African FeminismPapers

Sylvia Tamale analyzes how colonial law, organized religion, nationalism, and contemporary politics manufacture supposedly timeless African sexual norms and police nonconforming bodies.

Sylvia Tamale examines Baganda women’s erotic knowledge as a contested archive shaped by female instruction, colonial morality, religion, commodification, and feminist struggles over pleasure.

Obioma Nnaemeka theorizes African feminist agency through negotiation, give-and-take, and the strategic navigation of institutions rather than a universal script of confrontation.

Gwendolyn Mikell examines how African women’s political struggles are distorted when Western feminist categories or nationalist narratives claim to represent them without attending to material survival and local institutions.