Decolonial and Post-Colonial Theories of Feminism in Africa

Introduction

Postcolonial (inclusive of decolonial) feminist theories constitute related branches of feminist theories that developed as a response to earlier types of feminism that focused solely on the experiences of White women in Western countries and ignore the impact of colonialism and imperialism on the colonised and segregated communities. Decolonial and postcolonial feminist theorists argue that African and other colonised and segregated women are oppressed by both patriarchy and the colonial power to the extent that theirs is a double barrel oppression. This is argued as an ongoing process in many countries even after they achieved independence. Therefore, women in Africa and other post-colonial regions are colonised in a twofold way by imperialism and male dominance. Decolonial and postcolonial feminist theories focus on how gender intersects with race and culture to consider how the experiences of Black and other (former) colonised women differ from those of Western women due to racism and the long-term effects of colonialism.

Thus, postcolonial feminist theories began as a critique of both Western feminism and postcolonial theory, but later became a burgeoning method of analysis to address key issues within both fields (Bulbeck, 1998). Unlike mainstream postcolonial theory, which focuses on the lingering impacts that colonialism has had on the current economic and political institutions of countries, postcolonial feminist theorists are interested in analysing why postcolonial theory fails to address issues of gender. Postcolonial feminism also seeks to illuminate the tendency of Western feminist thought to apply its claims to women around the world because the scope of feminist theory is limited (Mills, 1998). In this way, postcolonial feminism attempts to account for perceived weaknesses within both postcolonial theory and Western feminism.

Decolonial and postcolonial theories, therefore, aim to understand and undo the legacies of colonialism. They seek to understand and interpret everyday lived experiences through a decolonial and postcolonial perspective, decentring the White, Western, Eurocentric experience. Postcolonial feminism, especially decolonial feminist theory protests against the internalised and normalised social and epistemological hierarchies that reinforce the self-proclaimed centrality of the European metropole and of masculinity. Decolonial feminists are sceptical of discourses that pretend to be universal, such as the notions of sisterhood and a common oppression of women; among them Oyěwùmí (1997) and Lugones (2008), who critique these discourses on the grounds that they are, first, disingenuous and, second, false. For them the idea that two women from vastly different socio-political contexts (one White and living in the Western world and one Black and living in Africa) can share a common need to resist and ultimately overthrow patriarchy is simply not valid, due to the fact of their intersectional experiences of patriarchy, which interlock with their experiences of racism and class oppression. Spivak (2010) further argues that Western feminists have built academic careers on the backs of their research on women in colonised countries and other non-White communities. These articles tend to position White feminists as the saviours of non-White women, while denying the research participants a voice, agency or a defined perspective on their own life experiences (Spivak, 1988).