The Politics Of Mothering: Womanhood, Identity, And Resistance In African Literature (opening Out)

The Politics of (M)Othering “The editor’s introduction is a well-informed overview of the major themes and trends in the subject… This is a book that will not be ignored in any serious study of African literature.” Isidore Okpewho, SUNY, Binghamton “Nnaemeka’s introduction is a brilliant critique of current scholarship and represents an ingenious use of orality in literary criticism as she sets the framework of the volume by highlighting the complexities and contradictions in defining ‘woman.’” Helen N.Mugambi, California State University Over the last decade, post-colonial studies have become a defining feature in critical thought, but until very recently attention has been focused on areas other than Africa and its wealth of literatures. The arrival of The Politics of (M)Othering signals an important shift of focus. African Studies will certainly be setting the agenda in the future. This study of African literature examines the paradoxical location of (m)other as both central and marginal and is framed by the idea of “mother”—motherland, mothertongue, motherwit, motherhood, and mothering. Whilst the volume stands as a sustained feminist analysis, it engages feminist theory itself by showing how issues in feminism are, in African literature, recast in different and complex ways. The core arguments in the volume foreground epistemological questions— the construction, containment, and dissemination of knowledge—and the role that gender politics plays in them. Even more significantly, The Politics of (M) Othering insists on the importance of cultural literacy to an effective analysis of cultural productions such as African literary texts. The volume is unique in its extensive territorial claims, in terms of genre (orature, fiction, theater, and autobiography) and geography (from all regions of Africa to the African Diaspora). This collection brings together critics at the forefront of African literatures— Trinh T.Minh-ha, Françoise Lionnet, Obioma Nnaemeka, Huma Ibrahim, Peter Hitchcock, Charles Sugnet, Uzo Esonwanne, Renée Larrier, Celeste Fraser ii Delgado, Ousseynou B.Traoré, Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, and Cynthia Ward. The Editor: Obioma Nnaemeka is Associate Professor of French, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis. Feminism for Today General Editor: Teresa Brennan The Regime of the Brother After the Patriarchy Juliet Flower MacCannell History After Lacan Teresa Brennan Feminism and the Mastery of Nature Val Plumwood The Spoils of Freedom Renata Salecl Ecopolitics The Environment in Poststructuralist Thought Verena Andermatt Conley The Politics of (M)Othering Womanhood, identity, and resistance in African literature Edited by Obioma Nnaemeka London and New York First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1997 selection and editorial matter, Obioma Nnaemeka; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,