Dissertations / Theses: 'African feminisms'

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Koeries, Noélle. "Woman as enemy of the nation-state: citizenship, transgression and legacy in Maps and Half of a Yellow Sun." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26900.

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This thesis brings to the fore two non-focalising characters, Misra of Maps by Nuruddin Farah and Kainene of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. These transgressive characters are placed at the centre of their respective narratives. The aim is to demonstrate the way they transgress conventional political, social, national and gendered boundaries. This transgression creates the space for an alternative citizenship to emerge. The type of citizenship that is multi-faceted and embraces the complexity and nuances of contested borders. These transgressions are read as legacy especially because neither Misra nor Kainene bring to fruition the potentialities and possibilities of their subversive natures. However, both novels present alternatives that reach beyond the closing of the narratives. Ultimately, this thesis questions the purpose of writing transgressive woman characters out of the official narrative.

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Robert, Badou Koffi. "A consciência da subalternidade: trajetória da personagem Rami em Niketche de Paulina Chiziane." Universidade de São Paulo, 2010. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8156/tde-08022011-100027/.

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O nosso projeto de Mestrado em Estudos Comparados de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa, com ênfase na literatura moçambicana, surgiu de uma constatação do quotidiano de mulheres africanas em geral. Decidimos trabalhar, no caso da nossa dissertação, a questão da trajetória da personagem Rami no romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia, para encarar o feminismo fora das bandeiras ocidentais tal como o conhecemos e dar ao termo uma conotação africana, destacando de fato certa singularidade na(s) ideologia(s) feminista(s): a consciência da subalternidade. Esta singularidade naquela(s) ideologia(s) vem se afastando da política que radicaliza o debate e o orienta na direção da negação do homem. O nosso crescente interesse pela escrita feminina nasceu do fato de, em quase todos os romances africanos, de autoria feminina, lidos, termos descoberto uma certa convergência na abordagem relativa à questão do estatuto das mulheres dentro das sociedades africanas. Neste contexto, a autora Paulina Chiziane, de Moçambique, evidencia bem, com o seu romance Niketche, uma história de poligamia, esse questionamento ao estatuto das mulheres, construindo personagens que vão, no decorrer da narrativa, realçar o contexto ideológico do feminismo africano. Três críticos nos ajudarão, com suas reflexões, para a aproximação da trajetória da personagem com a ideologia feminista africana. São eles: Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (2000) para a questão do feminismo africano, Antonio Candido (1963) e Roland Bourneuf (1976) para tratar das personagens.
Our Project for a Masters Degree in Comparative Studies of Portuguese Language Literatures, emphasizing on Mozambican literature, arose from findings about African womens general everyday lives. We decided to work on the case of our dissertation, the question of the Rami characters trajectory in the romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia (Niketche: a story of polygamy) to confront feminism away from occidental standards such as we know it and give an African connotation to the term, outlining in fact a certain singularity in feminist ideology(ies): the cognizance of the inferiority. This singularity in that(those) ideology(ies) has been moving away from the policy that radicalizes the debate and orientates to the direction of mans denial. Our growing interest in the feminine writing was born from the fact of the discovery in nearly all African romances, of feminine authoring, read, a certain converging in the approach related to the question of the womens statute within the African societies. In this context the authoress Paulina Chiziane of Mozambique shows, well as her romance Niketche, uma história de poligamia, this questioning of the womens statute by building characters that will, during the unrolling of the story, highlight the ideological context of the African feminism. Thus, three critics will help us with their reflections to enable the approach of the trajectory of the character to the African feminist ideology. They are Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (2000) for the African feminist ideology, Antonio Candido (1963) and Roland Bourneuf (1976) to deal with the characters.

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Adebayo, Adebanke. "West African Feminism| Maneuvering the Reality of Feminism Using Osun." Thesis, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10682016.

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West African Women writers are constantly looking for ways to maneuver the patriarchal system within their indigenous cultures. To say maneuvering implies the dilemma in consciously navigating patriarchal epistemology as West African women, which in reality is not exotic to other feminist struggles outside the continent. To deal with the dilemma of constantly maneuvering, this thesis suggest for an indigenous framework. It suggests Osun –a Nigerian goddess– as a response to the theoretical problems and as a methodology to navigating a postcolonial patriarchal worldview in order to express West African feminist discourse. The specificity of Osun is essential, but the fluidity of Osun across borders cannot be undermined as it paves the way for flexibility within feminist and gender discourse and draws upon various gender oppressed experiences. The idea of specificity and fluidity is fundamental to developing Osun as West African feminist discourse because of her ability to transcend space. The combination of specificity and fluidity are necessary within any feminist discourse as it allows for women from different regions to relate and align the tenets to their specific struggles found in the diversity of Osun.

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Makoba, Lerato Theodora. "The experiences of infertile married African women in South Africa a feminist narrative inquiry /." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2005. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-05282008-123151.

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Oloruntoba, Albert Olatunde. "The Negotiation of Gender and Patriarchy in Selected Nigerian and South African Plays." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/81371.

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Of all human identity categories such as race, religion, culture, class and gender that a person might belong to, race and gender are arguably two of the most contentious in the world. This study takes gender as its main focus, exploring how gender, gender oppression, patriarchy and resistance are negotiated in selected dramatic literary works emanating from Africa’s two literary giants, Nigeria and South Africa. It thus aims to bring two distinct literary traditions into dialogue with one another in order to clarify our understanding of how gender is articulated and inscribed across different contexts. Selected works from Nigeria include Aetu (2006), Little Drops (2011), Abobaku (2015) all by a single playwright, Ahmed Yerima, who has been described as one of the most outspoken feminist playwrights in the country. Other plays from South African context include So What’s New? (1993) by Fatima Dike, Weemen (1996) by Mthali Thulani, Flight from the Mahabarath (1998) by Muthal Naidoo and At Her Feet by Nadia Davids (2006). Of particular interest in this study is the question of how these plays explore the specific forms of gender discrimination which arise in the context of religious, traditional and cultural practices such as domestic violence against women, child marriage, wife inheritance, polygamy and property-sharing after the death of a husband or father. These texts, all written from a feminist perspective, foreground different understandings of what a woman and a mother is in the African context. They also offer differing articulations of gender-based resistance. The study employs an eclectic blend of western and African feminist/womanist frameworks in order to decipher how these plays comment, and reflect, on the issue of gender inequality. In so doing, the aim is to bring these distinct theoretical and ideological traditions into dialogue with one another. A further aim is to assess to what extent these plays draw on, or are aligned with, various strands of western and African feminist theorizing whilst also offering an understanding of literary texts as sites of theory-making in their own right. The study further explores the echoes, conjunctions, entanglements and disparities that are revealed by bringing these texts from different contexts into dialogue with one another. In this process, the chapter also explores the extent to which these plays can be aligned with the often polarized discourses of western and African feminist theories, thus contributing to a broader understanding of gender, gendered societies and gender-based oppression in African contexts. Finally, this study seeks to arrive at a new theoretical feminist framework for reading these texts: what I have called ‘Consequentialist feminism’ is an approach which seeks to transcend the binaries between western and African feminist theorizing by focusing on the consequences of women’s choices in particular contexts of engagement and response.
Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Pretoria, 2019.
English
DLitt (English)
Unrestricted

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Swart, Marthane. "Piecing the puzzle : the development of feminist identity." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1345.

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CARR, THEMBI RASHIDA. "TELLING OF THE UNTOLD: AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMINIST COUNTERSTORYTELLING." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1069079276.

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Meoto, Elvira N. Huff Cynthia Anne. "The evolution and formation of identity a case study of West African women's fiction from 1960s to 1990s /." Normal, Ill. : Illinois State University, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1432770681&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1216232418&clientId=43838.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2007.
Title from title page screen, viewed on July 16, 2008. Dissertation Committee: Cynthia A. Huff (chair), Ronald L. Strickland, Paula Ressler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-282) and abstract. Also available in print.

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Carastathis, Anna. "Feminism and the political economy of representation : intersectionality, invisibility and embodiment." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=105369.

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It has become commonplace within feminist theory to claim that women's lives are constructed by multiple, intersecting systems of oppression. In this thesis, l challenge the consensus that oppression is aptly captured by the theoretical model of "intersectionality." While intersectionality originates in Black feminist thought as a purposive intervention into US antidiscrimination law, it has been detached from that context and harnessed to different representational aims. For instance, it is often asserted that intersectionality enables a representational politics that overcomes legacies of exclusion within hegemonic Anglo-American feminism. largue that intersectionality reinscribes the political exclusion of racialized women as a feature of their embodied identities. That is, it locates the failure of political representation in the "complex" identities of "intersectional" subjects, who are constructed as unrepresentable in terms of "race" or "gender" alone. Further, largue that intersectionality fails to supplant race- and class-privileged women as the normative subjects of feminist theory and politics. [...]
Dans la théorie féministe, l'énoncé selon lequel la vie des femmes est structurée par de multiples systèmes d'oppression qui se croisent est devenu un lieu commun. La présente thèse conteste l'accord général que le modèle théorique connu comme « l'intersectionalité » explique adéquatement l'oppression. Alors que l'intersectionalité a ses origines dans le féminisme noir comme intervention spécifique dans la loi antidiscriminatoire des États-Unis, elle a depuis été arrachée à ce contexte et consacrée à d'autres buts. Par exemple, on affirme souvent que l'intersectionalité permettrait une politique de représentation qui surmonte l'héritage d'exclusion du féminisme hégémonique anglo-américain. Je soutiens que l'intersectionalité réinscrit l'exclusion politique des femmes racialisées, cette fois comme caractéristique de leurs identités incarnés.[...]

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Mangwiro, Heather K. "A critical investigation of the relevance of theories of feminist jurisprudence to African women in South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007328.

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Feminist theories emerged out of the revolutionary enthusiasm that swept the Western world during the late eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Based on the assumption that all persons have "inalienable or natural" rights upon which governments may not intrude, feminists in Europe and America advocated that equal rights should be extended to women who up to this point were not considered legal beings separate and deserving of these rights. Most African writers and feminists have argued that since most of the theories of feminist jurisprudence have their roots in this Euro-centric context, they cannot be applicable to African women and should therefore be discarded. The thesis acknowledges that to a certain extent their assertions are true. For years feminist jurisprudence has been restricted to an academic engagement with the law failing to take into account the practices and customs of different communities. It has largely been the realm of the middle class bourgeois white female and therefore has been inaccessible to the African woman. The thesis aims, however, to prove that these theories of feminist jurisprudence although Euro-centric have a place in the understanding and advancement of African women's rights in South Africa. In Chapter One the writer traces the history of South African women's rights and the laws that affect African women. Chapter Two presents the emergence of feminist theories and categories of feminism. The writer then seeks to identify the misunderstandings and tensions that exist between the two. The narrow conception of Euro-centric feminism has been that its sole purpose has been the eradication of gender discrimination, however, for African women in South Africa they have had to deal with a multiplicity of oppressions that include but are not restricted to gender, race, economic and social disempowerment. This is dealt with in Chapter Three. It is the opinion of the writer that despite these differences feminism does play a critical role in the advancement of women's rights in South Africa. Taking the South African governments commitment to the advancement of universal rights, the writer is of the opinion that African women can look to the example set by Western feminists, and broaden these theories to suit and be adaptable to the South African context. The answer is not to totally discard feminist theories but to extract commonalities that exist between African and European women, by so doing acknowledging that women's oppression is a global phenomenon. This is the focus of Chapter Four. To avoid making this work a mere academic endeavour, the writer in Chapter Five also aims, through interviews, to include the voices of African women and to indicate areas that still need attention from both the lawmakers and women's rights movements (Feminists). Finally, the writer aims to present a way forward, one that is not merely formal but also substantively attainable.

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Mayo, Tilicia L. "Black Women and Contemporary Media: The Struggle to Self-Define Black Womanhood." Thesis, Connect to resource online, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/2102.

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Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010.
Title from screen (viewed on February 26, 2010). Department of Communication Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Catherine A. Dobris, Ronald M. Sandwina, Kim D. White-Mills, Kristina H. Sheeler. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-70).

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Silva, Meyre Ivone Santana da. "Reinventando identidades: gênero, raça e nação na literatura de A.A.Aidoo." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2007. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/13034.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:31:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Meyre Ivone Santana da Silva.pdf: 775031 bytes, checksum: 04d5c85cec4cddd73f9b9a531d3fdf26 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-12-13
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
This paper intends to analyse the African female literary expression as a significant contribution to an alteration in the literary scenario of the Anglophone African countries. African female writers works contribute to the process of history rewriting and the reconstruction of female images in the African societies. Ama ata Aidoo is one these women writers that contribute to the development of an african feminist theory. African feminists fight against neocolonial powers and tradional structures that constitute some mountains to women lives
Este trabalho pretende analisar a expressão literária feminina africana como contribuição significativa para uma alteração no panorama da literatura dos países africanos de expressão inglesa. As obras destas escritoras contribuem para o processo de reescritura da história e reconstrução da imagem das mulheres nas sociedades africanas. Ama Ata Aidoo é uma destas mulheres que contribuem para a formulação de uma teoria feminista africana. As femininstas africanas lutam contra os poderes neocoloniais e as estruturas tradicionais que funcionam como montanhas na vida das mulheres

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Carr, Thembi R. "Telling of the untold African American feminist counterstorytelling /." Cincinnati, Ohio : University of Cincinnati, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=ucin.

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Rodriguez, Ivette. "Reimagining African Authenticity Through Adichie's Imitation Motif." FIU Digital Commons, 2017. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3351.

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In An Image of Africa, Chinua Achebe indicts Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for exemplifying the kind of purist rhetoric that has long benefited Western ontology while propagating reductive renderings of African experience. Edward Said refers to this dynamic as the way in which societies define themselves contextually against an imagined Other. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s fiction exposes how, by occupying cultural dominance, Western, white male values are normalized as universal. Nevertheless, these values are de-naturalized by their inconsistencies in the lived experiences of Adichie’s black, African women. Women who are at once aware of and participant in, the pretentions that underlie social interaction—pointing to the inevitability of performativity and disrupting the illusion of pure identity. These realizations interrupt Conrad’s essentialist conception of identity and reclaim diverse ontological possibilities for the Other.

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Macleod, Catriona. "Radical plural feminisms and emancipatory practice in post-Apartheid South Africa." SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014711.

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Despite ten years of democracy, gross inequities continue to permeate South African society, implying the need for emancipatory theory and practice. Furthermore, despite a minority critical voice, South African psychology, as elsewhere, has been a generally conservative discipline. In this paper I explore how a radical plural feminism provides a resource for liberatory theory/practice. Drawing on Foucauldian discourse and postcolonial insights, this framework performs a ‘both/and’ (rather than an ‘either/or’) function in the theorizing and practice of diversity/unity and micro/macro-level politics. This theory is installed in practice through intellectual activism. Intellectual activism implies in this context: refusing abstractions that pre-define who one is, while at the same time strategically deploying plural identities around contingent issues; working in the bordersites of dominant understandings; identifying, communicating and acting upon transversal relations of commonality; identifying and inhabiting the contradictions and disparities contained in dominant and oppressive discourses; and being constantly vigilant and reflective in terms of self, other, context, process, assumptions and theory.
This article was written by Catriona Macleod in affiliation with the University of Fort Hare

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Rich, Lisa D. "Feminism in developing countries : the question of the South African Indian." Virtual Press, 1996. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1014822.

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The study-consisted of a survey questioning the respondents perceived social problems and issues facing women. The questionnaire was given to both Indian and African college students in Durban, South Africa. It was hypothesized that the Indian women would fit Rossi's Assimilationist Model of feminism. This was supported. It was also predicted that Assimilationist feminists would be more likely to name a women's issue when questioned about social problems. The opposite was found to be true. A much stronger relationship was found when race was used instead of the feminist model. Africans were much more likely to name women's issues with regard to family interpersonal relationships when questioned about social problems than were the Indian women. The latter listed structural issues such as poverty and race relations. One explanation could be that family issues are much more salient for Africans and structural issues are important to Indian women.
Department of Sociology

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Corneilse, Carol E. "Living feminism in the academy South African women tell their stories /." College Park, Md.: University of Maryland, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/9203.

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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2009.
Thesis research directed by: Dept. of Education Leadership, Higher Education, and International Education. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

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Bryson, Brenda J. "The experiences of African American women in feminist domestic violence organizations /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/11183.

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Brum, Gabriela Eltz. "Sexual blinging of women : Alice Walker's african character tashi and issue of female genital cutting." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/4506.

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Este trabalho consiste em uma leitura das diferentes formas de representação que podem ser atribuídas à personagem Tashi, protagonista do romance Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), da escritora negra estadunidense Alice Walker. Antes desta obra, Tashi já havia aparecido em dois romances de Walker, primeiro em The Color Purple (1982), como personagem periférica, e depois como menção em The Temple of my Familiar (1989). Com Tashi, surge a temática da prática da circuncisão feminina, ritual ao qual a personagem se submete no início da idade adulta. O foco de observação do trabalho se volta para a maneira na qual a revolta da autora é transformada em um meio de representação criativa. Walker utiliza sua obra abertamente como instrumento ideológico para que o tema da “mutilação genital” (termo utilizado pela autora) receba ampla atenção da mídia e da crítica em geral. O propósito da investigação é avaliar até que ponto o engajamento social da autora contribui de uma forma positiva em seu trabalho e até que ponto o mesmo engajamento o atrapalha. Para a análise das diferentes questões relacionadas ao tema de “female genital cutting” (FGC), termo que eu utilizo no decorrer da pesquisa, os trabalhos de críticas e escritoras feministas como Ellen Gruenbaum, Lightfoot-Klein, Nancy Hartsock, Linda Nicholson, Efrat Tseëlon e a egípcia Nawal El Saadawi serão consultados. Espero que esta dissertação possa contribuir como uma observação sobre como Alice Walker usa seu engajamento social na criação de seu mundo fictício.
This thesis provides a reading of the different forms of representation that can be attributed to the character Tashi, the protagonist of the novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), written by the African American writer Alice Walker. Before this work Tashi had already appeared in two previous novels by Walker, first, in The Color Purple (1982) and then, as a mention, in The Temple of My Familiar (1989). With Tashi, the author introduces the issue of female circumcision, a ritual Tashi submits herself to at the beginning of her adult life. The focus of observation lies in the ways in which the author’s anger is transformed into a means of creative representation. Walker uses her novel Possessing the Secret of Joy openly as a political instrument so that the expression “female mutilation” (term used by the author) receives ample attention from the media and critics in general. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate to what extent Walker’s social engagement contributes to the development of her work and to what extent it undermines it. For the analysis of the different issues related to “female genital cutting”, the term I use in this thesis, the works of feminist critics and writers such as Ellen Gruenbaum, Lightfoot-Klein, Nancy Hartsock, Linda Nicholson, Efrat Tseëlon and the Egyptian writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi will be consulted. I hope that this thesis can contribute as an observation about Alice Walker’s use of her social engagement in the creation of her fictional world.
Este trabajo consiste en una lectura de las diferentes formas de representación que pueden ser atribuidas al personaje Tashi, protagonista de la novela Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), de la escritora negra norte-americana Alice Walker. Antes de esta obra, Tashi ya había aparecido en dos romances de Walker, primero en The Color Purple (1982), como personaje periferica y después como mención en The Temple of My Familiar (1989). Con Tashi, surge la temática de la circuncisión femenina, ritual al cual Tashi se somete en el principio de la edad adulta. El foco de observación del trabajo se vuelca sobre las maneras en las cuales la revuelta de la autora se tranforma en un medio de creación creativa. Walker utiliza su obra abiertamente como instrumento político para que el tema de la “mutilación genital” (termino utilizado por la autora) reciba amplia atención de los medios y crítica en general. El propósito de la investigación es evaluar hasta que punto el envolvimiento social de la autora contribuye positivamente o interfiere en el desarrollo de su trabajo. Para el análisis de las diferentes cuestiones relacionadas al tema de “female genital cutting” (FGC), termino utilizado por mi en el decorrer del trabajo, las obras de las críticas y escritoras feministas como Ellen Gruenbaum, Lightfoot-Klein, Nancy Hartsock, Linda Nicholson, Efrat Tseëlon y la egipcia Nawal El Saadawi serán consultadas. Deseo que el trabajo realizado pueda contribuir como una observación sobre como Alice Walker utiliza su envolvimiento social en la creación de su mundo fictício.

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Mihindou, Piekielele Eugenia Tankiso. "The African Renaissance and gender : finding the feminist voice /." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1113.

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Bonthuys, Elsje. "A feminist analysis of custody in South African law." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.621564.

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Koziatek, Zuzanna Ewelina. " Formal Affective Strategies in Contemporary African Diasporic Feminist Texts ." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1621007445234777.

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Bisschoff, Lizelle. "Women in African cinema : an aesthetic and thematic analysis of filmmaking by women in Francophone West Africa and Lusophone and Anglophone Southern Africa." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2337.

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This study focuses on the role of women in African cinema – in terms of female directors working in the African film industries as well as the representation of women in African film. My research specifically focuses on francophone West African and lusophone and anglophone Southern African cinemas (in particular post-apartheid South African cinema). This research is necessary and significant because African women are underrepresented in theoretical work as well as in the practice of African cinema. The small corpus of existing theoretical and critical studies on the work of female African filmmakers clearly shows that African women succeed in producing films against tremendous odds. The emergence of female directors in Africa is an important but neglected trend which requires more dedicated research. The pioneering research of African-American film scholar Beti Ellerson is exemplary in this regard, as she has, since the early 2000s, initiated a new field of academic study entitled African Women Cinema Studies. My own research is situated within this emerging field and aims to make a contribution to it. The absence of women in public societal spheres is often regarded as an indicator of areas where societies need to change. In the same sense the socio-political and cultural advancements of women are indicators of how societies have progressed towards improved living conditions for all. Because the African woman can be viewed as doubly oppressed, firstly by Black patriarchal culture and secondly by Western colonising forces, it is essential that the liberation of African women includes an opportunity for women to verbalise and demonstrate their own vision of women’s roles for the future. The study analyses a large corpus of films through exploring notions of nationalism and post/neo-colonialism in African societies; issues related to the female body such as health, beauty and sexuality; female identity, emancipation and African feminism in the past and present; the significance of traditional cultural practices versus the consequences and effects of modernity; and the interplay between the individual and the community in urban as well as rural African societies. Female filmmakers in Africa are increasingly claiming the right to represent these issues in their own ways and to tell their own stories. The methods they choose to do this and the products of their labours are the focus of this study. Ultimately, the study attempts to formulate more complex models for the analysis of African women’s filmmaking practices, in tracing the plurality of a female aesthetics and the multiplicity of thematic approaches in African women’s filmmaking.

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Antonites, Christina Maria. "Meeting people where they are at: The role of small-scale gender advocacy organisations in promoting digital inclusion in South Africa." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2021. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/213022/1/Christina_Antonites_Thesis.pdf.

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This African feminist ethnography examines how gender's incorporation into political and economic imaginaries and gender equality's promotion through current national digital inclusion policies and major initiatives aiming to reduce the digital gender divide in South Africa could contribute to deepening, rather than reversing, this problem. The study evaluated South African digital inclusion policies and major initiatives against gender and development theoretical trends over time. The study recommends that to address the digital gender divide more effectively, research, policy, and digital gender inclusion initiatives should focus much more closely on the contributions of activists and community-based organisations in this area.

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Assunção, Sulamita Jesus e. "Quebradas feministas: estratégias de resistência nas vozes das mulheres negras e lésbicas negras da periferia sul da cidade de São Paulo." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2018. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/21708.

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Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq
The aim of this dissertation is to know the feminist-politic-artistic’s activities maden by black women and black lesbians, organized in feminist movements, that take place in the South suburb of São Paulo City. This research intends to present how such movements promote narratives that undermine sexist and racist speeches, helping new sense making to individual and group experiences. It can be noted that interventions and activities undertaken by women open possible paths against discrimination, stigma and submission given by gender, race, sexuality and class social markers. Research-Action-Participant in women activities, their production examination, personal interviews (3 women) and a focus group were conducted to keep track of women’s performance in this scenario, since their narratives and practices also emerge from the unregular critical space that I am in. Feminist epistemology were applied, supported by black feminists, women, lesbians and latin american perspectives, which were considered proper references because they reflect on different women oppression experiences, in many contexts
Esta dissertação pretende conhecer as ações, de cunho feminista-política-artística, desenvolvidas na periferia sul da cidade de São Paulo, pelas mulheres negras e lésbicas negras organizadas em coletivos. A pesquisa intenciona apresentar como esses encontros possibilitam narrativas que subvertem os discursos racistas e sexistas, para contribuir com novas produções de sentidos para as experiências individuais e coletivas. Observa-se que as atividades e intervenções empreendidas pelas mulheres oferecem caminhos possíveis de rompimento com a discriminação, estigma e submissão que são atribuídos pelos marcadores sociais de gênero, raça, sexualidade e classe. Para acompanhar a atuação das mulheres neste cenário, uma vez que suas narrativas e práticas também partem do plano crítico incomum em que estou inserida, foram realizadas observações a partir da pesquisa-ação participante nas atividades produzidas, análise dos materiais elaborados por elas, entrevistas individuais com três mulheres e um grupo focal. A epistemologia feminista é utilizada, apoiada nas perspectivas feministas negras, lésbicas e latino-americanas referenciais que se mostram apropriados, pois refletem sobre as experiências de opressão de diferentes mulheres em variados contextos

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Cutcher, Catherine D. "Mamas of Invention: Popular Education, Gender and Development among Womens Organizations in Kenya." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1365175132.

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Silva, Sheila Dias da. "Resistência feminina e feminismo africano em Without a Name de Yvonne Vera." Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, 2014. http://ri.ufmt.br/handle/1/378.

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Yvonne Vera é uma das romancistas africanas que mais se destacaram no cenário internacional da literatura de língua inglesa. A ficção é o veículo utilizado por ela para articular a experiência feminina reprimida e silenciada em seu país. Vera nos apresenta a sociedade zimbabuense, sob o olhar das mulheres, ou seja, é através de personagens femininas, acompanhadas por narradores provavelmente do mesmo sexo, que vivenciamos seus enredos e tramas. A escrita de Vera surge da necessidade de inverter as estruturas da opressão e dos estereótipos coloniais impostos às mulheres negras, o que reforça seu papel como uma escritora com ideais feministas. Em Without a name (1994), romance que analisamos nesta pesquisa, ela narra a trajetória de Mazvita, uma mulher que resiste a diversos tipos de violência, como, por exemplo, o estupro. Mazvita tenta superar o trauma e buscar um futuro melhor para si, mas é possível perceber a impossibilidade de esperança num cenário repleto de desolação causado pela guerra de libertação e pela opressão patriarcal africana. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a construção da resistência feminina nesse romance por meio da investigação da fragmentação corporal da personagem. Pretendemos estabelecer relações entre suas possibilidades de reação e agência e o estado alquebrado de seu corpo, ao mesmo tempo em que buscamos tecer considerações a respeito de suas conexões com o corpo social de sua coletividade. Também examinamos os modos como o feminismo africano é articulado nessa obra. Ao final de nossa análise, concluímos que, nesse romance, Vera elabora uma narrativa de aniquilação, retratando as tentativas de resistência e de superação da personagem como arruinadas em paralelismo com a debilitação de seu corpo e a desesperança do cenário em que está inserida.
Yvonne Vera is one of Africa’s most outstanding novelists in the international scene of the English language literature. Fiction is the vehicle used by her to articulate female experience repressed and silenced in her country. Vera portrays Zimbabwean society through women’s perspective, usually employing female narrators to tell her female characters’ stories. Vera’s writing arises from the need to reverse the structures of oppression and colonial stereotypes imposed on black women, reinforcing her role as a writer with feminist ideals. In Without a name (1994), the novel that is analyzed in this study, Vera brings the story of Mazvita, a woman who resists many types of violence, such as rape. Mazvita tries to overcome the trauma and seek a better future for her, but it is possible to realize the impossibility of hope in a world full of desolation caused by the war of liberation and African patriarchal oppression. The objective of this paper is to analyze the construction of female resistance in the novel through the investigation of the character’s body fragmentation. Some relationships between her possibilities of agency and reaction and the broken state of her body are also established in the current analysis. Similarly her connections with the social body of her community, as well as the ways in which African feminism is portrayed in this novel, also come under scrutiny. At the end of the analysis, it is possible to imply that Vera elaborates a narrative of annihilation in this novel, depicting the character’s attempts of resistance and overcoming as ruined in parallel with the weakening of her body and the hopelessness of her setting.

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DONKOR, DORCAS A. "The Rise of Cyberfeminism in Africa: Pepper Dem Ministries’ Take on Ghana." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1597260157867617.

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Goredema, Ruvimbo Nyaradzo. "Women and Rhetoric In South Africa: Understanding Feminism and Militarism." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3772.

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Hood, Yolanda. "African American quilt culture : an afrocentric feminist analysis of African American art quilts in the Midwest /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p9974639.

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Pemberton, Carrie M. "Feminism, inculturation and the search for a global Christianity : an African example : the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272488.

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Oshindoro, Michael Eniola. "Myth Is Its Own Undoing: Approaching Gender Equity Through Gender Dialogue In Ayọbami Adebayọ’s Stay With Me (2017) And Lọla Shonẹyin’s The Secret Lives Of Baba Sẹgi’s Wives (2010)." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1586457496960154.

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Rustin, Carmine Jianni. "Gender equality and happiness among South African women." University of the Western Cape, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/6511.

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Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
Have South African women's lives become happier since the transition to democracy? If they are, could this be linked to gender equality? This is the central question of this study. This study explored a group of women’s subjective experiences of gender equality, by which I mean equality on the basis of gender; and happiness, which refers to women’s life satisfaction and their affective state. It further explores whether gender equality and happiness are linked. The study assumed that everything being equal, endeavours to liberate women from patriarchy and towards gender equality enhance women’s happiness. 1994 ushered in a democratic South Africa and numerous legislative and policy changes were introduced that affect women. Considerable gains have been made at the constitutional and political levels for women’s equality and gender justice. This is reflected in the rankings of South Africa on many different indices. Yet, we see numerous challenges facing women including poverty and gender-based violence. This study examined whether the presence of a range of policies as well as affirmative and protective measures for women have impacted on how they experience their lives. In particular, do they feel that they are happy and do they see happiness as linked to gender equality efforts? Given the research question, this study was grounded within a feminist framework. A mixed methods approach utilising both qualitative and quantitative methods was employed.

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Klokow, Nicole Ann. "Hijacking feminism: representations of the new woman in South African television advertising practice." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/381.

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This study examines the extent to which feminism has been appropriated by the consumer culture. As the relationship between consumerism and patriarchy continues to dominate global economic and social practices, this appropriation points to a denial of the social and political importance of the feminist movement. An acknowledgement of our own complicity in the perpetuation of a sexist, racist and classist ideology – along with an understanding of the complicity of the media – is crucial in explaining relations of domination within our society (Thompson 1990). A study of television advertising practice allows us to “explore meaning as a social product, enmeshed in webs of power” (Jordan and Wheedon 1995:543). Consumer ‘freedom’ is the compulsory freedom (Slater 1997), as we buy as many symbols as products. This study shows that for all the ‘strides’ feminism has made, media images of women are largely traditional, prescriptive (although an ironic distance is often implied) or overtly sexualised. Feminism is never mentioned, as women’s gains are presented as ahistorical in a ‘post-feminist’ world. Third wave feminism is an attempt to embrace all feminisms and feminists, working to inject some substance and truth behind advertising’s feminist veneer.

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Hitchcott, Nicola Marie. "The unspoken self : feminism and cultural identity in African women's writing in French." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321098.

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Andipatin, Michelle. "Understanding HELLP Syndrome in the South African context: a feminist study." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2012. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_4918_1365770471.

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This thesis is about HELLP Syndrome (hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelet count in pregnancy): a devastating maternal hypertensive complication that results in multi-system changes that can rapidly deteriorate into organ failure and death. Despite rapid advancesin medical technology and medical science this disease continues to take
the lives of women and their infants. The only effective intervention for this disorder is immediate termination irrespective of the gestational stage of the pregnancy. The primary objective of this thesis was to explore the subjective experiences and meaningmaking processes of women in and through their high-risk pregnancies. This objective crystallised into the following aims: to facilitate and listen to the voices of women who were HELLP Syndrome survivors
to explore the reported bodily, psychological and
emotional experiences of HELLP Syndrome survivors
to understand the role medical intervention and biomedical discourses play in these women&rsquo
s experiences and finally to explore the subjective experiences of HELLP Syndrome in the context of traditionallyheld notions of motherhood. The study was couched in a feminist poststructuralist
epistemology. A material-discursive framework which comprised phenomenological and poststructuralist theorising was usedin an attempt to understand both the lived experiences as well as the discursively constructed nature of those subjective experiences. Thus the analysis encompassed both a broadly phenomenological framework to understand the lived experiences of HELLP Syndrome, and a discourse analysis to explore the meaning-making processes of participants in relation to larger social
discourses, in particular the dominant biomedical and motherhood discourses. A qualitative approach using in depth semi-structured interviews was utilisedto gather data. Eleven participants from very diverse backgrounds consented to be part of thisstudy. The findings of the study highlighted the immense trauma, difficulties and challenges participants faced in these high-risk situations. What was evident from the analysis was that their experiences were so diverse and werecompletely shaped by the severity of the disorder and the gestational stage of the pregnancy. Some women ended up in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) and had near-death experiences, some had very premature babies, while some of the participants lost their babies during the process. With regards to the emotional, psychological and corporeal aspects of the disorder,participants described their situations as a disaster, painful and difficult. Due to the rapid deterioration of symptoms, they described the tempo of these events as a whirlwind in which they felt they had no control. Emotions ranged from shock, total disbelief and surprise to anger, helplessness and powerlessness. Lacking knowledge and access to appropriate
information further compounded the situation for participants. Theparticipants who had premature babies found the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit experience (NICU) extremely challenging and stressful. A discourse analysis revealed that women&rsquo
s talk was shaped by the disciplinary frameworks oftechnocratic medicine and patriarchal notions of
gender. Participants&rsquo
discourses about their encounters inthe medical context werelocated in, and shaped by, the structure of health care in our country. In this regard binaries
(like private versus public health care, women versus men and nurses versus doctors) were evident. Furthermore their hospital stay reflected their experiences in the Intensive
Care (ICU) and the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) both of which are highly technologically orientated and managed. Biomedical discourses that filtered through the
participants&rsquo
talk were: medicine as indisputable truth
mechanistic model of the body as machine
medical doctors as gods and the foetus as &lsquo
super subject&rsquo
. Discourses of risk
were inevitably taken up as participants tried to make sense of both their current pregnancies and the potential ones to follow. The passage into motherhood for these
participants was dependent on whether they had live babies or not. For those who had live babies it was a difficult time as they had to contend with their own recovery as well as the prematurity of their infants. The NICU experience was described as tiring, trying and cumbersome. For mothers who lost their babies it was a time of profound sadness and
loss coupled to the notion that motherhood itself was lost. This loss of their children symbolised broken dreams, severed connections and a powerful taboo. In addition, discourses in which motherhood was naturalised and normalised saturated their talk and framed their experience in a narrative of deficit and failure. The ideologies of mother
blame and the &lsquo
all responsible&rsquo
mother were pervasive in their discussions. In conclusion, this high-risk situation represented a time of tremendous uncertainty and unpredictability for all participants and was powerfully shaped by dominant discourses about motherhood and the biomedical discursive and institutional framework in which
participants were subjugated. The study thus highlights how the HELLP syndrome experience illuminates the erasure of women&rsquo
s subjectivities while the foetus/infants&rsquo
life
takes precedence. This has significant implications for scholarship in general and feminist scholarship in particular and highlights the need for this type of engagement in an area that has remained on the periphery of feminist research.

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Mekgwe, Pinkie Tlotlego. "Femmeninism : a stutter or a starter? gender constructions and male feminist politics in African literature." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.249108.

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Manes, Caralynn. "I'm Every Woman: Audre Lorde's Creation of an Interior Community in Zami: A New Spelling of My Name." University of Toledo Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=uthonors151334487983631.

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Damasco, Mariana Santos. "Feminismo negro: raça, identidade e saúde reprodutiva no Brasil (1975-1996)." reponame:Repositório Institucional da FIOCRUZ, 2009. https://www.arca.fiocruz.br/handle/icict/6132.

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Este trabalho aborda as interfaces entre gênero, raça/etnia e saúde no Brasil, entre os anos de 1975 e 1996, tendo como foco de estudo a importância da saúde reprodutiva para o movimento de mulheres negras no país. O marco inicial da pesquisa é 1975 data do surgimento do movimento feminista organizado no Brasil - e se estende até o ano 1996, momento em que as ações das feministas negras em torno da saúde reprodutiva repercutem no âmbito da saúde pública. Analiso a história do feminismo negro no país, a partir das relações entre as ativistas negras e os movimentos feminista e negro. Esta história, em meados da década de 1980 sofre uma inflexão, pois as militantes reivindicam a criação de uma identidade própria, o feminismo negro, já que não havia até então um debate amplo sobre as interfaces entre raça e gênero no interior do movimento feminista e negro respectivamente. A questão da saúde reprodutiva - que tomou por base denúncias de esterilizações cirúrgicas contra mulheres negras na década de 1980- aparece como a mola propulsora do ativismo e da constituição de um feminismo negro no país, entre os anos de 1980 a 1990. Meu trabalho, por um lado, investiga o contexto em que emergem tais denúncias e, por outro, analisa os debates que embasaram a relação entre as ativistas negras e a saúde pública no Brasil nesse período .

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40

Aboderin, Olutoyosi Abigail. "More Than a Hashtag: An Examination of the #BlackGirlMagic Phenomenon." Master's thesis, Temple University Libraries, 2019. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/592065.

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African American Studies
M.L.A.
Cashawn Thompson, who is credited for coining the phrase “Black girls are magic” which was later shortened to Black Girl Magic, says in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that “at its core, the purpose of this movement is to create a platform where women of color can stand together against “the stereotyping, colorism, misogynoir and racism that is often their lived experience.” Julee Wilson, Fashion Senior Editor at Essence Magazine, reflects Thompson in her article written for HuffPost saying, “Black Girl Magic is a term used to illustrate the universal awesomeness of black women. It’s about celebrating anything we deem particularly dope, inspiring, or mind-blowing about ourselves.” (Wilson, 2016) Nielsen Media Research similarly defines #BlackGirlMagic as “a cross-platform gathering of empowered Black women who uplift each other and shine a light on the impressive accomplishments of Black women throughout the world, a hashtag which uncovers and addresses the daily racism that so
Temple University--Theses

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Dukas, Carla Justine. "A feminist phenomenological description of depression in low-income South African women." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/86512.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A review of the past decade of literature on the subject of depression in South African women revealed a paucity of research that documents the perspectives of low-income women who have been diagnosed with depression. Informed by this and recent feminist critiques of the concept of depression, this study aimed to bring traditionally overlooked perspectives to the fore by providing rich descriptions of the subjectively lived experience of depression, as recounted by low-income women themselves. This feminist phenomenological study took place in a poor, rural community in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with ten low-income women who had been diagnosed with depression. The transcribed interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. A number of important findings emerged. Firstly, participants were seen to express somatic complaints ahead of (and more frequently than) disclosures of sadness. Secondly, participants often described experiencing their psychological distress as anger, anxiety and a changed sense of self. Thirdly, participants generally attributed these experiences (and their overall distress) to a history of childhood trauma, the loss of important relationships, being physically, sexually or emotionally abused, feeling under supported and overburdened by multiple responsibilities, living in dangerous communities, and/or the various consequences of poverty. Finally, it was observed that while symptoms of suicidal ideation and intent were present in many of the women interviewed, strong religious and cultural norms existed and generally functioned to silence and deny the subject. Overall, the women’s subjective experiences, understandings and descriptions of depression allowed a more complex picture to emerge than that which is currently offered by mainstream biomedical models. Consequentially, the current conceptualisation of the term “depression” was deemed to be inadequate, specifically because it does not fully capture low-income women’s experiences of distress, and also because it tends to obscure the possible impact of socio-economic and political contexts on their mental health. Implications of these findings include firstly, that not only does the diagnosis of depression serve to medicalise women’s misery, but it may simultaneously serve to obscure their feelings of anger, anxiety, sadness, hopelessness and other symptoms of distress that are intrinsically linked to their disadvantageous social and living conditions. Secondly, the findings indicate that the use of traditional diagnostic and suicide assessment interviews may be unhelpful or even irresponsible in some South African contexts. Finally, many of the study findings warrant further investigation and psychological research. Recommendations to this end are thus included and stress the need to use theoretical perspectives and research methodologies that are sensitive to the multilayered, complex psychological experiences of depression in low-income women.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ’n Oorsig van die afgelope dekade se literatuur oor depressie by Suid-Afrikaanse vroue dui op ’n gebrek aan navorsing oor die perspektiewe van vroue uit lae-inkomstegroepe wat met dié toestand gediagnoseer word. Na aanleiding hiervan sowel as onlangse feministiese kritiek op die konsep van depressie, was hierdie studie dus daarop toegespits om tradisioneel miskende perspektiewe na vore te bring deur middel van ’n ryke beskrywing van die subjektiewe ervaring van die lewe met depressie soos vroue uit lae-inkomstegroepe self daarvan vertel. Hierdie feministiese fenomenologiese studie is in ’n arm, landelike gemeenskap in die provinsie Wes-Kaap, Suid-Afrika, onderneem. Semigestruktureerde diepte-onderhoude is gevoer met tien vroue in die laeinkomstekategorie wat met depressie gediagnoseer is. Die getranskribeerde onderhoude is op vertolkende fenomenologiese wyse ontleed. ’n Aantal belangrike bevindinge is gemaak. Eerstens het die meeste deelnemers somatiese klagtes gehad voordat (en meer dikwels as wat) hulle oor hul neerslagtigheid en terneergedruktheid gepraat het. Tweedens het heelwat deelnemers hul sielkundige nood as woede, angs en ’n gewysigde selfbeskouing beskryf. Derdens het die vroue merendeels hul ervarings (en hul algehele nood) aan ’n geskiedenis van kindertrauma, die verlies van belangrike verhoudings, fisiese, seksuele of emosionele mishandeling, ’n gebrek aan ondersteuning tesame met ’n oormaat verantwoordelikhede, hul gevaarlike woonbuurte en/of die verskillende gevolge van armoede toegeskryf. Laastens is waargeneem dat hoewel die ideasie en voorneme van selfdood wél as simptome by baie van die respondente opgemerk is, daar terselfdertyd sterk godsdienstige en kulturele norme bestaan waarvolgens dié onderwerp oor die algemeen doodgeswyg en ontken word. In die geheel skets die vroue se subjektiewe ervarings, begrippe en beskrywings van depressie ’n meer komplekse prentjie as wat hoofstroom- biomediese modelle tot dusver gebied het. Dus blyk die huidige konseptualisering van die term ‘depressie’ onvoldoende te wees, veral omdat dit nie die ervarings en nood van vroue uit lae-inkomstegroepe ten volle vasvang nie, en ook geneig is om die moontlike impak van sosio-ekonomiese en politieke kontekste op dié vroue se geestesgesondheid te misken. Die implikasies van hierdie bevindinge sluit eerstens in dat die diagnose van depressie nie net hierdie vroue se nood ‘medikaliseer’ nie, maar terselfdertyd dalk ook hul gevoelens van woede, angs, hartseer, hopeloosheid en ander simptome van nood wat ten nouste met hul minderbevoorregte maatskaplike en lewensomstandighede verband hou, verberg. Tweedens dui die bevindinge daarop dat die gebruik van tradisionele diagnostiese en selfdoodevalueringsonderhoude in sekere Suid-Afrikaanse kontekste nutteloos en selfs onverantwoordelik kan wees. Laastens regverdig baie van die studie se bevindinge verdere ondersoek en sielkundige navorsing. Aanbevelings in hierdie verband word dus ingesluit, en beklemtoon onder meer die behoefte aan teoretiese perspektiewe en navorsingsmetodologieë wat gevoelig is vir die meervlakkige, komplekse sielkundige ervarings van depressie by vroue uit laeinkomstegroepe.

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Hames, Mary Margaret Philome. "Black feminist intellectual activism: a transformative pedagogy at a South African university." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20364.

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This dissertation engages with critical pedagogic theories and activism from a black feminist perspective. The central argument is that education is not only confined to the formal classroom but also takes place in the most unlikely places outside the classroom. This work is premised on the educational philosophies of liberation, embodiment and freedom of the oppressed and the marginalised. The qualitative research is largely presented as ethnographical research, with the researcher located as both participant in the evolvement of the two educational programmes and as writer of this dissertation. Both educational programmes deal with performance and performativity and aim to give voice to the marginalised bodies and lives in the university environment. The research demonstrates how two marginalised groups claim space on campus through performativity involving the body and voice. In the Edudrama, Reclaiming the P…Word, young black women, via representation of word and body, transform the performance space into one in which the misogynistic and racist gaze is transformed. This feminist theatre is intrinsically related to the feminist political work of reclamation of the black female body, which became invisible and objectified for abuse under colonialism, apartheid and patriarchy. The various feminist elements and processes involved in creating feminist text and theatre are discussed. The praxis involved in these processes is then theorised in terms of critical pedagogy as black feminist intellectual activism. In the case of the lesbian, gay and transgender programme, Loud Enuf, the bodies and voices are used differently in the public campus domain to challenge homophobia. This programme is used to raise awareness about sex, sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity. This programme is intensely political and challenges ambiguous understandings regarding the notion of equality in South Africa post-1994.

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Patel, Nafisa. "Islamic feminist reflection of pedagogy and gender praxis in South African madaris." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10649.

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Includes bibliographical references.
This thesis explores gender discourses in elementary Islamic learning institutions in South Africa. Informed by a feminist imperative that recognizes education to be both a site for gender struggle and also a tool for change-making, this thesis adopts a feminist pedagogical approach to examine some of the ways that young Muslim girls in South Africa learn about being gendered. Drawing on theoretical insights from feminist poststructuralism, I analyze the contents of a popular learning text that has been developed for young Muslim girls in contemporary South African Deoband mad'ris (elementary religious schools).

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Carelse, Aimee. "The personal is political: articulating women's citizenship through three African feminist blogs." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/24893.

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Mediated public spaces both on and offline privilege the educated male elite, and thus cannot address the specific needs of women (Huyer and Sikoska, 2003:2), or their points of view. This study aimed to explore the extent to which three African feminist blogs realise the democratising potential of the blogosphere as well as the ways in which they articulate the concerns and perspectives of women whose vantage points are often silenced by mainstream discourses of citizenship. As a specifically gendered platform within a feminist public sphere, these blogs offer insight into the fluidity of the private/public dichotomy in online media spaces, and how this determines particular discourses of citizenship both on and offline. Using a qualitative-quantitative content analysis of 45 blog posts across three African feminist blogs (Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, Her Zimbabwe, and MsAfropolitan) during July and August 2016, this study investigated how women's engagement with feminist issues is enabled by alternative online media spaces, and in what ways blogs offer African women a relatively democratic space for sharing and discussion. Through an analysis of blog content, the study revealed that contributors deploy particular communicative strategies such as first-person narration, reflection of personal experience in relation to broader social, economic and political issues, and a confessional intimacy that altogether prioritise women's voices and personal lived realities. The topics discussed in the content of blogs cut across public and private life, testifying to a need to move away from ideological conceptualisations of public engagement that delegitimise women's participation in the public sphere. It also makes a case for the reconsideration of the terms "public" and "politics" and what counts as both in a technologically dynamic society in which marginalised groups are continuing to explore alternative avenues for communication and self-expression.

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Oldfield, Elizabeth F. "Transgressing boundaries : gender, identity, culture, and 'other' in postcolonial women's narratives in Africa." Thesis, University of Derby, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10545/231353.

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Fictions written between 1939 and 2005 by indigenous and white (post)colonial women writers who emerge from an African/European cultural experience form the focus of this study. Their voyages into the European diasporic space in Africa within the context of their texts are important since they speak of how African women's literature develops from, and is situated in relation to colonialism. African literature constitutes one facet of the new literatures in English from formerly colonised countries. However, the accomplishments of indigenous writer Grace Ogot are eclipsed by the critical acclaim received by her male counterparts, whilst Elspeth Huxley, Barbara Kimenye and Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, who emanate from Western culture but adopt an African perspective, are not accommodated by the `expatriate literature' genre. Hence, indigenous and white (post)colonial women's narratives by authors issuing from an African/European cultural experience are brought together to foreground European influence as an apparent phenomenon common to both categorieso f writers, with consequencesfo r the representation of gender, identity, culture and the `Other'. The selected texts are set in Kenya and Uganda, and a main concern is with the extent to which the works are impacted upon by setting and intercultural influences. However, this thesis argues that the `African' woman's creation of textuality is at once the formulation and expression of female individualities and a transgression of boundaries. Furthermore, Kimenye and Macgoye's children's literature illustrates the representation and configuration of a voice and identity for the female `Other' and writer, which enables a re-negotiation of identity and subsequently a crossing of borders. No critical study combines indigenous and white settler women's fiction written from an African perspective and therefore this study extends current scholarly knowledge. Whilst the combination of texts together with the disparate (post)colonial backgrounds is unique, the study of Kimenye and Macgoye's African children's narratives in particular breaks new ground since there is currently no critical comparative study pertaining to indigenous and white postcolonial women's children's literature with an African perspective

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Littlejohn, Eugia Monique. "The relationship between the components of black feminism and psychological health in African American women." The Ohio State University, 1994. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1248795345.

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Littlejohn, Eugia Monique. "The relationship between the components of black feminism and psychological health in African American women /." Connect to resource, 1995. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1248795345.

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Hill, Phyllis Lynette. "Resiliency Factors in African American Female Students in Single-Gender Educational Settings." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5720.

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Resiliency is a critical factor in educational success; the gap exists in the research regarding the effect of resiliency in the educational success of African American female students. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological research (IPR) study was to explore and describe the lived experience of single-gender education through African American female student alumnae to capture and distill their shared experience of educational resilience and competence. Framework drew on gender-relevant education, social capital, racial identity and socialization. Research perspective that participants were viewed consisted of critical race feminism theory and competency versus deficit or risk perspective. Research questions focused on how African American female student alumnae of single-gender educational settings described their experiences in and out of school as they relate to resiliency and competence. The IPR design consisted of 3 interviews per participant; 1 focused on the past, 1 focused on the present, 1 integrated past and present experiences. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to analyze data. Results showed the components that factor into the African American Academic Achieving Female (A4F) include racial identity and socialization, gender relevant education, support systems within cultural and social capital, Guts, Resilience, Initiative, Tenacity (GRIT), Cultural (Re)Appropriation Unity (CRU), personal spiritual relationship. Recommendation for the A4F framework to be used as a foundation to foster growth of the A4F. Social change implication is understanding how African American female alumnae of single-gender schools describe their shared experience of A4F on their lives to foster social change for the African American students.

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Steenkamp, Lize-Maree. "Place, space and patriarchal femininities in selected contemporary novels by African women writers." University of the Western Cape, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/6639.

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Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
In much feminist literature, women’s spaces are analysed as constructive and supportive sites that may offer respite from patriarchy. However, women’s spaces are not inherently emancipatory. Through the socio-spatial dispersal of patriarchal power, places and spaces varying in scale – nations, cities, rural towns, private-public places and the home – can construct women who further the interests of men. Specifically, homosocial spaces, spaces where women interact with other women, can produce femininities that oppress other women by actively advancing patriarchal concerns. The selected primary texts consider spaces in regionally diverse but socially similar African contexts: Sefi Atta’s Swallow (2011) and Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2010) are set in Nigeria, Miral al-Tahawy’s The Tent (1998) is set in Egypt, while Leila Aboulela’s Lyrics Alley (2010) is set in both Egypt and Sudan. I use the selected novels as cartographies for socio-geographical inquiry to establish how space and place construct patriarchal women. Literary spaces and places are studied from largest to smallest scale: The analysis of national spaces in the novels is followed by a study of urban and rural spaces, followed by private-public places, domestic place and, finally, at a micro-scale, the body-as-place. The analyses of these literary spaces will reveal the mechanisms by which patriarchal women are spatially produced, and may use space to oppress other women.

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Rydhagen, Birgitta. "Feminist sanitary engineering in rural South Africa : a theoretical framework." Licentiate thesis, Luleå tekniska universitet, 1999. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-18021.

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This licentiate thesis is a compilation of three papers with an introductory chapter. The papers cover the theory used in the doctoral research project 'Gender and technology. A Comparative study of Water Supply and Sanitation Technologies in India and South Africa'. The introductory chapter describes the motives for the study; a need to connect feminist theory and practical development work within the water and sanitation sector in the Third World. In the introduction, different views on knowledge, and science in relation to other knowledges, are discussed. The first and second paper discuss feminist theory and ecofeminism developed in the Third World or with relevance to Third World contexts. The need to address multiple hierarchies, including gender, class, race and human/nature is evident from this discussion. The third paper describes how participatory methods and the principles behind PRA (participatory rural appraisal) can be used together with feminist theory in research.

Godkänd; 1999; 20070320 (ysko)

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'African feminisms'

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