Author: Awino Okech
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429663374
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 139
Book Description
This book examines the practice of widow inheritance in order to explore the intersection between power, gender and sexualities in Kenya. Using widow inheritance amongst the Luo of Kenya as a case study, the book explores the role of body politics in the construction of gendered subjects and nations. Widow Inheritance and Contested Citizenship in Kenya unpacks how ‘respectable femininities’ and ‘wayward sexualities’ become the ‘sites’ within which national and state politics are ritualized and where tensions resulting from non-hegemonic performances of both gender and sexuality are ‘resolved’. The empirical research that underpins this book is qualitative and grounded in feminist methodology, challenging the erasure of women’s narratives in hegemonic epistemologies. Widow Inheritance and Contested Citizenship in Kenya will be of interest to students and scholars of African gender studies and women's rights.
Widow Inheritance and Contested Citizenship in Kenya
Patriarchy and Gender in Africa
Author: Veronica Fynn Bruey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793638578
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
This timely and expansive multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary collection dissects precolonial, colonial, and post-independence issues of male dominance, power, and control over the female body in the legal, socio-cultural, and political contexts in Africa. Contributors focus on the historical, theoretical, and empirical narratives of intersecting perspectives of gender and patriarchy in at least ten countries across the major sub-regions of the African continent. In these well-researched chapters, authors provide a deeper understanding of patriarchy and gender inequality in identifying misogyny, resisting male supremacy, reforming discriminatory laws, embracing human-centered public policies, expanding academic scholarship on the continent, and more.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793638578
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
This timely and expansive multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary collection dissects precolonial, colonial, and post-independence issues of male dominance, power, and control over the female body in the legal, socio-cultural, and political contexts in Africa. Contributors focus on the historical, theoretical, and empirical narratives of intersecting perspectives of gender and patriarchy in at least ten countries across the major sub-regions of the African continent. In these well-researched chapters, authors provide a deeper understanding of patriarchy and gender inequality in identifying misogyny, resisting male supremacy, reforming discriminatory laws, embracing human-centered public policies, expanding academic scholarship on the continent, and more.
Queer Objects to the Rescue
Author: George Paul Meiu
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226830578
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
Examines forms of intimate citizenship that have emerged in relation to growing anti-homosexual violence in Kenya. Campaigns calling on police and citizens to purge their countries of homosexuality have taken hold across the world. But the “homosexual threat” they claim to be addressing is not always easy to identify. To make that threat visible, leaders, media, and civil society groups have deployed certain objects as signifiers of queerness. In Kenya, for example, bead necklaces, plastics, and even diapers have come to represent the danger posed by homosexual behavior to an essentially “virile” construction of national masculinity. In Queer Objects tothe Rescue, George Paul Meiu explores objects that have played an important and surprising role in both state-led and popular attempts to rid Kenya of various imagined threats to intimate life. Meiu shows that their use in the political imaginary has been crucial to representing the homosexual body as a societal threat and as a target of outrage, violence, and exclusion, while also crystallizing anxieties over wider political and economic instability. To effectively understand and critique homophobia, Meiu suggests, we must take these objects seriously and recognize them as potential sources for new forms of citizenship, intimacy, resistance, and belonging.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226830578
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
Examines forms of intimate citizenship that have emerged in relation to growing anti-homosexual violence in Kenya. Campaigns calling on police and citizens to purge their countries of homosexuality have taken hold across the world. But the “homosexual threat” they claim to be addressing is not always easy to identify. To make that threat visible, leaders, media, and civil society groups have deployed certain objects as signifiers of queerness. In Kenya, for example, bead necklaces, plastics, and even diapers have come to represent the danger posed by homosexual behavior to an essentially “virile” construction of national masculinity. In Queer Objects tothe Rescue, George Paul Meiu explores objects that have played an important and surprising role in both state-led and popular attempts to rid Kenya of various imagined threats to intimate life. Meiu shows that their use in the political imaginary has been crucial to representing the homosexual body as a societal threat and as a target of outrage, violence, and exclusion, while also crystallizing anxieties over wider political and economic instability. To effectively understand and critique homophobia, Meiu suggests, we must take these objects seriously and recognize them as potential sources for new forms of citizenship, intimacy, resistance, and belonging.
Equity in Global Health Research
Author: Elijah Bisung
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000997758
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
This thoughtful book offers unique insights on global health research, drawing attention to the equity choices embedded in day-to-day patterns and assumptions that shape how people do, think about, and navigate research. It invites readers to position equity as the driving principle and purpose of this field and presents a plethora of examples that demonstrate how to navigate the complex work of centring equity in research. This book provides foundational content on the standards of guiding equity considerations in global health, with chapters adopting cross-disciplinary methods of engaging in equity thinking and doing. Chapters explore applications of six distinct elements of the CCGHR Principles for Global Health Research, including partnering authentically, embracing inclusion, sharing benefits, committing to the future, acting on causes of inequities and practicing humility. Each chapter is accompanied with engaging reflection questions. This book is a pivotal resource for those who perform, use or support global equity health research. It will appeal to students, researchers, policy makers, professionals and funders, as well as those with an interest in and commitment to centring equity in their approaches to doing, using, or supporting health research.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000997758
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
This thoughtful book offers unique insights on global health research, drawing attention to the equity choices embedded in day-to-day patterns and assumptions that shape how people do, think about, and navigate research. It invites readers to position equity as the driving principle and purpose of this field and presents a plethora of examples that demonstrate how to navigate the complex work of centring equity in research. This book provides foundational content on the standards of guiding equity considerations in global health, with chapters adopting cross-disciplinary methods of engaging in equity thinking and doing. Chapters explore applications of six distinct elements of the CCGHR Principles for Global Health Research, including partnering authentically, embracing inclusion, sharing benefits, committing to the future, acting on causes of inequities and practicing humility. Each chapter is accompanied with engaging reflection questions. This book is a pivotal resource for those who perform, use or support global equity health research. It will appeal to students, researchers, policy makers, professionals and funders, as well as those with an interest in and commitment to centring equity in their approaches to doing, using, or supporting health research.
Narrative, Identity and Ethics in Postcolonial Kenya
Author: Eleanor Tiplady Higgs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350129828
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Can a Christian organization with colonial roots work towards reproductive justice for Kenyan women and resist sexist interpretations of Christianity? How does a women's organization in Africa navigate controversial ethical dilemmas, while dealing with the pressures of imperialism in international development? Based on a case study of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kenya, this book explores the answers to these questions. It also introduces a theoretical framework drawn from postcolonial feminist critique, narrative identity theory and the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: 'everyday Christian ethics'. The book evaluates the theory's implications as a cross-disciplinary theme in feminist studies of religion and theology. Eleanor Tiplady Higgs argues that Kenya YWCA's narratives of its Christian history and constitution sustain a link between its ethical perspective and its identity. The ethical insights that emerge from these practices proclaim the relevance of the value of 'fulfilled lives', as prescribed in the New Testament, for Christian women's experiences of reproductive injustice.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350129828
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Can a Christian organization with colonial roots work towards reproductive justice for Kenyan women and resist sexist interpretations of Christianity? How does a women's organization in Africa navigate controversial ethical dilemmas, while dealing with the pressures of imperialism in international development? Based on a case study of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kenya, this book explores the answers to these questions. It also introduces a theoretical framework drawn from postcolonial feminist critique, narrative identity theory and the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: 'everyday Christian ethics'. The book evaluates the theory's implications as a cross-disciplinary theme in feminist studies of religion and theology. Eleanor Tiplady Higgs argues that Kenya YWCA's narratives of its Christian history and constitution sustain a link between its ethical perspective and its identity. The ethical insights that emerge from these practices proclaim the relevance of the value of 'fulfilled lives', as prescribed in the New Testament, for Christian women's experiences of reproductive injustice.
Power / Knowledge / Land
Author: Laura German
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047222011X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
The 2008 outcry over the “global land grab” made headlines around the world, leading to a sustained interest in the dynamics and fate of customary land among both academics and development practitioners. In Power/Knowledge/Land, author Laura German profiles the consolidation of a global knowledge regime surrounding land and its governance within international development circles in the decade following this outcry, and the growing enrollment of previously antagonistic actors within it. Drawing theoretical insights on the inseparability of power and knowledge, German reveals the dynamics of knowledge practices that have enabled the longstanding project of commodifying customary land – and the more contemporary interests in acquiring and financializing it – to be advanced and legitimated by capturing the energies of socially progressive forces. By bringing theories of change from the emergent land governance orthodoxy into dialogue with the ethnographic evidence from across the African continent and beyond, concepts masquerading as universal and self-evident truths are provincialized, and their role in commodifying customary land and entrenching colonial futurities put on display. In doing so, the volume brings wider academic debates surrounding productive forms of power into the heart of the land grab debate, while enhancing their accessibility to a wider audience. Power/Knowledge/Land takes current scholarly debates surrounding land grabs beyond their theoretical moorings in critical agrarian studies, political economy and globalization into contemporary debates surrounding the politics of knowledge—from theories of coloniality to ontological anthropology, thereby enabling new dynamics of the phenomenon to be revealed. The book deploys a pioneering epistemology integrating deconstructionist approaches (to reveal the tactics, truth claims and ontological assumptions of global knowledge brokers), with systematic qualitative reviews and comparative study (to contrast these dominant constructs with the evidence and reveal alternative ways of knowing “land” and practicing “security” from the ethnographic literature). This helps to reveal the Western and modernist biases in the narratives that have been advanced about women, custom, and security, revealing how the coloniality of knowledge works to grease the wheels of land takings by advancing highly provincialized constructs aligned with western interests as universal truths.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047222011X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
The 2008 outcry over the “global land grab” made headlines around the world, leading to a sustained interest in the dynamics and fate of customary land among both academics and development practitioners. In Power/Knowledge/Land, author Laura German profiles the consolidation of a global knowledge regime surrounding land and its governance within international development circles in the decade following this outcry, and the growing enrollment of previously antagonistic actors within it. Drawing theoretical insights on the inseparability of power and knowledge, German reveals the dynamics of knowledge practices that have enabled the longstanding project of commodifying customary land – and the more contemporary interests in acquiring and financializing it – to be advanced and legitimated by capturing the energies of socially progressive forces. By bringing theories of change from the emergent land governance orthodoxy into dialogue with the ethnographic evidence from across the African continent and beyond, concepts masquerading as universal and self-evident truths are provincialized, and their role in commodifying customary land and entrenching colonial futurities put on display. In doing so, the volume brings wider academic debates surrounding productive forms of power into the heart of the land grab debate, while enhancing their accessibility to a wider audience. Power/Knowledge/Land takes current scholarly debates surrounding land grabs beyond their theoretical moorings in critical agrarian studies, political economy and globalization into contemporary debates surrounding the politics of knowledge—from theories of coloniality to ontological anthropology, thereby enabling new dynamics of the phenomenon to be revealed. The book deploys a pioneering epistemology integrating deconstructionist approaches (to reveal the tactics, truth claims and ontological assumptions of global knowledge brokers), with systematic qualitative reviews and comparative study (to contrast these dominant constructs with the evidence and reveal alternative ways of knowing “land” and practicing “security” from the ethnographic literature). This helps to reveal the Western and modernist biases in the narratives that have been advanced about women, custom, and security, revealing how the coloniality of knowledge works to grease the wheels of land takings by advancing highly provincialized constructs aligned with western interests as universal truths.
Women and Peacebuilding in Africa
Author: Anna Chitando
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000222888
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
This volume re-centres African women scholars in the discourse on African women and peacebuilding, combining theoretical reflections with case studies in a range of African countries. The chapters outline the history of African women’s engagement in peacebuilding, introducing new and neglected themes such as youth, disability, and religious peacebuilding, and laying the foundations for new theoretical insights. Providing case studies from across Africa, the contributors highlights the achievements and challenges characterising women’s contributions to peacebuilding on the continent. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of peacebuilding, African security and gender.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000222888
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
This volume re-centres African women scholars in the discourse on African women and peacebuilding, combining theoretical reflections with case studies in a range of African countries. The chapters outline the history of African women’s engagement in peacebuilding, introducing new and neglected themes such as youth, disability, and religious peacebuilding, and laying the foundations for new theoretical insights. Providing case studies from across Africa, the contributors highlights the achievements and challenges characterising women’s contributions to peacebuilding on the continent. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of peacebuilding, African security and gender.
Gender, Conflict and Reintegration in Uganda
Author: Allen Kiconco
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000402746
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
This book explores what happened when the tens of thousands of girls (now women) abducted by Lord’s Resistance Army and inducted into their campaign of violence against the Ugandan government, returned home. Drawing on extensive original research, the author considers the challenges which the formerly abducted women have encountered upon their return, the strategies which have been used to aid their reintegration, and the enduring stigma of abduction which they continue to suffer from. The author demonstrates that ‘home’, a place of hope and comfort, can also be a hostile environment which leaves formerly abducted women in precarious and vulnerable situations. The many shortcomings in the reintegration process have serious implications for the prospects of post-conflict reconstruction. Analysing reintegration as a long-term and dynamic process which involves complex negotiations and exchanges between hosting communities and formerly abducted women, this book will be of interest to scholars, policymakers and practitioners working in the fields of post-conflict reconstruction, African politics and gender and conflict.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000402746
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
This book explores what happened when the tens of thousands of girls (now women) abducted by Lord’s Resistance Army and inducted into their campaign of violence against the Ugandan government, returned home. Drawing on extensive original research, the author considers the challenges which the formerly abducted women have encountered upon their return, the strategies which have been used to aid their reintegration, and the enduring stigma of abduction which they continue to suffer from. The author demonstrates that ‘home’, a place of hope and comfort, can also be a hostile environment which leaves formerly abducted women in precarious and vulnerable situations. The many shortcomings in the reintegration process have serious implications for the prospects of post-conflict reconstruction. Analysing reintegration as a long-term and dynamic process which involves complex negotiations and exchanges between hosting communities and formerly abducted women, this book will be of interest to scholars, policymakers and practitioners working in the fields of post-conflict reconstruction, African politics and gender and conflict.
Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea
Author: Carole Ammann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429576552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
This book examines how women in Guinea articulate themselves politically within and outside institutional politics. It documents the everyday practices that local female actors adopt to deal with the continuous economic, political, and social insecurities that emerge in times of political transformations. Carole Ammann argues that women’s political articulations in Muslim Guinea do not primarily take place within women’s associations or institutional politics such as political parties; but instead women’s silent forms of politics manifest in their daily agency, that is, when they make a living, study, marry, meet friends, raise their children, and do household chores. The book also analyses the relationship between the female population and the local authorities, and discusses when and why women’s claim making enjoys legitimacy in the eyes of other men and women, as well as representatives of ‘traditional’ authorities and the local government. Paying particular attention to intersectional perspectives, this book will be of interest to scholars of African studies, social anthropology, political anthropology, the anthropology of gender, urban anthropology, gender studies, and Islamic studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429576552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
This book examines how women in Guinea articulate themselves politically within and outside institutional politics. It documents the everyday practices that local female actors adopt to deal with the continuous economic, political, and social insecurities that emerge in times of political transformations. Carole Ammann argues that women’s political articulations in Muslim Guinea do not primarily take place within women’s associations or institutional politics such as political parties; but instead women’s silent forms of politics manifest in their daily agency, that is, when they make a living, study, marry, meet friends, raise their children, and do household chores. The book also analyses the relationship between the female population and the local authorities, and discusses when and why women’s claim making enjoys legitimacy in the eyes of other men and women, as well as representatives of ‘traditional’ authorities and the local government. Paying particular attention to intersectional perspectives, this book will be of interest to scholars of African studies, social anthropology, political anthropology, the anthropology of gender, urban anthropology, gender studies, and Islamic studies.
The Politics of Biography in Africa
Author: Anaïs Angelo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000432688
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
Bringing together historians, political scientists, and literary analysts, this volume shows how biographical narratives can shed light on alternative, little known or under-researched aspects of state power in African politics. Part 1 shows how biographical narratives breathe new life into subjects who, upon decolonization, had been reduced to silence - women, workers, and radical politicians. The contributors analyze the complex relationship between biographical narratives and power, questioning either the power of biographical codes peculiar to western, colonial origins, or the power to shape public memory. Part 2 reflects on the act of (auto-)biography writing as an exercise of power, one that blurs the lines between truth and invention. (Auto-)biographical narratives appear as politicized, ambiguous stories. Part 3 focuses on female leadership during and after colonization, exploring on how women gained, lost, or reinvented "power". Brought together, the contributions of this volume show that the function of biographical narratives should no longer oscillate between romanticized narratives and historical evidence; their varied formats all offer fruitful opportunities for a multidisciplinary dialogue. This book will be of interest to scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds working on the African postcolonial state, the decolonization process, women’s and gender studies, and biography writing.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000432688
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
Bringing together historians, political scientists, and literary analysts, this volume shows how biographical narratives can shed light on alternative, little known or under-researched aspects of state power in African politics. Part 1 shows how biographical narratives breathe new life into subjects who, upon decolonization, had been reduced to silence - women, workers, and radical politicians. The contributors analyze the complex relationship between biographical narratives and power, questioning either the power of biographical codes peculiar to western, colonial origins, or the power to shape public memory. Part 2 reflects on the act of (auto-)biography writing as an exercise of power, one that blurs the lines between truth and invention. (Auto-)biographical narratives appear as politicized, ambiguous stories. Part 3 focuses on female leadership during and after colonization, exploring on how women gained, lost, or reinvented "power". Brought together, the contributions of this volume show that the function of biographical narratives should no longer oscillate between romanticized narratives and historical evidence; their varied formats all offer fruitful opportunities for a multidisciplinary dialogue. This book will be of interest to scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds working on the African postcolonial state, the decolonization process, women’s and gender studies, and biography writing.