IAI Biennial lecture at ECAS2019: by Fatou Sow
Channel: NomadIT
Date: 2019-06-18

The representation of women and claims to citizenship in Africa: beyond a political debate

Women’s identities – however they are authorised or imagined, assumed, contested or claimed – still remain at the heart of the stakes and the challenges of their access to citizenship several decades after independence. More than a political debate about gender and the struggle for women’s rights, which would be fairly straightforward, this involves a profound reassessment of the social, cultural, civilizational, ideological and religious values of various African historical experiences. Women cannot understand their present situation without reference to their past; at the same time this past is being deciphered with critical analytical tools progressively developed in the present. Women must contribute to the discourse on universality starting from the cultures and historical experiences of the continent, as human experiences that should be re-examined.