Veranstaltungen
Zoom/University of Ghana
Veranstalter:
MIASA
Public Lecture: "Our Mothers Are Not Free"
African writers normally romanticize the past ontologies of African women contending that they held considerable social power. This overarching narrative obscures the gender imbalances in precolonial and post-contact Africa. The nd’ishi tradition of northernmost Igbo communities–generally called Nsukka–is a paradox that all pre-contact Africa had a fair deal for women. Among them, married women that engage in extramarital affairs or who assist their natal relatives without their husbands’permission become mentally deranged unless they confess early enough and certain purifications applied. Mainly, the speaker discusses how entrenched male power structures in these areas deftly deploy the nd’ishi tradition to relieve women of control over their sexuality and material resources. Conversely, the speaker shows how through ritual “blinding” of the nd’ishi tradition, women have navigated these unequal relations, upholding their methods of subservience and resistance. “Our mothers are not Free” utilizes extensive ethnographical methodologies to unravel the intricacies of gender and social control that contrast the prevailing romanticized view of gender balance across traditional African societies.
Invited speaker:
Ngozika Anthonia Obi-Ani (University of Nigeria, Nsukka)
The lecture will take place in a hybrid format (online/on-site).
Veranstaltung übernehmen als
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