Jane Plastow: Stiwanism and Gendered Identities in Jinja (Uganda)

We are pleased to announce that Jane Plastow will open our next set of seminars on the theme of African Feminisms with a paper co-authored with Katie McQuaid, the abstract which may be found below.

The seminar will take place on Monday,  13 February 2017 at the Leeds Humanities Research (LHRI) Institute Seminar Room 1 at 5pm. All are welcome and entrance is free.

 

Abstract

This paper concerns the ethnographic and theatre-based work of Katie McQuaid and Jane Plastow in a working class district of Jinja, Uganda, over two years between 2014 and 2016. Working in the context of entrenched urban poverty alongside the community we sought to develop understanding of the shifting nature of gendered, intergenerational identities in an East African city and how men, women and youth navigate their daily realities and sustain their future aspirations. We are concerned here to explicate our changing understandings in relation to African and western feminisms, particularly Stiwanism, over the course of the work. 

We explore the relative silencing of women, culturally, educationally and structurally in this community, and how, combining ethnographic research and Frierean-inspired community theatre, we sought to open up spaces in which women felt confidence to participate, at first in single sex spaces,  and later in whole community debate, as equals with their men. The focus of the paper is on how we came to find an engagement with the concept of Stiwanism hugely useful in conceptualising our long term process of working alongside men and women in search of a ‘plentiude of praxis’: strengthening and promoting an urban community’s capacity to unite across social barriers in recognising systemic injustices and inequalities, and challenging these through community-led interventions in pursuit of common social justice outcomes. 

We conclude by raising our on-going issues with Stiwanism in relation to its capacity to envisage how men can be supported in challenging patriarchal practices, and how women can negotiate competing aspects of ethnic identity and modern aspiration, whilst simultaneously resisting essentialist narratives that confine their voices and activity.

About Katie McQuaid and Jane Plastow

Jane Plastow is primarily an Africanist with special interests in African theatre, African literature, education, development studies and politics. She is also concerned with women’s studies in Africa and worldwide with Theatre for Development. She has particularly strong links with East Africa and the Horn of Africa; especially Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, in all of which she has worked in recent years. Plastow also works as a theatre director, usually but not exclusively in the area of African theatre, and teach across a range of courses dealing with contemporary theatrical practice.

Katie McQuaid is an anthropologist currently working on the INTERSECTION project, researching intergenerational justice, environmental responsibility, climate change and sustainability in Uganda, combining social science and arts-based methods (fieldwork Jan-Nov 2015). Her wider work focuses upon violence, humanitarianism and human rights amongst refugees from violent conflict. She conducted two years’ ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda (2011-2012) with refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, considering how violence and human rights are experienced and articulated amongst those living within humanitarian regimes. This research explores the practice of Congolese human rights defenders and the complex persecution and marginalisation of sexual minorities.

Elinor Rooks to speak on The Radical Developmental Politics of Bessie Head’s A Question of Power

Bessie Head

The next event on the Finding Africa calendar is a seminar by Elinor Rooks (University of Leeds). Rooks will give a paper on “Cattle, Gardens and the Madness of Power: The Radical Developmental Politics of Bessie Head’s A Question of Power” in Seminar Room 008 of the Berrick Saul Building at the University of York at 5pm on 30 September 2015.

*A podcast of this seminar is now available here: Finding Africa Podcast.

South African Jazz Cultures and the Archive: Six Days of Discussions, Public Lectures, and Live Music

Announcing six days of discussions, public lectures, book readings, film showings, record launches and live music to initiate the two year British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship project South African Jazz Cultures and the Archive in association with the University of York Department of Music and SA-UK Season 2015 (4-9 September 2015).

All events are open to the public, and the majority are free (although it is necessary to book a ticket).

Full information (including booking) can be found on the South African Jazz Cultures and the Archive homepage.

Arthur Rose on “Dwelling in Triomf; or Building the Infrastructure for Postapartheid Dasein”

 The next seminar in the Philosophy and Literature stream of Finding Africa entitled, Dwelling in Triomf; or Building the Infrastructure for Postapartheid Dasein will be given by Dr. Arthur Rose.

Rose recently completed his PhD thesis, Cynical Cosmopolitans? Borges, Beckett, Coetzee, at the University of Leeds. It argued that the integration of politics, aesthetics and subjectivity in the late works of these writers may best be understood through the lens of Ancient Cynicism. He is currently thinking about the thematic and structural use of strike in English, French and Spanish mining literatures.

The seminar will be at 6pm in the BS/008 seminar room of the Berrick Saul Building at the University of York on 8 June 2015. Entrance is free and all are welcome.

Furman and O’Connell on HIV/AIDS, Moral Responsibility, and South African Literature (Rescheduled for 1 June 2015)

Finding Africa is pleased to announce that the theme for the next seminar in the Philosophy and Literature stream will be HIV and AIDS. Katherine Furman, from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences will tackle the controversial question, “Is Thabo Mbeki Morally Responsible for his AIDS Denialism?” Furman’s paper will be followed by a presentation by Dr. Gráinne O’Connell from the University of Sussex on “‘Post-AIDS’ Futures, Global Health Governance and Representations of HIV and AIDS in Post-Apartheid Literary Fiction”. The seminar will take place on 1 June 2015 at 5.30pm in The Treehouse at the University of York’s Berrick Saul Building. The event is both free and open to all.

Submit an Abstract & Register Online! Colloquium: African Intellectual Mobilities at the University of York

African Intellectual Mobilities: Diasporic Travel and Texts, Past and Present

Saturday 7 February 2015, 9:00am–5:30pm & wine reception

The Treehouse, Humanities Research Centre, University of York 

Featuring a reading by and interview with Noo Saro-Wiwa, acclaimed author of Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria, who is working on her second book;

A keynote by Dr Alasdair Pettinger, editor of pioneering anthology Always Elsewhere: Travels of the Black Atlantic, on the mid-19th-century travels and writings of African-American visitors to Britain and Ireland, Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown, and how they might be read in relation to other black travel accounts and articulations. Tim Youngs, editor of Studies in Travel Writing, will respond.

Journalism and Media Studies: Richard Stupart Abstract

The relationship between mass media and African ‘development’ has been an object of critical study for media studies scholars since at least the 1980s. The 1985 Live Aid concert, and the BBC coverage of the Ethiopian famine that inspired it, indicated that media coverage and the ability to mobilize resources for foreign assistance were connected – although this relationship was only beginning to be theorized. In this paper it is argued that two of the most influential models of the media’s power to mobilize assistance that subsequently developed remain under-theorized, and may operate in ways substantially different to their applied conceptions. Further refinement is needed if the role of the media in constructing distant suffering and mobilizing solidarity with those affected by it is to be productively understood. The paradigms of the ‘CNN Effect’ as the power of the media to compel humanitarian action, and ‘compassion fatigue’ as the tendency for audiences to lose empathy for distant victims after over-coverage of their plight have informed a long history of media advocacy related to Africa’s conflicts, famines and disasters. Though forming the conceptual foundation of media strategies ranging from the Kony2012 viral media campaign to the advertising of Oxfam and the United Nations, these theories of media influence are subject to numerous critiques from both more nuanced understandings of media power and actual case appraisals.

Brendon Nicholls and his reading of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s “Sozaboy”

Brendon Nicholls, lecturer in African and Postcolonial literatures at the University of Leeds

Finding Africa considers itself fortunate to have had its first seminar inaugurated by Brendon Nicholls and his insightful new reading of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy. In bringing together a consideration of environment, psyche and objects, Nicholls was able to argue for the existence, in the text, of an embedded environmental consciousness. The significance of his reading is twofold in its relation to Ken Saro-Wiwa as an activist and figure of resistance, and in respect to Kleinian Object Relations and their applicability to postcolonial African texts.

On the 10 of November 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by his government along with eight other members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Sara-Wiwa’s activism had at its heart a concern for his Ogoni people, which in turn led him to lead a protest against the environmental damage to Ogoni lands carried out by the Shell oil company. In what has been considered a landmark victory against global exploitation, Saro-Wiwa’s campaign successfully managed to kick Shell out of the Ogoni region in 1993. The circumstances of Saro-Wiwa’s execution two years later have left little doubt regarding the government’s complicity with corporate exploitation and the price one pays for taking a stand against it.

Finding Africa 2016/17 (UK)

African Feminisms

Call for Papers

African feminisms have, from the beginning, been grounded in an inclusive and intersectional discourse which seeks to challenge and unravel patriarchal, political, existential, and philosophical imbalances in society. As such they have been instrumental in bringing into question some of the ‘blind spots’ and prejudices embedded in Western feminisms. In light of current debates on decolonisation and the continued interest in intersectional politics in the global sphere, Finding Africa invites researchers to propose papers which centre on the theme of African feminisms in any field of the humanities.

Accepted submissions from the UK will comprise the lineup of the next round of seminars co-hosted with the University of Leeds’ Centre for African Studies (LUCAS) in 2017. A second call for submissions from South Africa will be made shortly.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

Intersectionality and African Feminisms

Womanism in Contemporary African Feminism

The Future of African Feminisms

Human Rights and African Feminism

African Feminisms and Curricula

Contemporary African Feminisms

African Feminisms in the West

Philosophy and African Feminisms

African Feminist Manifestos

The Psychology of African Feminisms

African Feminist Literature

African Feminisms and Disability

Guide for authors:

All submissions should be 250 word abstracts in Word format emailed to findingpocoafrica@gmail.com  by 20 November 2016.

*For further details on our activities, click on the seminars section on the main menu*

 

Ruth Mumbi, Human Rights, and the Dhobi of Kenya

Ruth Mumbi (Visiting Fellow)
Centre for Applied Human Rights
University of York

The gasp that escaped from the audience in response to the image projected before them was proof that Ruth Mumbi, angry tears shining in her eyes, had succeeded in driving home the reality of her message and cause – a reality worlds apart from that of those privileged enough to have attended Ruth’s talk last Friday on the 17th of October. Ruth herself was the subject of the photo and in it she was being dragged up by three police into the back of a truck.

She didn’t so much as blink when she proceeded to mention that she had experienced physical abuse during her time spent in police custody. According to Ruth, she was one of the lucky ones. Having developed a profile as a Human Rights Defender (HRD) many NGOs and other organisations were willing to post her bail. Those beginning to tread down the road of fighting for human rights in Kenya, those without a profile or history, are unlikely to have their bail posted for them. The police had seized Ruth on suspicion of her organising an illegal assembly in protest against a 16% tax increase on commodities (more details to be found here).

Ruth is currently a visiting fellow at the University of York, and is being hosted by the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR). At the focal point of her talk here at York was the organisation Wamama wa Dhobi that she has been part of organising in order to address the maltreatment of informal domestic workers living in Mathare, an informal settlement outside of Nairobi. The troubles of these domestic workers has risen as a result of a stipulation in Kenyan law which recognises only those domestic workers who live with the family they work for. These women, known as Dhobi (which means ‘laundry’ in Swahili), are frequently exploited by their employees who offer them a below minimum wage and then assert the right not to pay the women if they have found their work for the day to be unsatisfactory. Instances of physical abuse and rape are not uncommon.

Brendon Nicholls to speak on Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy: Environment, Psyche and Objects

Dr Brendon Nicholls

We are pleased to announce that Brendon Nicholls will be giving our inaugural seminar on the topic of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy: Environment, Psyche and Objects on Wednesday, 29 October 2014.  The event will be at the Treehouse located in the Berrick Saul Building at the University of York at 17:30. This seminar opens the dialogue in the Literature and Psychoanalysis stream of Finding Africa.

Nicholls lectures in the School of English, University of Leeds. He is the author of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Gender, and the Ethics of Postcolonial Reading (Ashgate, 2010) and Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People (Routledge, 2011). He is currently working on a monograph titled Africas of the Mind: Environmental Psychoanalysis and Black Spirit Vernaculars.