As frequently shown and discussed by philosophers and social scientists over the last 20—30 years, much Western thinking from Enlightenment onwards has been constructed in terms of dichotomies and hierarchized binaries, where one is not only separate/different but also above/better than the other. Such figures of thought are part and parcel of the ‘dark continent […]

The title for this section is taken from Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s soon twenty years old but still current critique of Western feminist lines of thinking regarding women in Africa.[1] [2] [3] [4] In her paper Mohanty pinpoints the mechanisms of Western thinking as ‘othering’ Third World women: “It is only insofar as ‘Woman/Wom — en’ […]

gating ways in which gendered effects of current changes on the continent are act­ed upon by men and women, co-producing future developments. In spite of overwhelming obstacles, such as widespread poverty and soaring HIV/AIDS in­fection rates, examples are given of women’s agency in ways which sometimes re­produce and at other times challenge patriarchal structures. With […]

Signe Arnfred The time has come for re-thinking sexualities in Africa: The thinking beyond the conceptual structure of colonial and even post-colonial European imaginations, which have oscillated between notions of the exotic, the noble and the depraved savage, consistently however constructing Africans and African sexuality as something ‘other’. This ‘other’ thing is constructed to be […]