Africanist Feminist Politics of Knowledge: Tensions, Challenges, and Possibilities (review)

The Millennium Development goals that were supported after the Beijing conference (1975) helped the emergence of feminist activism in the politics of scholarship. This book, coedited by professors Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Signe Arnfred, cogently examines crucial feminist ideas that, in the coeditors’ concerted opinion, are worthy of emulation. It helps readers understand the many shades of this transformation, as well as the means by which feminism continues to claim its power.

The book begins with a stimulating introduction. In all, it has eight chapters, each followed by an extensive bibliography; there are also a list of contributors and an index. The authors’ introduction discusses several aspects of feminist politics of knowledge in dominant spaces of donor agencies, academic institutions, and governmental and nongovernmental organizations. These spaces give evidence of analyses that have been channeled through the challenges, tensions, entanglements, and possibilities of feminist research in the Global South.

The book demonstrates that, in many African countries, most research is being funded by donor agencies. The issue here is the dichotomy between autonomous research and servicing the agenda of the donors or the governments involved. The authors provide information on the decision of who decides the research agenda, and of the focus and concepts of study. Finally, the authors have considered feminists as academic researchers on one hand and as activists for women’s issues on the other. These are fascinating issues that the book seeks to answer.

The contributors to the volume are from different geographical areas of the African continent, including Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Mozambique. They tell stories of the joys and pains, alliances and betrayals, and successes and failures that ensnare the relationships between their personal reflections on feminist politics and epistemologies.

Although further research on the subjects treated in this book is obviously needed, it is correct to conclude that the current volume has delved into informative issues and thought-provoking ideologies with respect to activism in feminist research in the African context. Taking the writers and their various approaches into account, readers of the publication can thoroughly enjoy its contents from start to finish. Indeed, the volume is so well produced that teachers (or professors), students, and practitioners of feminist theories in developing societies would look forward to more scholarly works in this area of study and from feminist scholars in the African diaspora.