Narrative Landscapes of Female Sexuality in Africa

This book explores the textures of women-s narratives of patriarchal oppression of female sexuality. Postcolonial feminist scholars in Africa highlight the importance of moving beyond Westernised lenses of -African- women-s powerlessness, towards a focus on women-s culturally-specific sexual agency. However, few studies explore women-s psychological experiences of sexual oppression/agency in real depth. Narrative Landscapes of Female Sexuality in Africa traces the narratives of heterosexual migrant women from Zimbabwe, Kenya and Congo. The book offers insight into women-s experiences -back home,- travelling through border posts in Africa, and life in current post-apartheid South Africa. Through a unique collectively-based methodology and a feminist poststructuralist lens, the author examines narrative strategies used by the women to manage and psychologically resist harmful discourses surrounding female sexuality and women-s bodies. The book offers rich exploration of the intersections of gender and sexuality, class, race and citizenship situating the narratives within the wider context of poverty and migration in sub-Saharan Africa. These vectors of oppression are illuminated throughout the text via integrated threads of the researcher-s positionality in relation to the women narrators.

Samantha van Schalkwyk is Senior Researcher in Historical Trauma & Transformation Studies at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Feminism & Psychology and Violence against Women and is lead editor of the book A Reflexive Inquiry into Gender Research: Towards a New Paradigm of Knowledge Production.

1.Introduction.- 2. Migrant Subjectivities in South Africa: Contextualizing the Women's Voices.- 3. Collective Biography: A New Chapter for Exploring the Agency and Transformation of Women in the African context.- 4. Culture, Femininity, and Woman Abuse: The Case of Mubobobo Rape.- 5. Crossing Borders in Africa: Collectively Narrating the Foreigner Within.- 6. Psycho-Social Borders and Imagining the Female Other: Shame as a remnant of violent gendered abuse.- 7. Conclusion.