Gender, Migration, and African Cultures

Abstract

This chapter examines various ways African women contribute to cultural development in global African communities. It does so by considering the way African women articulate gendered epistemology to African knowledge production and cultural identity(ies). At the same time the chapter considers the environmental and structural oppressions that have impeded this cultural production over time (e.g., enslavement, colonialism). Particularly, the chapter considers the various cultural institutions African woman participate in (e.g., community leadership, agriculture, politics, art, mothering) to reveal the critical nature and necessity of her writing and recording of historical and contemporary African cultures. Examples are drawn from primarily Nigeria and the United States in the twentieth century and other parts of the continent generally, offering both continental and migratory (e.g., diasporic) examples of how African women remember, participate in, and represent their and their communities’ lived experiences and cultural traditions.