended time period was most effective in infusing a gender perspective into agricultural projects.

PEDAGOGY AND SCHOLARSHIP Two chapters that appeared in my co-edited volume At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge, respond to Ntata and Biruk’s (2009) challenge of linking gender as a category with gender as lived experience pedagogically. Both come from the AUW in Chittagong, Bangladesh, a campus that serves women from 15 different countries. Amin et al. (2015) reflect on the impact of using the experience of gathering data to help students understand gender, its structures and constraints as a way to empower them. The chapter by Daniel and Saroca (2015) explores teaching feminist theory and applying feminist pedagogy, and the questions raised by doing so in the South Asian context. They report research on the impact of their teaching on their recent students. For both instructors and students, what teaching about feminism and employing feminist pedagogy promise and what actually happens when they are pursued is called into question. Their views are not that feminist pedagogy and feminist theory are inappropriate for AUW students, rather their raising consciousness or empowering their students puts them in awkward, and sometimes dangerous positions that the teachers cannot control. How does a student confront the disjuncture between the feminist theory and practice she learned in the classroom and the reality of life in her village? How does she know whether to accept, reject or compromise and what the price of her decision may be? Her education has created an existential problem. That problem is reversed as well. How do her professors incorporate what they learn from their students and the students’ experiences into their understanding of how to share and how to acquire feminist knowledge? Gender scholarship and pedagogy in African and Asian university contexts have been explored. Lewis (2009) writes that women’s and gender studies were established in South African universities in the 1990s, but became de-politicized and mainstreamed, focusing on gender skills and ignoring power issues and the value of separate departments; departments in which knowledge production by

222

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

men is not privileged and feminist support can be provided in environments, where it is needed by women faculty members and students. Aneja’s (2019), edited volume from India includes chapters that chronicle the history of women and gender studies in that nation. Chapters in Part IV of the collection specifically address feminism and pedagogy.

SHARING UNDERSTANDINGS AND OBJECTIVES While working together to develop a university program on faith-related contemporary gender issues, a Pakistani Muslim colleague pointed out that a focus on sexual harassment in professional and social interactions (#metoo in English or #gam-ani in Hebrew) would not address the current problems with patriarchal social structures, typically faced by Muslim women (Hassan, personal communication). On the contrary, as Keim et al. (2014) foregrounds in her work, sometimes approaches originating in one place, for example, in the United States, are changed, expanded and recombined in other locations. Shinohara’s (2009) research shows how understanding sexual harassment or sekuhara, a new coinage, became institutionalized and globalized (i.e. adapted to its environment) in Japan beginning in the late 1980s. While the initial model was US policy and law with its relatively narrow and explicit understanding of sexual harassment as quid pro quo and hostile work environment, once it was recognized in Japan as a local problem, understanding broadened to include most aspects of gendered work and educational environments such as asking women workers to make tea or calling adult women “girls.” In Taiwan, according to the research by Lee (2012), efforts to make changes in the educational system were initially inspired by Title IX of Education Amendments of 1972 and the 1974 Women’s Educational Equity Act from the United States, but ended being far broader as the law morphed from one for educational equality for “both sexes” into the Gender Equity Education Law where “gender” is a coinage that recognizes the incompleteness of an earlier coinage meaning “both sexes.” The globalization and transformation of social issues can be a source of strength and resources, but can overwhelm indigenous understandings and lead to the waste of time, effort and funds. Gender-based violence (GBV) and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) issues provide illustrations. In the case of GBV, the legalistic and individual rights approaches favored by places of origin may not fit the more collective cultures they travel to or they may have difficulty catching hold where people have no reason to trust the law. Vanya (2006) found, for example, that a western-style marketing campaign, mandated by the funding source, was not effective in diffusing a feminist understanding of domestic violence as a social issue in post-communist Slovakia, but the assembly by local feminists of a strategic issue network was effective in criminalizing it. In the case of LGBTQ matters, domestic ideologies may make it difficult to even obtain knowledge. MacCartney’s (2017) comparison of Sweden and Russia is a case in point. While Sweden has broad policies in place to protect LGBTQ rights, Russia criminalizes information and advocacy, and lacks a mechanism for observing, collecting and reporting relevant data.

223

Global Feminist Knowledges

Referring to her work on the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) in post-conflict Burundi and Liberia, de Almagro (2016) provides examples of the interaction between international and local activists. Some important shared objectives were met, but local partners, now able, thanks to their participation, to articulate their goals and advocate for their needs were frustrated because external funders did not support their objectives. In Burundi, the goal of 30% of women elected to office on the national and council levels was met, but not on the local level. Moreover, local women felt that their definition of security, which included the ability to pursue a career and make independent decisions were not supported. In Liberia, legislative quota laws were not passed and local activists told de Almagro that international activists failed to take their advice and spent money in a manner that did not take local conditions into account.

CONCLUSION In an essay reviewing the Keim et al.’s (2014) volume, Hanafi (2016) calls attention to contributor Bhambra who posits that merely deconstructing concepts once perceived as universal leaves a fragmented series of alternatives; concepts should be reconstructed using feedback and lessons learned. Definite progress has been made toward deconstructing the western hegemony of social sciencebased gender theory and praxis, and reconstruction using feedback and lessons learned has begun, but the task is far from finished. Multiple ways of perceiving southern voices as more than mere data have been developed. Multiple critiques and modifications of accepted concepts including doing gender and empowerment have been offered. However, when it becomes apparent that even feminist sociology’s most cherished contemporary concept, intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), has proved to be incomplete for understanding the race/ethnicity-inflected gender structures of some societies, it is clear that there is more to be accomplished. Academic and applied work in the south are often tied to sources of funds. Gender is not always fully infused throughout all levels of funding sources, and those sources are not always willing to trust the insights of the people with whom they work or underwrite the achievement of goals they have helped local people to articulate. Women and gender studies programs in universities are not always supported, and when they are, they may be de-politicized; some instructors wonder how to take context into account in applying feminist pedagogy, and others experience frustration in trying to infuse gender-responsive approaches into their curricula. All of this matters because knowledge underlies theory and practice, which shape each other and impact policy. Theory that does not build on the knowledges of all places and voices, especially formerly neglected southern places and women’s voices, lacks relevance and explanatory power. Practice that does not incorporate data from daily lives and theory-based concepts such as power and agency waste time, money and effort. Effective policy to achieve gender equity and equality cannot be developed and implemented without reference to theories and practices that incorporate global feminist knowledges.

224

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

On a personal note, developing this chapter has given me a broader, more nuanced view of the issues related to building a globally conscious body of gender knowledge and practice. It has made me keenly aware of my responsibility as a scholar, an editor and especially as a feminist activist to recognize the places where global feminist knowledges and practices exist or are emerging, to recognize and try to address persisting barriers to global scholarship, and to share what I learn within academic organizations and social networks, especially those that are still dominated by the limited approaches of the past.

NOTES 1. “Creating Feminist Knowledge and Praxis: Gendered Dilemmas and Contradictions Knowledge” presented on the panel Production: Feminist Perspectives in the 21st Century organized by Akosua Adomako Ampofo and chaired by Josephine Beoku-Betts for Research Committee 32 (RC 32) at the International Sociological Association (ISA) Forum, Vienna, Austria, July 12, 2016. 2.  There are many terms used in the literature to designate various locations, some of which, such as first and third world, have largely dropped out of use. All are problematic and are more conceptual than locational. North/South, West/rest, Euro-American, not always capitalized, are currently common and are used interchangeably or as they occur in specific sources in this chapter. 3.  Mukherjee (2019) provides a summary and review of all three volumes of Agarwal’s recently collected essays.

REFERENCES Adamako Ampofo, A. (2009). One who has truth --she has strength: The feminist activist inside and outside the academy. In A. Adamako Ampofo & S. Arnfred (Eds.), African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges, possibilities (pp. 28-51). Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikaininstitute. Agarwal, B. (1992). The gender and environment debate: Lessons from India. Feminist Studies, 18(1), 119–158. Agarwal, B. (1994). A field of one’s own: Gender and land rights in South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Agarwal, B. (1997a). “Bargaining” and gender relations: Within and beyond the household. Feminist Economics, 3(1), 1–51. Agarwal, B. (1997b). Gender, environment, and poverty interlinks: Regional variations and temporal shifts in rural India, 1971–1991. World Development, 25(1), 23–52. Agarwal, B. (2016). Gender challenges volume 2: Property, family, and the state. New Delhi: Oxford. Alloatti, M. N. (2019). The challenge of measuring women’s economic empowerment: A critical analysis of the importance of subjective measurement and context. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organization (pp. 41–60). Bingley: Emerald. Amin, S. N., Mustafa, M., Kaiser, M. S., Hussain, F., & Ganepola, V. (2015). Beyond classroom knowledge and experience: How can fieldwork enrich students’ learning and perception on gender. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal (Eds.), At the center: Feminism, social science and knowledge (pp. 199–222). Bingley: Emerald. Aneja, A. (Ed.). (2019). Women and gender studies in India: Crossings. London: Routledge India. Arnfred, S., & Adomako Ampofo, A. (2009). Introduction: Feminist politics of knowledge. In A. Adomaki Ampofo & S. Arnfred (Eds.), African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges, possibilities (pp. 5–27). Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Boserup, E. (1970). Women’s role in economic development. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Global Feminist Knowledges

225

Burroway, R. (2016). Empowering women, strengthening children: A multi-level analysis of gender inequality and child malnutrition and diarrhea in developing countries. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gender and food: From production to consumption and after (pp. 117–142). Bingley: Emerald. Chaudhuri, S., Krishnan, P., & Subramanian, M. (2019). Mainstreaming gender, engendered, ungendered? Analysis of media reports of the 2012 case of rape in India. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gender and the media: Women’s places (pp. 125–140). Bingley: Emerald. Chauhan, A. (2011). Social security and aged widows in conflict situations: Social transformation at the international border in northwest India. In E. N.-L. Chow, M. T. Segal, & L. Tan (Eds.), Analyzing gender intersectionality, and multiple inequalities: Global, transnational and local contexts (pp. 235–262). Bingley: Emerald. Christoff, P. S. & Sommer, J. M. (2019). Restructuring women’s leadership in climate solutions: Analyzing the W+TM standard. In V. Demos, M. T. Segal & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Insights from the field (pp. 183–198). Bingley: Emerald. Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (2014). Theory from the south how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Stellenbosch: Sun Press. Corneliusson, Å. (2019). Exploring the spaces, limits, and future possibilities for feminist perspectives in knowledge management in international development and beyond. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organization (pp. 3–22). Bingley: Emerald. Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Cambridge: Polity Press. Connell, R. (2014). The sociology of gender in southern perspective. Current Sociology, 62(4), 550–567. http://csi.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/03/19/0011392114524510 Connell, R. (2018). Decolonizing sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 47(4), 399–407. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, (1), 139–167. Daniel, M. & Saroca, C. (2015). Feminist pedagogy and research in a culturally diverse classroom in a women’s university in Bangladesh. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal, (Eds.) At the center: Feminism, social science and knowledge (pp. 223–246). Bingley: Emerald. de Almagro, M. M. (2016). Negotiating gender security: The transnationalization of local activist discourses in post-conflict Burundi and Liberia. In S. Takhar (Ed.), Gender and race matter: Global perspectives on being a women (pp. 107–126). Bingley: Emerald. Demos, V., & Segal, M. T. (Eds.). (2001). An international feminist challenge to theory. Amsterdam: JAI/Elsevier. Demos, V., Segal, M. T. & Kelly, K. (Eds.) (2019). Gender and practice: Insights from the field. Bingley: Emerald. Đoàn, L. X. (2019). A gender analysis of tourism’s impact on the livelihoods of H’mong Red D’ao women in Vietnam. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organization (pp. 141–162). Bingley: Emerald. Gajparia, J. (2016). Agency, resistance and subversion: Voices from the field. In S. Takhar (Ed.), Gender and race matter: Global perspectives on being a women (pp. 151–170). Bingley: Emerald. Hanafi, S. (2016). Global knowledge production in the social sciences: A critical assessment. Sociologies in Dialogue, 2(1), 16–30. Harris, C. (2014). The use of participatory gender analysis for violence reduction in (post-)conflict settings: A study of a community education project in northern Uganda. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gendered perspectives on conflict and violence: Part B (pp. 145–170). Bingley: Emerald. Harrison, D., & Power, N. G. (2005). Lessons from India: Applying a “third world” framework to examine the impacts of fisheries crisis on women in Newfoundland villages. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gender realities: Local and global (pp. 61–88). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Hattatoglu, D. (2011). Gender and labor within the Turkish context of local development in the era of globalization. In E. N.-L. Chow, M. T. Segal, & L. Tan (Eds.), Analyzing gender,

226

MARCIA TEXLER SEGAL

intersectionality, and multiple inequalities: Global, transnational and local contexts (pp. 169–162). Bingley: Emerald. Kabeer, N. (1999). Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment. Development and Change, 30(3), 435–464. Kabeer, N. (2005). Gender equality and women’s empowerment – Bangladesh. Gender and Development, 13(1), 13–25. Kabeer, N. (2017). Economic pathways to women’s empowerment and active citizenship: What does the evidence from Bangladesh tell us?. Journal of Development Studies, 53(5), 649–663. Keim, W., Çelic, E., Ersche, C., & Wöhrer, V. (Eds.). (2014). Global knowledge production in the social sciences. Made in circulation. Freiburg: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Kelly, K. (2019). “Don’t do your gender on me!” Gender mainstreaming and the politics of training in Vietnam. In V. Demos, M. T. Segal, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Insights from the field (pp. 71–88). Bingley: Emerald. King, A. (2016). Access to opportunity: A case study of street food vendors in Ghana’s informal urban economy. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gender and food: From production to consumption and after (pp. 65–88). Bingley: Emerald. Lakovich-VanGorp, A. N. (2018). Leading with girls. In R. J. Thompson & J. Storberg-Walker (Eds.), Leadership and power in international development (pp. 165–182). Bingley: Emerald. Lee, S.-C. (2012). Beyond the state: Legitmatizing gender equity in education in Taiwan. In M. T. Segal, E. N.-L. Chow, & V. Demos (Eds.) Social production and reproduction at the interface of public and private spheres (pp. 253–272). Bingley: Emerald. Lewis, D. (2009). Discursive challenges for African feminisms. In A. Adomaki Ampofo & S. Arnfred (Eds.), African feminist politics of knowledge: Tensions, challenges, possibilities (pp. 205–221). Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. MacCartney, D. (2017). Monitoring the world society: LGBT human rights in Russia and Sweden. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal (Eds.), Gender panic, gender policy (pp. 309–332). Bingley: Emerald. Mangheni, M. N., Tufan, H. A., Boonabana, B., Musimenta, P., Miiro, R., & Nkuki, J. (2019). Building gender research capacity for non-specialists: Lessons and best practices from gender short courses for agricultural researchers in sub-Saharan Africa. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organizations (pp. 99–118). Bingley: Emerald. Manion, C. (2019). Exploring the intersections and implications of gender, race and class in international consulting. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organization (pp. 23–40) Bingley: Emerald. Masson, L. E. (2017). Women in the military in Argentina: Nationalism, gender and ethnicity. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal (Eds.), Gender panic, gender policy (pp. 23–44). Bingley: Emerald. Maraschin, D., & Scafe, S. (2016). Re-mapping women’s testimonies into networked subjectivities: The QUIPU project. In S. Takhar (Ed.), Gender and race matter: Global perspectives on being a women (pp. 171–192). Bingley: Emerald. Melchiori, P. (2001). Women redefining politics: Between new challenges and old illusions. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal (Eds.), An international feminist challenge to theory (pp. 11–24). Amsterdam: JAI/ Elsevier. Mohlakoana, K. (2008). It was rocky, long, winding and twisted…. researching for life: Paradigms and power. Feminist Africa, 11, 73–88. Mount, E. A. D. (2014). Well-intended measures: Conceptualizing gender as a social structure in postconflict policy development. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gendered perspectives on conflict and violence, Part B (pp. 45–72). Bingley: Emerald. Mukherjee, A. (2019). Review essay of Gender challenges (Volumes 1, 2 and 3), by Bina Agarwal. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d’études du développement, 40(3), 440–446. Nanda, S. (2000). Gender diversity: Crosscultural variations. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Nketiah, R. (2019). Retrieved from https://awdf.org/what-we-know-the-role-of-knowledge-productionin-owning-our-narratives-as-african-feminists/. Accessed on August 06, 2019. Nkengla-Asi, L., Olaosebikan, D. O., Simo, C. V., Ngatat, S., Zandjanakou-Tachin, M., Hanna, R., & Kumar, P. L. (2019). Gender norms and their implications for banana production and recovery in West Africa. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organizations (pp. 61–78). Bingley: Emerald.

Global Feminist Knowledges

227

Ntata, P. R. T., & Biruk, C. (2009). The challenges of doing gender research in developing countries: Focus on Malawi. Journal of Comparative Social Work, 4(1), 56–70. Obasanjo, I. (2018). Leadership in international development. In R. J. Thompson & J. Storberg-Walker (Eds.), Leadership and power in international development (pp. 71–82). Bingley: Emerald. Raghunandan, K. (2016). The body contours of Carnival mas-playing and race in Trinidad. In S. Takhar (Ed.), Gender and race matter: Global perspectives on being a women (pp. 193–212). Bingley: Emerald. Reddock, R. (2009). Feminist research and theory: Contributions from the Anglophone Caribbean. In C. E. Bose & M. Kim (Eds.), Global gender research: Transnational perspectives (pp. 214–230). New York, NY: Routledge. Ridolfi, R., Stormer, A., & Mundy, G. (2019). Transforming data into action: Implementing gender analyses in nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions: An experience from Cambodia. In V. Demos, M. T. Segal, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Insights from the field (pp. 89–114). Bingley: Emerald. Rosa, M. C. (2014). Theories of the South: Limits and perspectives of an emergent movement in the social sciences. Retrieved from http://csi.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/02/24/001139211452 2171 Rothchild, J. (2005). Processes of gendering and the institutionalization of gender in the family and school: A case study from Nepal. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gender realities: Local and global (pp. 265–296).Amsterdam: Elsevier-JAI. Segal, M. T. (2017, October). Gendered knowledges for gendered development. Paper presented at 6th annual conference on disparities in development: Regional and local, ASA Sociology of Development Section, Wayne State University. Segal, M. T. (2018, July). Toward a gendered and intersectional sociology of development. Paper presented at the XIX ISA world congress of sociology, Toronto, Canada. Segal, M. T., Kelly, K., & Demos, V. (Eds.) (2020). Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organizations. Bingley: Emerald. Shinohara, C. (2009). How did sexual harassment become a social problem in Japan? The equal employment opportunity law and globalization. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal (Eds.), Perceiving gender locally, globally and intersectionally (pp. 267–310). Bingley: Emerald. Snyder, K. A. (2005). Gender segregation in the hidden labor force: Looking at the relationship between formal and informal economies. In M. T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Gender realities: Local and global (pp. 1–28). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Thierry, A.-F. (2019). Monitoring gender data and evaluating differential effects to reduce inequality. In M. T. Segal, V. Demos, & K. Kelly (Eds.), Gender and practice: Knowledge, policy, organization (pp. 79–98). Bingley: Emerald. Vanya, M. (2006). Marketing social change after communism: The case of domestic violence in Slovakia. In V. Demos & M. T. Segal (Eds.), Gender and the local–global nexus: Theory, research, and action (pp. 163–194). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Walby, S. (2011). Globalization and multiple inequalities. In E. N-L. Chow, M. T. Segal, & L. Tan (Eds.), Analyzing gender intersectionality, and multiple inequalities: Global, transnational and local contexts (pp. 17–34). Bingley: Emerald. Wardani, N., & Mangino, K. P. (2018). Leadership through empowerment. In R. J. Thompson & J. Storberg-Walker (Eds.), Leadership and power in international development (pp. 151–164). Bingley: Emerald. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–151.

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER 11 EXPLORING THE QUAGMIRE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVISM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Mary Johnson Osirim

ABSTRACT African feminist scholars and activists have made major contributions to our understanding of gender‐based violence. This is especially the case in southern Africa, which has a long history of high rates of violence against women and girls. Their rates of gender‐based violence are among the very highest in the world. While there are many forms of gender‐based violence, this chapter will explore the important contributions of African gender scholars and activists to our knowledge concerning domestic violence and rape. These issues will be interrogated using Zimbabwe and South Africa as case studies, with some reference to Namibia. In the region, domestic violence and sexual assault have deeply rooted structural explanations linked to the long history of colonialism, apartheid and white minority rule, political transition, economic crises and adjustment, changes in expected gender roles and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In the past 25 years, Zimbabwe and South Africa attempted to address violence against women through the development of laws as well as the creation of non‐governmental organizations. Although these important efforts have not resulted in a major decrease in violence against women, they clearly demonstrate the long history of African women’s actions in resisting state power and patriarchy. African women as citizens, scholars and activists are responsible for

Producing Inclusive Feminist Knowledge: Positionalities and Discourses in the Global South Advances in Gender Research, Volume 31, 229–248 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1529-2126/doi:10.1108/S1529-212620210000031012

229

230

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

bringing to the fore the critical importance of reducing gender‐based violence in order to establish strong, just and sustainable societies in southern Africa. Keywords: Gender‐based violence; economic violence; state-sponsored violence; African feminist activists; southern Africa; sexual assault; domestic violence

The southern Africa region has a long history of high rates of gender-based violence, which are frequently regarded as some of the highest rates in the world (along with rates in the United States) (Coetzee & du Toit, 2018). This is particularly evident in domestic violence and rape of young girls and women. In the region, domestic violence and sexual assault have deeply rooted structural explanations linked to the history of colonialism, apartheid and white minority rule, political transition, economic crises and adjustment, changes in expected gender roles and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Adding to these macro‐structural issues is the existence of strong patriarchal cultures. In recent decades, however, as black men were assuming political power in Zimbabwe and South Africa, those who were poor and of low‐income backgrounds faced more challenges in the labor market and the household. These economic issues brought gender‐role challenges to the fore, which in some cases, resulted in escalations in violence against women (Britton & Shook, 2014; Osirim, 2003). In the midst of these challenges, African women have been responding to gender‐based violence. African feminist scholars have theorized about this violence, its historical roots and contemporary manifestations and in this process, made major contributions to knowledge production about this issue (Adomako Ampofo, 2008; Adomako Ampofo, Beoku‐Betts, Njambi, & Osirim, 2004; 2009; Ayiera, 2010; Bennett, 2010; Coetzee & du Toit, 2018; Mama, 1997). Their theory building and empirical research are vital to understanding gender‐based violence in particular local and regional contexts, as well as shedding light on gendered violence in other areas of the world. At the same time, African women scholars and activists have been actively organizing to remove this scourge from their societies by many different means including protests, legislation and the work of organizations based in their communities (Adomako Ampofo, 2008; Britton & Shook, 2014; Van Eerdewijk & Mugadza, 2015). This chapter will explore African feminist knowledge production and feminist activists’ engagement in praxis to address gendered violence in southern Africa. While there are several forms of, and contexts in which gender‐based violence is evident, this chapter will focus on sexual assault and domestic violence in Zimbabwe and South Africa with occasional reference to other nations in the region. Although much of the research on gender‐based violence in Africa has explored the processes and strategies of militarism and conflict in relation to sexual assault, this chapter will largely confine my discussion on this aspect to the liberation war in Zimbabwe and the anti‐apartheid struggles in South Africa with some attention given to Namibia’s fight for independence (Bennett, 2010; Britton &

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

231

Shook, 2014; Karame & Bertinussen, 2001; Lewis, 2004; Mama & Okazawa‐Rey, 2008; Ochieng, 2008). Although gender‐based violence is the topic of this investigation and such violence occurs among women and men, this work will only focus on violence against women. I will begin with the definitions of violence against women with particular attention given to the definitions and contributions provided by African gender scholars. Then, the chapter will present a case study of the historical roots of violence and the political economy of colonialism and the contemporary state that help explain the high percentages of gender‐based violence in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Further, attempts by African gender scholars, activists and others to address, reduce and ultimately eradicate gender‐based violence will be explored.

DEFINING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: THE WORK OF AFRICAN GENDER SCHOLARS, ACTIVISTS AND THE STATE In the late 1990s, scholarship on gender‐based violence emanating from sub‐ Saharan Africa demonstrated that this phenomenon was widespread and escalating across the continent (Adomako Ampofo et al., 2004, 2009; Coker‐Appiah & Cusack, 1999; Mama, 1997). In their major study on violence and global health, the World Health Organization defined gender-based violence, specifically intimate partner violence as: “any behavior within an intimate relationship that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm including acts of physical aggression, psychological abuse, sexual coercion and various controlling behaviors such as isolating a person from their family and friends and restricting their access to information or assistance” (Krug & Dahlberg, et al., 2002). In some of my early research in Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in the mid‐ 1990s and in Cape Town, South Africa in the early 2000s, I was very impressed by the attention given to gender‐based violence, especially violence against women and girls. In particular, my in‐depth interviews with the Directors of The Musasa Project Trust in Harare, Zimbabwe and Rape Crisis in Cape Town, South Africa in the 1990s and early 2000s, respectively, revealed that these organizations were engaged in very comprehensive approaches to violence against women. As noted by Ertürk and Purkayastha (2012) in their work on the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, these southern African organizations and the activists who established and led them realized that, there are deeply rooted structural explanations for violence against women that go well beyond individuals’ actions within households. Non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) established by women in Zimbabwe acknowledged that violence against women existed in many different forms: physical, sexual, emotional/psychological as well as economic, just to name some of the major types. This comprehensive view of gender‐based violence was presented by the major NGO working at the time in Harare to address violence against women and girls, the Musasa Project Trust. It is critically important to acknowledge that this definition far exceeded the prominent definitions in the United States at the time, which especially ignored the economic violence often

232

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

inflicted most significantly on poor and low‐income earning women. In my interview with the Director of the Musasa Project Trust in 1999, what was particularly surprising but most timely and astute was the inclusion of “economic” violence as one of the major forms of violence against women given that the nation was in the throes of an Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP), which took a particularly harsh toll on women. Thus, the identification of economic violence as a major form of violence against women was a major discovery of Zimbabwean feminist activists, which had a profound effect on the recognition of this type of violence in other nations experiencing economic crisis and adjustment. Founded in 1988, the Musasa Project Trust was committed to advancing the position of women by making the general public aware of the illegality of domestic violence (Osirim, 2001). To further increase awareness of domestic violence and sexual abuse, the Musasa Project developed a national television show, “Women/Madzimayi” which aired for 13 weeks during 1994. This program included testimonies of women from various class and ethnic groups who had been assaulted by their partners. Precisely because the program “hit too close to home” in its coverage of these issues, it was discontinued later that year on the government‐controlled television station (Osirim, 2001). Musasa has been successful in creating partnerships with the police, hospitals and government ministries. The Project has established sensitivity training for police departments to assist them in treating women who have been abused. The organization has been working with new recruits and trying to assist them in how to make initial assessments about domestic violence cases. The organization is also collaborating with the police and the hospitals to prepare an overall needs assessment program. The Musasa Project also aims to educate policymakers about domestic violence so they can institute gender sensitive policies. They have worked closely with women lawyers’ associations, the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Center and Network and the Ministries of Justice and Health to stop the violence against women. Given the problems of HIV/AIDS in the region and its linkage to domestic violence, the Musasa Project incorporated an HIV/AIDS education component in all of its programs (Osirim, 2003). Musasa continues to be an important feminist activist voice for violence against women today in southern Africa and beyond. In late 2002, I interviewed the leaders of Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust and the African Gender Institute in Cape Town. Founded in 1976, Rape Crisis is the oldest organization in South Africa focusing on sexual assault. In interviewing the Director in December 2002, it was clear that this organization engaged in a structural analysis of rape, which linked the high incidence of violence against women with the South African state’s culture of violence during colonialism and the apartheid regimes. In my conversation with the Director, she noted the many contexts in which rape occurs including date and marital rape and defined rape as an act of men exerting power over women, not as a primarily sexual act. At the time of the interview, increased attention was given by feminist scholar‐activists to the linkage between increasing rates of HIV/AIDS and sexual assault of young women and girls by some South African men. From its inception in 1996, the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town has been at the forefront of gender studies scholarship and activism.

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

233

In addition to establishing the journal, Feminist Africa and undergraduate and graduate programs in women’s and gender studies, Jane Bennett, then head of the African Gender Institute, indicated their commitment to university and community outreach on anti‐sexual harassment training. With respect to their Sexual Harassment Network Program, the African Gender Institute was dedicated to tackling this problem in all its forms both on campus and throughout the Southern Africa Region. In the early 2000s, the Institute took this Program “on the road” and provided education to young women at the University of Botswana about rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence. The journal, Feminist Africa, has been a pioneer in gender‐studies scholarship on the continent. Not only does it publish the most recent debates in feminist theory and empirical studies using a gender analysis, but it also gives “voice” to literary scholars and provides personal reflections on the feminist movements throughout Africa. It has been a critically important vehicle for feminist knowledge production on gender‐based violence, which is especially noted in the 14th volume of the journal published in 2010, “Rethinking Gender and Violence.” Feminist Africa also includes the work of activists who have struggled with the state in advancing legislation on sexual assault and domestic violence. In further considering the contributions of southern African women to our conceptions of sexual assault, Shikola (1998) complicates the definition of rape in her discussion of the degrees of rape. As an ex‐combatant in the struggle for Namibian independence, she distinguishes between “real” rape as what occurred against civilians in Namibia as opposed to what occurred on the battlefield. Women in their hometowns who were assaulted by the South African troops or the South West African Territorial Force experienced “rape,” while those who were assaulted by fellow combatants were described as not experiencing “rape” (Britton & Shook, 2014; Shikola, 1998). In many ways, it is this bifurcated view that prevailed in Namibian rape law, based on Roman legal traditions that undergirded much of European common law, until the Namibian rape law was changed with new legislation in 2000. Under common law, rape is “a crime against the state and not the person” (Britton & Shook, 2014). Thus, “rape” by soldiers in battle becomes an “expected” part of their lives in war and is not considered illegal, whereas “rape” of civilians in their homes by the enemy or others is illegal. Although Shikola does not describe the assaults on the battlefield as rape, she does recognize that harm was done to herself and these women. In many ways, her story and those of other Namibian women led in part to the feminist activism that later ensued, resulting in the Combatting Rape Act discussed below. An African feminist scholar‐activist, Ayiera (2010) also takes up the issue of sexual assault during war. She argues that sexual violence in periods of conflict cannot be divorced from the gendered relationships that exist between women and men in the broader society both before and after war. For Ayiera, it is critically important that we understand that violence is a mechanism of maintaining patriarchal control and that such violence is exerted by men against women in local communities as well as on the battlefield. It is still sexual assault whether a male soldier is raping a woman fighting alongside him in a liberation struggle or assaulting a woman on the opposing side. Ayiera’s (2010) work makes a major

234

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

contribution to African feminist knowledge production about sexual violence during armed conflict in moving us beyond the view that dominates much international discourse that “rape,” emerges as a weapon of war. Sexual assault occurs as an extension of unequal gender relations that are already prevalent in society. The Zimbabwean women’s movement experienced an important success with the passage of the Sexual Offenses Act in 2001. The passage of this legislation was due to the mobilization of several women’s groups including the Women’s Action Group, the Women and AIDS Support Network, the Musasa Project, church and other associations that witnessed the escalation in sexual violence and HIV/AIDS and were committed to doing something about these issues. This Act aimed to consolidate many types of sexual assault in one law and included marital rape as a form of “nonconsenual” sexual relations, which would be criminalized. The passage of this legislation was a major victory given the political turmoil surrounding the constitutional reform efforts in the nation (Van Eerdewijk & Mugadza, 2015). As earlier identified by Zimbabwean activists, the recognition of economic violence as a major type of violence against women was also noted in the legislation on domestic violence established by South Africa. In 1998, the South African legislature passed a Domestic Violence Act, four years after the beginning of majority rule. Included in their definition of domestic violence was: physical, sexual as well as emotional and psychological abuse (including repeated insults and/or threats, name‐calling, obsessive possessiveness and jealousy) that occurs within a domestic relationship. As noted above, it also included economic abuse (i.e. unreasonable refusing to share money or selling or giving away household property), intimidation, harassment, stalking and damage to property (Domestic Violence Act 116 of South Africa, 1998). Under this act, the police have a legal responsibility to help those who have been victimized as well as informing individuals of their rights and how to obtain a protection from abuse order. In 2007, South Africa passed the Criminal Law (Sexual Offenses and Related Matters) Amendment Act. Under this law, marriage does not give a husband the legal right to have sexual relations with his wife without her consent (Criminal Law – Sexual Relations and Related Matters, 2007). In 2006, several years after the passage of the Domestic Violence Act in South Africa, Zimbabwe enacted a Domestic Violence Act. In addition to the types of violence listed above as contained in the South African law, the Act in Zimbabwe specifically referred to several customary practices, particularly harmful and degrading to women and girls that are also outlawed. Included among these are: forced virginity testing, female genital cutting, child marriage, forced marriage, forced wife inheritance and the pledging of women and girls to appease the spirits (Domestic Violence Act of Zimbabwe, 2006). Similar to the legal responsibilities of the police mentioned in South Africa, the Zimbabwean law indicates that every police station must have an officer that specializes in domestic violence and family issues. Although resistance fighters in Namibia who were guilty of rape during the war were often silenced, in the post‐independence period, feminist activists placed major pressure on the state to take action against the escalating rates of rape in the nation. These activists engaged in lobbying, mass protests and

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

235

demonstrations with knowledge of the international anti‐violence campaign (Britton & Shook, 2014; Hubbard, 2007; Weldon, 2002). The Combating Rape Act, which was passed in Namibia in 2000, was the most progressive act of its kind on the continent at the time. It took a comprehensive approach in its definition of rape: It included men, women, boys and girls. It was altered to include sexual violations, including oral rape; rape with objects; rape with any body part; any form of genital stimulation, including forced masturbation of oneself; gang rape and forced sexual acts with animals …. The act includes marital rape …. The act specifically rejects the logic behind “degrees of rape.” (Britton & Shook, 2014)

Unfortunately, this very progressive legislation against sexual assault did not have the full desired effect of reducing rapes in Namibia. Despite the intensive activism of feminists in the nation, the very comprehensive view of rape embodied in this legislation was not accepted by many of the major constituencies in Namibia. Thus, this is another case of what we know to be so true in many Global South nations – that while the passage of progressive laws are necessary for women’s increased empowerment and to reduce inequality between women and men, such legislation is not a sufficient condition for gender equality. Given the persistence of patriarchy in many circles, the Combating Rape Act lagged in its implementation. These are just a few of the basic provisions of the legislation on rape and domestic violence and descriptions of what constitutes domestic violence and sexual assault in these southern African nations. Feminist scholars have noted that the state can be both an instrument of oppression, which will be discussed below, as well as an agent of justice (Abraham & Tastsoglou, 2016). While African states that adopt progressive legislation are to be applauded, we know that such laws are insufficient in reducing gender‐based violence. Some African gender scholars have indicated that after the liberation wars and other major struggles, some activists have retreated and been co‐opted into state feminism and/or become engaged in femocracies (Adomako Ampofo et al., 2009; Gouws, 2010; Mama, 1995, 2000). In some cases, this has meant that the state’s response to such issues as gender‐based violence was to assign it to a newly developed “Ministry of Women’s Affairs.” In the case of Zimbabwe, Women’s Affairs was first subsumed under the rubric of Community and Cooperative Development (from 1981 to 1994) and later, Women’s Affairs became a department within the Zimbabwe African National Union‐Patriotic Front (ZANU‐PF) (Osirim, 2009). In other African nations, such as Nigeria, women’s economic issues during the Structural Adjustment Program were taken up by the governors’ wives in “The Better Life for Rural Women” Program, which as a femocracy, benefited women connected to the state at the expense of poor, rural women (Adomako Ampofo et al., 2009; Mama, 1995, 2000). African feminist scholars noted that while getting women into political institutions to reflect their views was one of the aims in the post‐independence years, this has sometimes led to co‐optation by the state and a stalling in certain periods of some feminist movements, such as those in South Africa during the Mbeki years and those in Zimbabwe during the violent elections

236

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

in the early twenty‐first century (Gouws, 2010; Van Eerdewijk & Mugadza, 2015). Such situations do affect efforts to reduce gender‐based violence. Thus, despite the legislation on domestic violence and rape, newer constitutions (2012 in South Africa and 2013 in Zimbabwe) and amendments, we still see high rates of domestic violence in the region, with Zimbabwe’s percentages (although not raw numbers) significantly exceeding South Africa’s. Today, 35% of Zimbabwean women over the age of 15 have experienced physical violence with a high of 48% of them divorced, separated or widowed; all these women have experienced such violence (UN Women Global Database on Violence Against Women, Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency and ICF International, 2016). The most recent statistics for South Africa indicate that approximately 17% of women have experienced physical domestic abuse. The South African Police Service indicates that 39,828 rapes were reported in 2016–2017 (South African Police Service Annual Crime Report 2016/2017, 2017). Of course, it is critical to note that many rapes and episodes of domestic abuse go unreported in these societies as is the case globally. The rate of child marriages is also much higher in Zimbabwe than in South Africa – 6% of South African girls are married before they are 18 years old compared to 32% of Zimbabwean girls (Girls Not Brides, 2018a, 2018b; UNICEF and UNFPA, 2018). In general, then, how can we understand the high rates of domestic violence and rape among women in these southern African nations? A necessary first step is to examine the history of state‐sponsored violence and patriarchy in these societies before turning to contemporary structural conditions. African feminists have long argued that conducting a structural analysis of colonialism is essential for understanding the relationship between states and gender‐based violence (Bennett, 2010).

THE HISTORICAL BACKDROP: OPPRESSION, VIOLENCE, PATRIARCHY AND WOMEN’S RESISTANCE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA The colonial period in Zimbabwe and the colonial and post‐colonial eras in South Africa were dominated by race‐based systems of stratification. These systems stripped the majority black populations of basic human rights – in all realms of the polity, economy and society – and granted to the minority white population full rights and control over these spheres. These states used various forms of oppression and violence to maintain control over black men and women. In addition, black women were subjected to black male patriarchy. Beatings and rape were frequently used by the white‐controlled states and by black men to keep black women “in line.” In some cases, however, black women found ways of resisting white control and African patriarchy. To understand the history of state regulations and women’s resistance, a short overview of colonialism, apartheid and post‐colonialism in southern Africa is necessary. First, white control could be exerted once they limited where blacks could live and work. The colonial states restricted where blacks could live to the

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

237

least arable land in the nation. In Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), this meant the Tribal Trust Lands and black high‐density suburbs and in South Africa, townships and the “Bantustans,” what were eventually the so‐called “independent” nations within the boundaries of the country. Second, colonial authorities restricted who could enter the white areas, namely the cities and areas with large‐scale agriculture, allowing just enough black males to enter to meet the demands of white enterprises. One of the ways this regulation occurred in South Africa was through a system of pass laws to regulate labor. During the colonial period, white patriarchy reigned supreme. Black males experienced the domination of the colonial state and witnessed the patriarchy of white males. “In addition, the colonizers, who had negative views of Zimbabwean women and did not see them as cooperative as their male counterparts, used Zimbabwean men to control women” (Fidan & Bui, 2015). Thus the actions of the colonial state combined with the customary laws of the various ethnic groups in the region resulted in black males dominating family and community life, but certainly not the broader state and economy. Black women experienced oppression at the hands of the white‐dominated state and black males in their homes and local communities. They were expected to remain in the rural areas seeking out a living in the poorest farmland in these nations. Under colonial rule in Zimbabwe, for example, women no longer received their own land to produce extra food or generate income because land was in scarce supply (Hindin, 2000). In her work on the position of Shona women in the early‐/mid‐colonial period in Zimbabwe, Schmidt (1992) noted that men could beat their wives for what were considered major offenses without retribution from their communities, although wives might strike back: If a Shona wife resisted her husband’s authority by skimping on the food she prepared for him, failed to cook, or refused to sleep with him, she committed a serious offense that struck at the heart of the marriage contract. Under such circumstances, a man could beat his wife without social sanction ….

Schmidt’s finding confirms earlier research by Holleman on Shona customary law. His work revealed that a husband can hit his wife if she refused to cook and clean the house, care for the children or have sexual relations with him (Holleman, 1952). There are several other historical examples of state‐sponsored and African patriarchal violence perpetrated against black women. In Zimbabwe, during the black nationalist struggles in the 1940s and 1950s, urban African women were attacked during strikes in Salisbury in 1948 and later at the hostel called Carter House in 1956. The women who lived in Carter House were mainly single, income‐ earning black women who worked as domestics and factory workers. Some of these women refused to honor a bus boycott organized by the Radical City Youth League and decided to ride public transportation. In response to the independence of these black women, the bus was stoned and the police fired tear gas. In the melee that followed, the hostel was attacked and several women were raped. While living in Carter House, several of these women were earning higher wages

238

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

than their male counterparts. Living in this hostel was viewed by some men as women “flaunting their independence” in a society where local customs dictated that women were legal minors under the control of their fathers or husbands. The women in Carter House were challenging African patriarchy while their male peers were resisting the power of the state: Perhaps five or as many as sixteen were raped in the assault on the hostel …. The focus of male anger on these particular women illuminates some of the explosive undercurrents of urban gender relations in this period and the abandonment of the spirit of tolerance that prevailed briefly in the early 1950s. (Barnes, 1999; Osirim, 2009)

Zimbabwe subsequently fought a long and bitter liberation war in which women also participated. Sanday (1981) notes that where interpersonal violence has become an everyday occurrence and men are encouraged to be tough and aggressive, violence is often expressed sexually. Such actions were apparent in the liberation war, where not only did women and men witness violence in fighting the Rhodesian army, but black women also experienced harassment and violence from their comrades. Leading army officials used to behave as though they were entitled to the marital services of women. Some sexist attitudes in war are also documented, including assigning significant tasks to men, and the humiliation felt by some males on saluting senior ranking female comrades. Cases are also reported where comrades in the struggle took other people’s wives and used them for their own sexual gratification (Osirim, 2003). The injustices and violence experienced by women during the war, however, did not end with independence in 1980. While in the immediate post‐independence years, Zimbabwe was committed to advancing the position of women, the state has since been engaged in many public acts of violence against women. Among these are the beatings of women considered prostitutes in Harare in the mid‐1980s and 1990s to rid the area of “unwanted elements” in periods when the state was preparing to host an international conference. The charge of prostitution and branding as “whore” remains common against single Zimbabwean women in the public sphere. Recently, this fear of single, independent women was witnessed in the public shaming of Thokozani Khuphe, former Deputy Prime Minister of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) who challenged the male Vice President, Nelson Chamisa, for party leadership. Derogatory comments referred to her as a “whore” (Chigumadzi, 2018). Demonstrations in January 1998 by women who were disproportionately bearing the costs of adjustment were met with the violence of the army. State‐sanctioned violence accompanied the 2002 pre‐election campaign, the presidential elections, and the seizure of white‐owned farms taking a heavy toll on women. It is alleged that wives and daughters who sympathized with the MDC or who were connected to MDC supporters, as well as women farm workers were victimized by ZANU youth brigades. Although the youth brigades were intent on silencing opposition to the ruling party, which was disproportionately male, there was clearly a gendered dimension to their violence. Women believed to be associated with the opposition were not beaten, but were often raped or gang raped by the youth brigades and state functionaries.

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

239

In an article in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, Dr Frances Lovemore, a member of the Amani Trust (a Harare‐based human rights group) remarked: “They (the militia) are raping on a mass scale” (Lamb, 2002). Tony Reeler, Director of the Trust also stated: Girls were systematically taken and used and abused because of their families’ political views …We’re seeing an enormous prevalence of rape and enough cases to say it’s being used by the state as a political tool. (Lamb, 2002)

The Sunday Telegraph further reported that rape camps existed in the rural areas, where women have been individually and/or gang raped by members of the youth brigades and the riot police. Moreover, some children have witnessed the rapes and beatings of their mothers who lived and worked on farms taken over by the Zimbabwean ex‐combatants. Therefore, public, state‐sanctioned violence against women had become an entrenched reality in post‐colonial Zimbabwe. During the economic crisis of the 1990s through the present, Zimbabwe also witnessed an escalation in domestic violence. The ESAP coupled with intensified economic crisis led to massive layoffs in the formal sector, especially for black men. Therefore, many men were unable to maintain their roles as financial providers and women were increasingly turned to for assistance in maintaining the family. In the past, extended families were a major source of financial and emotional support but the severe toll that the crises took on families meant that many relatives were unable to provide support (Osirim, 2009). Some men abandoned their families and their financial responsibilities under these conditions thereby enacting economic violence against women and children. During this period of severe economic crisis, which unfortunately continues today, Zimbabwe experienced a major increase in the number of women‐headed households, which are disproportionately poorer than two‐parent‐headed households. Under such conditions of unemployment, increasing poverty and challenges to their traditional roles, many men took their frustrations out on their partners, resulting in an increased incidence of domestic violence and sexual abuse. In 1993, at a conference on Gender, Justice and Development, Peggy Antrobus, the leader of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era suggested that there was an association between the adoption of structural adjustment programs and increasing violence against women. Not only was this gendered violence physical in scope, but she also acknowledged its psychological dimensions (Britton & Shook, 2014; Green, 1999; Osirim, 2001, 2003, 2009). In South Africa, the race‐based system of stratification was established through a series of laws particularly in the early to mid‐twentieth century. As noted in Zimbabwe, this system deemed Africans “internal colonies” in their own nation and stripped them of all basic rights. One example of the psychological and economic violence that the state imposed on blacks can be seen in the system of pass laws. With respect to black women, they were required to carry passes beginning in 1913 when the Orange Free State introduced this as a new requirement for women. Black women responded with a demonstration of passive resistance in refusing to carry passes.

240

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

At the end of World War I, the authorities in the Orange Free State tried to reinstate the requirement, and again opposition built up. The Bantu Women’s League (later the ANC Woman’s League), organized by its first President, Charlotte Maxeke, coordinated passive resistance during late 1918 and early 1919. By 1922, they had achieved success – the South African government agreed that women should not be obliged to carry passes. However, the government still managed to introduce legislation which curtailed the rights of women and the Native (Black) Urban Areas Act No. 21 of 1923 extended the existing pass system such that only black women who were domestic workers could live in cities. In August 1956, over 20,000 women, of all races, marched through Pretoria to hand a petition to JG Strijdom, South Africa’s Prime Minister, over the introduction of the new pass laws and the Group Areas Act of 1950. This act enforced specific residential areas for different races and led to forced removals of people living in “wrong” areas. Once the National Party came to power in 1948, they enacted formal apartheid and engaged in the forced removal of over 3.5 million persons from the 1960s to the 1980s to the Bantustans or as they called them, “independent countries,” located within the boundaries of South Africa. This forced removal restricted most black women to subsistence farming on the least arable land in the nation or to residence in the poor townships if they had worked in the cities. With the forced removal, black women and their families lost many resources, were completely uprooted and experienced severe psychological trauma. Needless to say, the decades‐long struggle to end apartheid also led to much physical violence, destruction and death for black Africans, including women. Forced removals by the state and the violence that results have persisted into the modern period. In May 2005, the Zimbabwean government conducted Operation Murambatsvina, which in Shona means “drive out filth.” This was a campaign to remove the so‐called “shantytowns” that bordered the major cities. The Mugabe regime publicly considered this as an effort toward urban renewal, while in reality this was an effort to “punish” those areas that did not support his reelection. The state’s efforts in May 2005 marked the displacement of 2.4 million residents from the high‐density suburbs. The police then destroyed stalls and beat and arrested more than 9,000 traders. In the state’s actions to punish the opposition, many women lost their businesses as well as experienced major injuries. Another critical factor in understanding violence against women is the HIV/ AIDS pandemic, which was well‐underway with the coming of majority rule to South Africa and ESAP in Zimbabwe. Under these circumstances, rape and marital rape are to be particularly feared, given that one‐third of the population was infected with the virus at the beginning of the new millennium. As discussed by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, 2001): Women’s exposure to violence increases their exposure to HIV/AIDS. Women can become infected as a result of sexual assault or coerced sex …. Violence and fear of violence may intimidate women from trying to negotiate safer sex, discussing fidelity with partners or leaving risky relationships.

In fact, globally, the incidence of HIV/AIDS among women increased markedly from the 1990s into the new millennium. In 1997, 41% of infected adults

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

241

were women. By 2001, this figure had increased to 49.8% (UNIFEM, 2001). The spread of HIV/AIDS is not random – it disproportionately affects women and adolescent girls who are socially, culturally and economically more vulnerable. According to studies by UNIFEM (2001) in Zimbabwe, of those individuals who had “experienced a negative income shock due to HIV/AIDS, 77.6% of them were women.”

THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD: GENDER‐BASED VIOLENCE – WHY DOES IT PERSIST? While I argue that it is critical to understand the systems of state‐sponsored violence in both the colonial and post‐colonial periods in Zimbabwe and South Africa combined with African patriarchy in order to fully understand the high rates of violence against women in these societies, the persistence of economic crises in these nations also creates conditions that make it very difficult to reduce gender‐based violence. As demonstrated above, in a context of poverty and high unemployment where blacks have now gained political “control” of the state, the expectations of black men to experience socio‐economic mobility, especially those who are not at the very bottom of the income scale, have increased substantially. When the state does not positively deliver on these higher expectations and where women seem to be gaining greater parity in the labor market and in income earning with men, we often see black men in these societies exerting their power in the only venues available to them – in their homes and communities. In the case of South Africa, for example, Jewkes, Sikweyiya, Morrell, and Dunkle (2011) explains that: Research from South Africa has shown some complexity … that in a large sample of mostly rural, young men, rape perpetration was more common among those who came from less poor backgrounds, had earned money and had more educated mothers. Thus, in a context of poverty, unemployment and low levels of education, it was the less poor and disadvantaged who were more likely to rape. They suggest that the driving factor was a sense of entitlement … in a context in which few or none would be able to attain objectively high levels of material success.

Similarly, the persistence of severe economic and political crises in Zimbabwe under the Mugabe regime also led to the persistence of violence against women. Since the early 2000s, Zimbabweans have experienced high rates of unemployment with estimates as high as 80–90%. Such conditions led to increased stress within households, which can often result in violence against women – of the physical, psychological, sexual and/or economic kinds. In addition, women with few options for income earning sometimes resort to sex work as a way of supporting themselves and their families. In such circumstances, women are also subject to abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. Kevany, Benatar, and Fleischer (2013) identified the risk factors for physical violence against Zimbabwean women, which was noted to be on the rise during the past decade. He found that: Women reporting physical violence were significantly more likely to report a history of childhood domestic violence, two or more lifetime partners, some form of sexual abuse as a child and low or medium socio‐economic status. (Kevany et al., 2013)

242

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

Poverty and high levels of power inequity were also discovered in a recent study of intimate partner violence (IPV) in South Africa. Sexual IPV was significantly correlated with women who had sexual relations with a man who was five or more years older than them and transactional sex with a more recent casual partner. More than half the participants in this study of over 250 women were poor and about three‐quarters of them were aged 16–19. In addition to being sexually abused, most of these young women reported being beaten or slapped. They experienced high levels of power inequity (Zembe, Townsend, Thorson, Silberschmidt, & Ekstrom, 2015). As noted above, women’s exposure to violence increases their exposure to HIV/AIDS. Southern Africa has some of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world, with a prevalence rate of 20.4% in South Africa and a 12.7% prevalence rate in Zimbabwe (UN AIDS, 2018a, 2018b). HIV/AIDS is more prevalent among women than men; 80% of those infected with HIV between the ages of 20 and 24 are women. HIV/AIDS is the most serious health problem in South Africa, which was exacerbated during the government of Thabo Mbeki. He refused to accept the medical evidence demonstrating that HIV/AIDS was caused by a virus and instead, argued that AIDS was caused by poverty and its associated conditions of poor health. Researchers still debate what the major reasons were for Mbeki’s position that the HIV virus did not cause AIDS. Some argued that the exorbitantly high cost of anti-retrovirals from Global North pharmaceutical companies was far too difficult for the President, the nation and its citizens to bear. The pharmaceutical companies were also not to be trusted in this scenario given the legacy of imperialism and racism. Mbeki also lashed out at the racism associated with black male sexuality and the spread of the disease. Although we may not know the definitive explanation for the position of the state and Mbeki, over 300,000 individuals lost their lives to the disease during this period, at least some of which were preventable (Boseley, 2008; Coetzee & du Toit, 2018). In southern Africa, gender‐based violence is too commonplace for young women in secondary schools and universities. Chabaya, Rembe, Wadesango and Mafanya (2009) argue that “gender scripting” is routine in many South African high schools as demonstrated in their study of institutions in the Eastern Cape. Gender scripting means that young boys are expected to demonstrate strength and aggressiveness, and young girls are expected to be passive, and either way they are responsible for their “victimization” (Chabaya et al., 2009). Sexual violence in these schools, largely caused by boys and male teachers, affects about half of all girls and some boys as well. South Africa has developed programs to address this – from the Safe Schools Project to Life Orientation programs – involving teachers, social workers and the police. However, in these poor, rural communities, families, including teachers, are often desperate for resources, which perpetrators sometimes provide if a young girl becomes pregnant. On the contrary, teachers may be bribed not to report violence. In this regard, African gender scholars have been key in illustrating that sexual violence does not just affect individuals – it affects families and communities (Chabaya et al., 2009; Wan, Parsitau, & Doris, 2018). This “sugar‐daddy” culture can contribute to an elevated risk of

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

243

HIV for young women as they are exposed to older men who may be more likely to have HIV, or who hold the power in the relationship and determine condom use. HIV infection is a serious risk for women in Zimbabwe since they are often unable to enforce the wearing of condoms. The South African Constitution of 2012 and the Zimbabwean Constitution of 2013 include anti‐violence against women legislation and when combined with the Domestic Violence Acts are important steps in the eradication of violence against women. However, such state actions alone are not sufficient, given the long entrenched history of state‐sponsored violence in these societies, and when considered along with African patriarchy and economic crises (which remains severe in Zimbabwe), reducing violence against women is incredibly complex. On the contrary, there are several NGOs, which have taken specific actions to address gender‐based violence while also engaging in advocacy. While they have not substantially reduced violence against women, these organizations and the feminist activists associated with them, have significantly increased awareness about this critical issue and provided needed support for women and children living in violent households. They are the subjects of the discussion below.

THE EFFORTS OF NGOS AND FEMINIST ACTIVISTS TO ADDRESS GENDER‐BASED VIOLENCE Over the past few decades, African feminist activists have brought major attention to the issues of gender‐based violence in southern Africa. They have created NGOs and mobilized for change (even during some stalls in national women’s movements), which has led to the anti‐rape and anti‐domestic violence legislation. Some of these organizations have approached this issue from a very comprehensive, feminist perspective and situated violence against women in the broader context of the struggle for gender equality and human rights. The Musasa Project, the Women’s Action Group and Rape Crisis Cape Town discussed above are important examples of organizations that take a broader view in approaching violence against women. I will take this opportunity to introduce a few other feminist activists’ groups that are distinctive in what they are providing for their communities. These groups are engaged in pathbreaking work with the next generation. One such organization in South Africa is People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA). This organization is unique in engaging in advocacy using a feminist and intersectional analysis. POWA notes that there is no single route to change, and they constantly seek creative approaches in their programming to achieve the changes they want to see. POWA provides shelter services, counseling and legal services for clients (and their children) who have experienced gendered violence. POWA also engages in national and regional advocacy to protect and promote women’s rights. It is a member of the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights, a network of 26 Civil Society Organizations and Development Partners. In South Africa, POWA is the lead organization spearheading the eight‐nation “Raising Her Voice Campaign,”

244

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

working to empower women to hold governments accountable to commitments on reducing gender‐based violence and HIV/AIDS (People Opposing Women Abuse, 2016). In 2014, POWA joined with Agisanang Domestic Abuse Prevention and Training (ADAPT) to conduct a major study on sexual violence in schools and communities in Gauteng Province, South Africa, which includes Johannesburg, Soweto and Pretoria. ADAPT is an organization which from its establishment in 1994 was distinctive in providing services to women and men regarding gender‐ based violence. Not only does it offer counseling to those who have experienced or perpetrated various forms of violence, but it is also focused on providing training to the broad range of service providers including health workers, the police, court officials and the clergy in addressing violence against women. Certainly, ADAPT from its establishment, is a unique feminist activist organization in providing such training to clergy. What’s more, it assists unemployed women clients in establishing micro‐enterprises. POWA and ADAPT partnered in 2014 to develop the Teenz Alliance Project, a five‐year research and implementation effort focused on sexual violence among teen girls. Specifically, the Project was designed to improve girls’ access, retention and graduation rates by creating safer school environments. This qualitative and quantitative project, using surveys, interviews and focus groups made a major contribution to feminist knowledge production on gender‐based violence in several ways. It was a broad‐based study in which feminist NGOs collaborated in gathering data from community members, students and educators by focusing on 12 secondary schools in Gauteng Province. These schools were identified by the Department of Education as those where sexual violence was a concern. A baseline study of over 1,200 community residents, students, teachers and other staff conducted from September 2016 to April 2017 revealed some very important findings. While most adults (18–86 years old) and students (12–16 years old) felt safe in their communities and at school, adult educators and young female students felt the least safe at schools. Community members primarily defined sexual violence as unwanted sexual acts, whereas students had a broader view, which included these acts as well as “flashing,” exposing one’s genitals and transmitting such photos and videos on social media. Boys also experienced a good deal of sexual violence, although not as much as young girls. For boys, individuals’ “exposing” themselves was the principle form of sexual violence for them, whereas girls were more likely to experience physical acts – sexual assault, touching and/or kissing (Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, 2017). Two findings from this 2017 study were most concerning: first, that students were the least likely to correctly identify infringing on the rights of girls to access contraception as an act of sexual violence and second, students and adults still adhere to an inequitable gendered system of norms and values. These findings were surprising, especially among young women who appeared to have a fairly broad understanding of sexual violence and since about 20% of them experienced it (Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, 2017). This study is an excellent example of the contributions of African feminist scholar‐activists to knowledge production in this field. The research is distinctive

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

245

on the continent in the size of the sample, in taking a mixed‐methods approach and in surveying community members and students to ascertain the meanings and impact of sexual violence in the schools and in the community. Upon completion, it provided an important example of how such critical issues can be studied and addressed in other regions. Young women have demonstrated their feminism and intolerance of all forms of harassment and gender‐based violence in their social activism. In 2014, the group Katswe Sistahood responded to the harassment and assault of a young woman at a taxi stand in Zimbabwe with a “Miniskirt March.” Groups of women marched in tight‐fitting clothing to protest the harassment that women face daily. Katswe Sistahood is “building the capacity of young women and girls to claim and defend their rights by providing safe spaces to talk, commiserate, learn and organize” (Weerasekera, 2015), This group organizes “fireside circles” for young women aged 15–35 to discuss issues related to reproductive rights, sexual health, trauma and gender‐based violence. These conversations, situated in the high‐density suburbs (former black areas) of Harare, Zimbabwe, enable young women to consider and confront the many stigmas that they face as well as to challenge patriarchal attitudes and practices. In these meetings and their social activism, they are addressing one of the concerns revealed in the Teenz Alliance Project study – they are educating themselves about what it means to create a society based on gender equality. These “fireside” groups further allow them to express their own perspectives, which may be very difficult to do in their households, and empowers them to take on new, broader leadership roles in their communities (Weerasekera, 2015).

CONCLUSION African feminists have made major contributions to knowledge production and activism about gender‐based violence on the continent. Using Zimbabwe and South Africa as case studies, this chapter explored some of the distinctive scholarship that African gender scholars have provided enabling us to better understand the meanings and magnitude of domestic violence and rape of women in these southern African nations. In particular, they have added the concept of “economic violence” to the lexicon as a major form of violence experienced by women in these societies, especially during periods of economic crises. While they note that sexual assault has become all too commonplace for women during wars, they also realize that this sexual violence is not unique to armed conflicts but rather is a continuation of the violence that women often experience in their daily lives. Violence against women in times of war is a manifestation of the patriarchy – of men’s control over women – and it reinforces gender inequality. African feminist activists have established NGOs and other groups in their efforts to eradicate gendered violence. They have mobilized for legislative changes and expanded the views of what constitutes rape and domestic violence. Their efforts have led to the passage of more progressive laws against domestic violence and rape and included marital rape as a major form of sexual violence.

246

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

They have formed organizations that provide comprehensive services to those engaged in sexual violence on both sides – those who experienced the violence and the perpetrators. Such groups provide shelter, counseling services and training to a wide range of constituencies including the clergy, as well as employment services for women. Interestingly, they have spearheaded important, multi‐dimensional research projects aimed at reducing the risks of sexual violence among young women and improving their chances for higher levels of educational attainment. This chapter aimed to demonstrate the many contributions of African gender scholars and activists against the backdrop of a historical analysis of the political economy in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Such a comprehensive approach is essential in understanding the complex factors that contribute to the high rates of gender‐based violence in the region. Unfortunately, the passage of progressive legislation combined with the efforts of African feminist NGOs is not enough – these are necessary but not sufficient conditions to substantially reduce gendered violence. Eliminating the scourge of gender‐based violence in the region is a difficult problem that requires multi‐pronged solutions. At its core, gender‐based violence is fueled by the power differentials that persist between women and men in the context of the many structural issues that plague these societies. An important first step in this regard is a broad‐based (re) education campaign at every level of society, from the state to the individual, which promotes equality between women and men. This campaign needs to begin in the school system from the earliest levels of primary school through to higher education. Gender equality must be realized in all other institutions of society including in the employment, housing and health care sectors. At the same time, African states must enforce the legislation concerning gender‐based violence which has been passed. Such changes must be met with structural changes at the macro‐level – in the economic, political and cultural spheres – in order to create lasting change and socially just, sustainable societies.

REFERENCES Abraham, M., & Tastsoglou, E. (2016). Interrogating gender, violence, and the state in national and transnational contexts: Framing the issues. Current Sociology, 64(4), 517–534. Adomako Ampofo, A. (2008). Collective activism: The Domestic Violence Bill becoming law in Ghana. African and Asian Studies, 7(4), 395–422. Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J., Njambi, W., & Osirim, M. (2004). Women’s and gender studies in English‐speaking Sub‐Saharan Africa: A review of research in the social sciences. Gender & Society. GENDER SOC. 18, 685–714. doi:10.1177/0891243204269188 Adomako Ampofo, A., Beoku‐Betts, J. Njambi, W., & Osirim, M. (2009). Women’s and gender studies in English‐speaking Sub‐Saharan Africa: A review of research in the social sciences. In C. Bose & M. Kim (Eds.), Global gender research: Transnational perspectives (pp. 16–40). New York, NY: Routledge. Ayiera, E. (2010). Sexual violence in conflict: A problematic international discourse. Feminist Africa, 14, 7–20. Barnes, T. (1999). We women worked so hard: Gender, urbanization and social reproduction in colonial Harare, Zimbabwe, 1930–56. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Bennett, J. (2010). Circles and circles: Notes on African feminist debates around gender and violence in the 21st century. Feminist Africa, 14, 21–47. Boseley, S. (2008, November 26). Mbeki Aids policy ‘led to 330,000 deaths’. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com

Exploring the Quagmire of Violence Against Women

247

Britton, H., & Shook, L. (2014) I need to hurt you more: Namibia’s fight to end gender‐based violence. Signs, 40(1), 153–175. Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention. (2017). Baseline Study Report for the Teenz Alliance Project: A programme that forms part of the Sexual Violence Prevention in Schools in South Africa (SeViSSA) Initiative. Retrieved from saferspaces:org.za/resources/entry/baseline-study-reportfor-the-teenz-alliance-project Chabaya, O., Rembe, S., Wadesango, N., & Mafanya, Z. (2009). Factors that inhibit implementation of policies on gender‐based violence in schools: A case study of two districts in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Agenda, 80, 97–108. Chigumadzi, P. (2018). In Zimbabwe the enduring fear of single women. The New York Times, July 2. Retrieved from nytimes.com/2018/07/02/opinion/zimbabwe-elections-mugabe-fear-women.html Coetzee, A., & du Toit, L. (2018). Facing the sexual demon of colonial power: Decolonizing sexual violence in South Africa. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 25(2), 214–227. Coker‐Appiah, D., & Cusack, K. (1999). Breaking the silence and challenging the myths of violence against women and children in Ghana: Report of a national study on violence. Accra-North, Ghana: Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre. Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act (No. 32). (2007). Retrieved from http://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/fr/countries/africa/south-africa/2007/criminal-lawsexual-offences-and-related-matters-amendment-act-no-32-2007 Domestic Violence Act 116 of South Africa. (1998). Retrieved from www.justice.gov.za. Domestic Violence Act of Zimbabwe. (2006). Retrieved from www.justice.gov>eoir>vil>country>foreign_ law>zimbabwe Ertürk, Y., & Purkayastha, B. (2012). Linking research, policy and action: A look at the work of the special rapporteur on violence against women. Current Sociology, 60(2), 142–160. https://doi. org/10.1177/0011392111429216 Fidan, A., & Bui, H. N. (2015). Intimate partner violence against women in Zimbabwe. Violence Against Women, 22(9), 1075–1096. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215617551 Girls Not Brides. (2018a). South Africa – Child marriage around the world. Retrieved from www.girlsnotbrides.org>child-marriage≥southafrica. Girls Not Brides. (2018b). Zimbabwe – Child marriage around the world. Retrieved from www. girlsnotbrides.org>child‐marriage≥zimbabwe. Green, D. (1999). Gender violence in Africa. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Gouws, A. (2010). Feminism in South Africa today: Have we lost the praxis?. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 24(83), 13–23. Hindin, M. (2000). Women’s autonomy, women’s status and fertility‐related behavior in Zimbabwe. Population Research and Policy Review, 19(3), 255–282. Holleman, J. F. (1952). Shona customary law. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hubbard, D. (2007). Ideas about equality in Namibian family law. In H. Melber (Ed.), Transitions in Namibia: Which changes for whom? (pp. 209–229). Uppsala: Nordiska Africain Stitutet. Jewkes, R., Sikweyiya, Y., Morrell, R., & Dunkle, K. (2011). Gender inequitable masculinity and sexual entitlement in rape perpetration South Africa: Findings of a cross‐sectional study. PLOS One, 6(12), e29590. Karame, K., & Bertinussen, G. (2001). Gendering human security: From margination to integration of women in peace‐building. Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Institute for Applied Social Science. Kevany, S., Benatar, S., & Fleischer, T. (2013). Improving resource allocations for health and HIV in South Africa: Bioethical, cost‐effectiveness and health diplomacy considerations. Global Public Health, 8, 570–587. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23651436 Krug, E. G., Mercy, J. A., Dahlberg, L. L., & Zwi, A. B. (2002). The world report on violence and health. The Lancet, 360(9339), 1083–1088. Krug, E., Dahlberg, L., Mercy, J., Zwi, A., & Lozano, R. (Eds.). (2002). World report on violence and health. Geneva: World Health Organization. Lamb, C. (2002). Mugabe men ‘use rape as revenge.’ August 25. Retrieved from www.telegraph.co.uk> worldnews>africanindianocean>zimbabwe Lewis, D. (2004). African gender research and postcoloniality: Legacies and challenges. In S. Arnfred, B. Bakare‐Yusuf, W. Kisiang’ani, D. Lewis, O. Oyewumi, & F. C. Steady (Eds.), African gender

248

MARY JOHNSON OSIRIM

scholarship: Concepts, methodologies and paradigms. In Gender Series 1 (pp. 381–395). Dakar: CODESRIA. Mama, A. (1995). Feminism or femocracy? State feminism and democratization in Nigeria. Africa Development, 20(2), 37–58. Mama, A. (2000). Feminism and the state in Nigeria: The national machinery for women. Accra North, Ghana: Third World Network-Africa. Mama, A. (1997). Sheroes and villains: Conceptualizing colonial and contemporary violence against women in Africa. In M. J. Alexander & C. T. Mohanty (Eds.), Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures (pp. 46–62). London: Routledge. Mama, A., & Okazawa‐Rey, M. (2008). Militarism, conflict, and women’s activism in the global era: challenges and prospects for women in three West African contexts. Feminist Africa, 10, 97–123 (Editorial). Ochieng, R. (2008). In conversation with Margo Okazawa‐Rey. Feminist Africa, 10, 110–122. Osirim, M. (2001). Making good on commitments to grassroots women: NGO’s and empowerment for women in contemporary Zimbabwe. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24(2), 167–180. Osirim, M. J. (2003). Crises in the state and the family: Violence against women in Zimbabwe. African Studies Quarterly, 7(2), 3. Osirim, M. J. (2009). Enterprising women in urban Zimbabwe: Gender, microbusiness, and globalization. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and Indiana University Presses. People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA). (2016). Retrieved from https://www.powa.co.za/POWA/ Sanday, P. R. (1981). The socio‐cultural context of rape: A cross‐cultural study. Journal of Social Issues, 37(4), 5–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1981.tb01068.x Schmidt, E. (1992). Peasants, traders, and wives: Shona women in the history of Zimbabwe 1870–1939. Harare: Baobab Books. Shikola, T. (1998). We left our shoes behind. In M. Turshen & C. Twagiramariya (Eds.), What women do in wartime: Gender and conflict in Africa (pp. 138–149). New York, NY: Zed Press. South African Police Service Annual Crime Report 2016/2017. (2017). Retrieved from www.saps.gov. za>aboutannual_report>gpw_crime_state_2017 UNICEF and UNFPA. (2018). Child marriage: A mapping of programmes and partners in twelve countries in east and southern Africa. New York, NY: UNICEF and UNFPA. UN AIDS. (2018a). South Africa. Retrieved from www.unaids.org>regionscountries≥countries≥ south africa UN AIDS. (2018b). Zimbabwe. Retrieved from www.unaids.org>regionscountries>countries>zimbabwe United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). (2001). 2001 annual report of the UNIFEM. Retrieved from https://www.peacewomen.org/sites/default/files/unifem_annualreportpart1_2001_0.pdf United Nations Women Global database on violence against women, Zimbabwe. (2015). Department of Health Statistics. Retrieved from https://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/-/media/files/ un%20women/vaw/vaw%20survey/1%20zimbabwe%20dhs%202015.pdf ?vs=5146 Van Eerdewijk, A., & Mugadza, T. (2015). Resilience in adversity: The changing face of women’s activism in Zimbabwe 2000–2014. The Hague: Knowledge Program Hivos. Wan, N., Parsitau, D., & Doris, N. (2018). Dangerous spaces: Kenya’s public universities as a locus for sexual and gender‐based violence: A case study of Egerton University, Njoro Campus. Canadian Women’s Studies, 32(1–2), 21–28. Weerasekera, Y. (2015). My body, my Zimbabwe, my miniskirt!. Thousand Currents. February 24. Retrieved from https://thousandcurrents.org/my-body-my-zimbabwe-my-miniskirt/ Weldon, S. (2002). Protest, policy and the problem of violence against women: A cross‐national comparison. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Zembe, Y., Townsend, L., Thorson, A., Silberschmidt, M., & Ekstrom, A. (2015). Intimate partner violence: Relationship power inequity, and the role of sexual and social risk factors in the production of violence among young women who have multiple sexual partners in a peri‐urban setting in South Africa. PLOS ONE, 10(11), e0139430. Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency and ICF International. (2016). Zimbabwe demographic and health survey 2015: Final report. Rockville, MD: Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) and ICF International.

INDEX Note: Page numbers followed by “n” indicate notes. Academic approaches to hearing subaltern voices, 219–220 Action/movement, 110 Activism, 44 Adivasi, 66 Adventures, sexuality unscripted, 154–156 Adventures from the bedrooms of african women, 151, 152–153, 156, 158 African cyberfeminism, 57 African feminism, 45, 148 African feminist (see also Feminist) activists, 57, 148, 243, 245–246 collaborative intellectual work, 55–56 contextualizing African feminist standpoints, 44–49 continental and transnational collaborations, 53–55 digital activism, 57–58 epistemologies, 44, 47–48, 56 and gender scholar activism, 44 journals, 53 land, 57 scholars, 149–150, 230 selected themes in current African feminist and gender studies research, 56 situating African women’s and gender studies programs, 49–53 young feminist activism, 58–59 African Feminist Forum, 49, 54 African Gender Institute (AGI), 51 African Gender Scholars, 231–236 African gender studies, 12, 187–188 African masculinities, 187–189 examining, 191–193

African men, 16, 46, 186–188, 191 African Protocol, 54 African women, 189–190, 230 and digital divide, 151–152 protocol, 150 Age, 1 age-specific groups, 220 intersectionalities in, 14 Agisanang Domestic Abuse Prevention and Training (ADAPT), 244 Anglophone Caribbean, 171 Asian University for Women (AUW), 220 students, 221 Association of African Women on Research and Development (AAWORD), 49, 53–54 Auto-ethnographical approach, 220 Autonomous feminism, 66 Autonomous women’s movement, 66–70, 72, 75 Baatein Aman Ki campaign (Conversations of Peace campaign), 76 Bahujan feminism, 66 BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, 55 “Barbaric” types of genders, 27 Bedone Taroff, 131 Behavior, 95 Beijing Conference on Women, 80 Beliefs contesting prejudice, 94 Black communities, 4 Black female sexuality, 48 Black feminist studies, 44 Black males, 188, 237 249

250 INDEX

Black men, 230 Black women, 4, 237, 239 Blogs, 57, 73 Bodily integrity, 48, 54, 58 Body, 110 Brazil feminism in, 83 participatory state feminism and intersectional emancipatory feminism in, 80–82 Brazilian participatory state feminism, 80 women praxis in, 95 Brazilian women’s and feminist movements, 80 Breadwinner, 196 #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign, 58 Buen Vivir, 112–114 Caribbean cyberfeminism, 178 Caribbean cyberfeminists, 170 Caribbean feminisms, 168–169 Caribbean feminist legacy, 171–174 contemporary online feminist activists, 178–181 contemporary reflections and evaluations, 174–175 feminist theory students, 175–178 gender justice and feminist, 170–171 Caribbean feminists, 170 Celebrity and social media activism, 137–139 Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA), 50 Chaharshanbeh-ha-ye Sefid, 143n11 Citizenship rights, 8 Civil and political associational life, 96 Class, 1, 47 Collaboration, 59 Colonial hegemony, 4 Colonialism, 1, 4, 26, 46–47, 230 Combating Rape Act, 235 Commercial agriculture, 56 Community of communities, 118

Conceptualisations, 172 Conflict and women’s activism, 149 Contemporarity, 48 Contemporary Dalit feminisms, 70–73 Contemporary online feminist activists, 178–181 Contemporary young African masculinities African masculinities, 188–189 decolonial approach, 191–193 explaining manhood and provider role, 193–200 male provider and subordination of women, 204–205 men, work, and provisioning, 189–191 provider, 200–203 social problems, 186–187 Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 99 Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), 49 Counterpublics, 10 Criminal Law, 234 Critical African Feminists, 47 Critical transnational feminist approach, 25 Critical transnational scholars, 28–29 Cultural Christianity, 190 Cyberactivity in Iran, 129–131 Cyberfeminisms, 175–176, 178 Cyberworld, 132–133 Dalit feminism, 66 debate, 66–70 in EPW, 66 Dalit politics, 66 Dalit standpoint, 66 #dalitwomenfight, 73 Decentralization, 49 Decolonial approaches, 26, 191–193 Decoloniality, 26

251

Index

Decolonizing methodologies, 25 Deregulation, 49 Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN), 54 Development and Women’s Studies Program (DAWS), 50 Development funding, 215, 222 Diaspora voices, 149 Digital activism, 57–58, 150 African women and digital divide, 151–152 feminist social media activists, 153 GhanaFeminism and adventures, 153–156 Ghanaian digital feminist activists, 152–153 Ghanaian feminist style, 148 internet activism in Africa, 150–151 interviews, 165 listening, 158–161 MindofMalaka and Pepper Dem Ministries, 156–158 women and economic life, 148–149 Digital divide, African women and, 151–152 Digital feminism, 162 Digital technology, 57–58 Dignity, 48 Disability, 1 Divorce, 213 Domestic violence, 230, 232, 234 Domestic Violence Act, 234, 243 Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), 66 dalit feminism in, 66 Economic crisis (1990), 239 Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP), 232 Economic violence, 234 Emancipatory praxis, 96 Emotional abuse, 234 Empowerment, 59 of women, 90 Epistemic violence, 5 Epistemicides, 109, 120n5

Ethical practices, 219 Ethnicity, 1, 47 Eurocentric, 3 assumptions, 191 beliefs, 4 feminism, 111 knowledge, 4 understandings of citizenship, 9 European colonialism, 190 Eurostat data, 219 Facebook, 57, 58, 130, 132 Failed conversations, 70–75 Family, 148 #FeesMustFall, 47, 59 Feminism, 7, 45–46, 65–66, 149, 221 (see also Caribbean feminisms) attitudes of women in Brazilian participatory state feminism, 92–95 in Brazil and Latin America, 83 Challenges Heritage of Sociology, 215 defined by women of NCPW, 84–92 feminism of NCPW women activists, 98–99 from intersectional and emancipatory perspective, 83–84 participatory state feminism and intersectional emancipatory feminism, 80–82 researching participatory state feminism activists, 82 and southern theory in mind, 212 women praxis in Brazilian participatory state feminism, 95 Feminist feminist/gender knowledges, 212 leadership, 59 movements, 56 pedagogy, 221 praxis and theories, 83 sidestreaming, 81 social media activists, 153

252 INDEX

Feminist Africa, 149, 233 Feminist digital activism, 56 Feminist identities, 83 Feminist interventions, 32 Feminist knowledge production, 103–104, 106 Feminist theory, 212, 214 students, 175–178 Feminist voice positioning challenging hegemonic discourses and epistemologies, 4–6 dilemmas and contestati ons in bringing southern voices to table, 6–7 feminist discourses in global south contexts, 7–12 in Global South, 1–2 methodological approaches, 12–13 politics of knowledge production, 2–4 Femocracy, 235 #FreeEducation, 59 movements, 47 #gam-ani, 222 Gender, 47 equality, 80, 90, 98 in feminist theory, 1 gender-related knowledges, 212 gender-specific groups, 220 gender-specific individual variables, 219 information and knowledge, 218 justice, 12, 65, 70, 76 knowledge, 217 mainstreaming, 80–81 practitioners, 220 scholar activism, 44 scholarship and pedagogy, 221 scripting, 242 and violence, 149 and Women’s Studies Network, 149–150 Gender-based violence (GBV), 56, 148, 222, 230–231 issues, 243

severity, 179 in Southern Africa, 243 Geopolitical economic processes, 46 GhanaFeminism, 58, 151–153 academic approach, 153–154 and adventures, 153 sexuality unscripted adventures, 154–156 Ghanaian digital feminist activists, 152–153 Global binaries, 24, 27 Global economic processes, 1 Global feminist knowledges and practices, 211–212 academic approaches to hearing subaltern voices, 219–220 pedagogy and scholarship, 221–222 positionality, 212–214 practitioner approaches to hearing subaltern voices, 220–221 sharing understandings and objectives, 222–223 Southern perspectives, 214–219 Global Gag policy, 59 Global South, 2–3 feminist voice positioning, 1–2 troubling, 65–66 Globalization, 46–47, 56, 222 Good Living/Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay, 113 Green Movement, 127 Group Areas Act (1950), 240 Guardian, The, 135 Hegemonic masculinity, 189 Helen Keller International (HKI), 221 Heterogeneity of indegeneity, 32–34 Heterogeneous indigenous knowledge, 32 Heterogeneous women’s movements and feminist scholarship, 171– Heterosexual matrix, 27 Heterosexual women, 46 #HimToo, 70–75 HIV/AIDS, 234, 240–241, 242

Index

crisis, 48 pandemic, 230 Homophobia, 93–94 Horizontal fluxes of feminism, 81 Housewife, 190 Hybrid masculinity, 189 Imperialism, 47 Indegeneity and challenges of creating inclusive knowledge, 42 heterogeneity of, 32–34 India contemporary Dalit feminisms, 70–73 Dalit feminism debate, 66–70 #MeToo, #HimToo, and Failed Conversations, 70–75 moving forward together, 75–76 troubling global South, 65–66 Indigenous dualism, 113, 115–116 Indigenous feminisms, 104–105 Indigenous feminist agenda Buen Vivir, 112–114 community of communities, 118 feminist bridges and epistemic possibilities, 112 indigenous dualism, 115–116 indigenous peoples in Latin America, 106–109 in Latin America, 104–106 solidarity political experiences, 116–118 territory body-earth, 114–115 theoretical and conceptual formulations of indigenous feminist knowledge production, 109–112 Indigenous feminist knowledge production, 109–112 Indigenous peoples in Latin America, 106–109 Indigenous women, 9–10, 104 Individualism, 12, 118, 136 Indo-Caribbean feminist, 173 Information technology, 44

253

Instagram, 130 Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), 170 Ignite, 176 Institutional Review Boards, 219 Institutionalization, 49, 80 Intellectual politics, 149 Interconnections, 196 Internal enemies, 130 International Committee of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), 213 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 45 International Women’s Decade (IWD), 70 Internet activism in Africa, 150–151 Intersectional analysis, 10 Intersectional approach, 1 Intersectional emancipatory feminism, 82, 99 in Brazil, 80–82 Intersectional feminism, 96 Intersectional/emancipator, 90 Intersectionality, 26 Intimate partner violence (IPV), 241 Iran, 135–136 Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Technology (ICT), 129 Iranian feminism sheds skin, 141–142 Iranian social media, feminist challenges in Beh Tou Cheh?, 125–126 celebrity and social media activism, 137–139 cyberactivity in Iran, 129–131 out of exile, entering cyberworld, 132–133 expressing dissent through social media, 128–129 Iranian feminism sheds skin, 141–142 Iranian women’s activism, 127–128

254 INDEX

Iranian women’s activists chime in, 139–141 online expression meets offline consequences, 133–137 Iranian women activism, 127–128 activists chime in, 139–141 ISA RC 32 Women and Society, 213 Katswe Sistahood, 245 Kinship alliance, 113 Knowledge, 217 politics of knowledge production, 2–4 Knowledge hierarchies examples from pages and descriptors, 40–41 feminist interventions, 32 heterogeneity of indegeneity, 32–34 ideas and practices within scholarly spaces, 25–28 indegeneity and challenges of creating inclusive knowledge, 42 knowledge world out there and challenge for feminists, 30–32 methodological dilemmas, 32 reflections on knowledge hierarchies, structures, and practices, 25 structures of silence and silencing, 34–35 transnational assemblages beyond academia, 28–30 Labor and gendered livelihoods, 149 LAC, 112, 118 Land, 57, 149 Large-scale land acquisition, 56 Latin America feminism in, 83 indigenous peoples in, 106–109 Law reform, 56 Leadership, 10 of indigenous women, 106–109

Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and queer/questioning feminism (LGBTQ feminism), 222, 66 Lesbophobia, 94 Liberate feminist scholarship, 66 Life Orientation programs, 242 Local or regional non-governmental organizations (INGOs), 215, 217 Māhū, 217 Male provider and subordination of women, 204–205 Manhood and provider role, 193 being provider, 196–200 strong, assertive, protector, and head of household, 193–196 Manorama, Ruth (NFDW), 70 Marginality, 33 Marginalization, 25, 42, 47–49, 172 Masculinity, 190–191 Memory, 110 Men, work, and provisioning, 189–191 Messaging applications, 130 #MeToo, 70–75, 222 Middle class feminist scholars, 4 Militarism, 56, 149 MindofMalaka, 151, 152–153, 156–158 Mindofmalaka, 58 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), 238 Musasa Project, 234, 243 Trust, 231–232 Muslim, 66 My Stealthy Freedom, 126, 131, 134, 137–139 National Conferences for Policies For Women (NCPW), 81, 83 feminism defined by women of, 84–92 feminism of NCPW women activists, 98–99

Index

National Plans for Policies for Women (NPPW), 81 National politricks, 149 National Truth Commission, 112 Nationality, 1 Native (Black) Urban Areas Act No. 21 of 1923, 240 Negative radical, 89 Negofeminism, 46 Neoliberal capitalism, 1 Neoliberal economic policies, 47, 49–50 Neoliberal economic reforms, 46 “Nonconsenual” sexual relations, 234 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 50, 132, 215, 217, 231 Knowledge Collective Data Portal, 214 Notimia, 117 OECD, 219 One Million Signatures campaign, 143n12 Online expression meets offline consequences, 133–137 Online feminist activists, 178, 180 Oppression in Southern Africa, 236–241 Organized criminal groups, 120 Pan-African feminist epistemologies, 44 Pan-Africanism, 149 Participatory rural appraisal, 220 Participatory state feminism in Brazil, 80–82 researching participatory state feminism activists, 82 Patriarchal trunking/entroncamento patriarcal, 111 Patriarchy, 186 in Southern Africa, 236–241 Pedagogy and scholarship, 221–222 People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), 243–244

255

Pepper Dem Ministries (PDM), 58, 151, 156–158 Physical sexual, 234 Platform for Action, 80 Policies for Women, 81–82 Politics, 148 Politics of knowledge production, 2–4 Popular culture, 56 Post colonies, 2 Postcolonial, 3 gender dynamics, 216 Potentially Intersectional Civil and Political Associational Life Index (PICPALI), 96–97 Poverty, 241 reduction strategy programs, 49 Power-sharing, 59 Practice, 8, 12, 16, 108, 223 Practitioner approaches to hearing subaltern voices, 220–221 Principles of participation, 59 Privatization, 49 Pro Intersectional Feminism Attitudes Index (PIFAI), 94 Provider, 200–203 manhood and provider role, 193–200 Psychological abuse, 234 Quagmire of violence against women defining violence against women, 231–236 gender-based violence, 241–243 NGOs efforts and feminist activists to address gender-based violence, 243–245 oppression, violence, patriarchy and women’s resistance in Southern Africa, 236–241 Quantitative techniques, 219 QUIPU Project, 220 Race, 1, 47 race-based system of stratification, 239 Racial discrimination, 94

256 INDEX

Racialization, 26–27 Racism, 93 Radical Intersectional African feminism, 47 Reflective evaluation, 168 Reflexivity, 65 Responsibilities men, 193 Rights feminism, 84 Rights of women, 90 Savarna feminism, 66 Scholar/activism, 44 Scientific colonialism, 7 Self-branding, 136 Sexism, 93, 175 Sexual abuse, 232 Sexual assault, 230, 234 Sexual division of labor, 186 Sexual harassment, 222 Sexual Harassment Network Program, 233 Sexual IPV, 241 Sexual violence, 234 Sexuality, 1, 148–149 studies, 56 Silence, 34–35 Silencing, 34–35 Skill access, 151–152 Skype, 57 Slavery, 4 Social change, 27, 218 Social justice, 24 Social media, 73 celebrity and social media activism, 137–139 networks, 44, 130 Social science scholarship, 186 Social stratification analyses, 186 Social theory, 214 Solidarity political experiences, 116–118 South African Constitution (2012), 243 Southern Africa, 16, 51, 230, 232, 243 Southern feminist scholars, 4 Southern masculinities, 216

Southern perspectives on feminist knowledges and practices, 214–219 Southern theory, 27, 212 Space, 110 State feminism, 235 State participatory feminism, 81 State-sponsored violence, 236 Stiwanism, 46 Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), 49 Student-led movements, 59 Subaltern counterpublic, 10 “Sugar-daddy” culture, 242–243 Sunday Telegraph, 239 Survey definitions of feminism, 80–85 Synthetic drugs, 130 Technology, 220 Teenz Alliance Project, 244–245 Telegram, 130, 132 Territory body-earth, 113, 114–115 “The Better Life for Rural Women” Program, 235 Time, 110 “Traditional” African societies, 186 Training locals, 220 Transformation of social issues, 222 Transformative social policy, 191 Transnational approach, 1 Transnational assemblages, 14, 24, 28–30, 35 Transnational feminism, 84, 88, 99 Transnational feminist (see also African feminist) movements, 44 networks, 50 Transphobia, 94 Twitter, 57–58, 130, 132 Unemployment, 239 United Nations Development Fund for Women, 240

257

Index

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), 223 Violence in Southern Africa, 236–241 against women, 231–236 Vulnerability, 52 Web-based portals, 73 Well-being, 48 West-centric epistemologies, 3, 24 Western colonization of non-White societies, 4 Western feminists, 5 Western knowledge systems, 4 Whatsapp, 57–58, 130 Woman police, 218 Women, 47 and AIDS Support Network, 234 and economic life, 148–149 and gender studies, 51, 221, 223 male provider and subordination of, 204–205

movement, 9, 14–15, 75, 93, 173, 243 praxis in Brazilian participatory state feminism, 95 resistance in Southern Africa, 236–241 rights, 51 violence against, 231–236 Women’s Action Group, 234 Women’s Educational Equity Act, 222 Work men, provisioning and, 189–191 women in, 148 World Bank, 45, 219 Yoruba language, 44–45 Young feminist activism, 56, 58–59 Young women, 245 Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), 236 Zimbabwean Constitution (2013), 243 Zimbabwean women’s movement, 234