by Bashiratu Kamal Ghana, my country of birth, has a population of about 30 million out of which 51% are women. The majority of these women in the workforce (85%) can be found in the informal economy. This situation is not unique to Ghana. According to an International Labour Organization (ILO) survey conducted in 2015,…
Category: Standpoints
Improving Rural Women’s Access to Productive Resources: Are the Low Hanging Fruits Too Low to Make a Difference?
by Faustina Obeng Adomaa The percentage contribution of rural deprivation to national poverty is high. In Ghana, it is above 70%, and rises to about 90% in the northern parts of the country (FAO and ECOWAS, 2018). Poverty is a rural phenomenon and women in rural areas are the face of poverty, especially less resource-endowed…
A Tale of Two Worlds amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Is a New More Just Economic Order Possible?
by Leah Eryenyu “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age ofwisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it wasthe epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season ofDarkness, it was the spring of hope, it…
The Liquid Space where African Feminism and African Futurism Meet
By Minna Salami AbstractAfrican feminist traditions are marked by resistance to the status quo. African futurism typically focuses on imagining potential transformations. The merging of the two fields of thought is both urgent and generative.We are already in the future. I am writing these words in a moment that is my present but will be…
Towards Building Feminist Economies of Life
By Donna Andrews Living in CrisisThis anthropocene1 era with its accompanying avarice has significantly contributed to the destruction of the ecological integrity of our planet. Mainstream neoliberal economics valorises economic growth and fosters the super exploitation of minerals, metals and nature by transnational corporations. Its associated policies severely undermine social and economic protection, with dire…
Dreadlocks as a Symbol of Resistance: Performance and Reflexivity
Performance auto-ethnography, an interdisciplinary qualitative research praxis, combines auto-ethnography and performance studies as a system of enquiry. Auto-ethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to systematically describe and analyse personal experience, or autobiography, in order to understand a wider cultural context (Spry, 2001:707). Performance auto-ethnography takes the embodied form of narration and…
The weave as an ‘unhappy’ technology of black femininity
Black women everywhere seem to be in weaves these days. Afua Hirsh (2012) half-jokingly declaims that “the weave has invaded Africa on its march to world domination” while, referring to North America, Cheryl Thompson observes similarly that: “From Oprah to Janet Jackson to Tyra Banks and a slew of others, weaves have become a normative…
Feminist Reflections on the Rhodes Must Fall Movement
By Kealeboga Ramaru The year 2015 was undoubtedly one of the most memorable years for me in post-apartheid South Africa. Just six weeks short of the country’s 21st-anniversary celebration of the advent of democracy, a movement that was to have a lasting impact on the history of the University of Cape Town (UCT), and the…