Christine Cynn and Kim F. Hall,
"Introduction"
(page 4 of 5)
The final section, "The Black Diaspora and the Academy," features
essays driven by the relation between gender, feminism, and the academy.
In her essay based on a lecture delivered at Barnard College on April
22, 2008, Amina Mama considers the role of African universities in
shaping postcolonial gender and gender relations. She discusses the
Gender and Institutional Culture in African Universities (GICAU) project
at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, which
collected both qualitative and quantitative data on gender relations
between 2004 and 2006 at University of Chiekh Anta Diop in Senegal,
University of Ghana, University of Ibadan Nigeria, University of
Zimbabwe, and University of Addis Ababa. Mama notes continuing gender
disparities in enrollment and employment at these universities and
argues that universities both explicitly and through a "hidden
curriculum" produce and reinforce gender norms. Struggles for gender
equity in the university reflect the growing feminist consciousness
throughout the "developing world," but, as Mama argues, the imposition
of structural adjustment policies and the effects of globalization as
reinforced through General Agreements on Trade and Tariffs (GATT)
stipulations related to higher education have compromised these efforts.
"Gender justice" remains central to efforts to revitalize African
universities to "advance the democratic and social justice agendas that
the African people are once again embracing as they move beyond the
legacies of our difficult history and struggle to become peaceful,
democratic, and just societies."
Keisha-Khan Perry's "Groundings with my Sisters: Towards a Black
Diasporic Feminist Agenda in the Americas" understands the history of
women's activism in the African diaspora as a necessary adjunct to
political action. Perry's reflective piece suggests how black women in
Latin America "understand their experiences, identities, and social
activism in relationship to other black women throughout the Americas."
She opens by discussing the disappearance of black women from histories
of liberation struggle. Despite this invisibility in academic and
popular realms, Perry argues for and wishes to make visible a global
consciousness among black feminists in Latin America that is distinctly
different from more closely studied movements like Pan-Africanism. The
black feminists she examines consciously adopt the African diaspora to
frame the connection between their local struggles and those of other
black women and as a basis for forming transnational communities around
anti-sexist and anti racist struggle. Perry insists that experience and
identity remain key for developing successful social movements and for
counteracting the invisibility of women of the Africa diaspora, this
despite the groundswell of condemnation of "identity politics,"
primarily from feminist/gender and cultural studies.
Amina Mama notes that many of the gender studies units and gender
initiatives draw "on international networks and external support to
develop courses, training programs, and new research." These two essays
(Mama and Perry) are tangible reminders of the importance—and
difficulty—of building and sustaining alternative and diasporic networks
in scholarly, activist, and policy arenas. Along with Makini Boothe's
essay, they serve as reminders that while the academy and international
conferences are important arenas for formulating and enacting feminist
activism, they are neither the only nor even the primary sites for such
interventions.
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