Palgrave Africana Womanism in the Global Age: Old Challenges, Recurrent Struggles and New Solidarities

This edited volume brings together scholars, feminist activists, policymakers, civil society and government practitioners to discuss the recurrent challenges and struggles women in Zimbabwe and Africa continue to face, and more importantly, to show how new solidarities (beyond generations and geopolitical spaces) have emerged to try and deal with these multifarious challenges. Synthesizing theory formation with practical case studies, this volume shows the liberative potential and limitations of Africana womanism in Zimbabwe and Africa. Contributors to the volume wrestle with diverse issues relating to women’s struggles for justice and equality in an environment characterized by patriarchy, capitalism and epistemic injustice. Utilizing multiple angles, they highlight the effectiveness of theory formation that is informed by local realities, while in conversation with conceptualizations from within the Global South, including the experiences of African American women. Highlighting the importance of intracontinental and transnational conversations, these chapters challenge Western-centered epistemologies and instead center Africa and African lived experiences as pivotal in knowledge production within gender, feminist and womanist scholarship. In devising new ways of thinking through gender(ed) relations, these contributions are interested in finding inclusive paradigms in which men and masculinities play a central role in bringing about change. It is an important intervention in the discourse on epistemic liberation in Global South scholarship and will be of interest to students and researchers in Women and Gender Studies, African History, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, and Sociology.