New directions in gender and religion: the changing status of women in African Independent Churches–By Brigid M. Sackey (original) (raw)

Women and African Traditional Religion

Springer eBooks, 2020

Studies reveal that religions with the image of a male god give its male members the cultural-religious currency of power. African Traditional Religions (ATR) may have female goddesses, but it is patterned after the male image of the Supreme Being. ATR, like Abrahamic religions, is a masculine-based and patriarchal religion, promoting subordination in ways that women mostly play peripheral roles in religious spheres. Although women perform religious duties as diviners, herbal doctors, priests, and mystics, they, however, do so in lesser degrees compared to the men. Also, spirit possession is common for women because of their relegated status. ATR's key players sanction relegation for females and female worshippers. What factors enable gender politics? Besides, what are the attendant implications of gender exclusion in ATR? This chapter draws inference on gender, religious studies, and anthropological theories, with particular reference to gender politics. It focuses on women and advances an argument against the masculinization at play in ATR. It argues that ATR's

Women’s Voices in a Male World: Actions, Bodies and Spaces among the Ancient Maya

"Feminist archaeology has prompted scholars to reconsider gender roles in ancient Mesoamerica. Current research, however, tends to focus on elite women, classes and sites. Although I do not ignore the potential of these sources, in this paper I am mainly concerned with issues such as the phenomenology of bodies and spaces, subroyal ritual actions, and daily activities such as cooking and weaving. My aim is to offer an overview of the most recent studies on gender in Maya archaeology and to provide ideas for further research by emphasising the need to engender ritual and individuate female discourses in the archaeological record."

Church, Gender and Ethnic Nationalism

The Journal of African History, 2004

The straightforward title of this first-rate book is slightly misleading on only one account. It is a compendium of twenty short chapters on archaeological research projects undertaken in Africa chiefly by British archaeologists, but with (by inspection) contributions made variously by Zimbabwean, South African, French and Canadian researchers as well. That being said, Researching Africa's Past provides a wide-ranging and encouraging introduction to the state of the art in Africanist archaeology in Great Britain. The book to a significant degree concentrates upon the activities of researchers who have begun to work in Africa relatively recently, and it will be very interesting to see in what directions the research agendas presented therein develop through time. The papers chosen cover a variety of topics, from early hominid studies to ethnoarchaeology to environmental reconstruction to historical and maritime archaeology. 12 out of the 17 chapters devoted to fieldwork examine various aspects of the archaeology of food-producing societies, an evident area of interest. It is thus somewhat surprising, as Lane (p. 147) notes, that so little attention is paid to urban archaeology, although this lacuna in Africanist archaeology is restricted neither to British archaeologists nor to this book. Geographically, West, East and southern Africa are well represented, while there are no papers from Central Africa, North Africa, Egypt or the Sudan. In the latter cases, this is due to the vagaries of publication-British archaeologists certainly work in North Africa and along the Nile. Their absence from Central Africa is a little more surprising, however : it can hardly be linguistic, since all but one of the West African papers report on work that has taken place in francophone countries. In general, the quality of the papers is high, and they report on fascinating work. In some cases, this involves technological and conceptual innovations in Africanist archaeology, as for example with Sinclair, McCraith and Nelson's paper on cognition, energetics and the landscapes of early hominids at Makapansgat, Herries and Latham's work on archaeomagnetism at Rose Cottage Cave and Stump's soil fertility studies at Engaruka. In other cases, chapters present work in areas of the continent to this point little explored, including Shire District in Ethiopia, west of Aksum (papers by Philips and Finneran-the latter addressing an absolutely vital topic in Africa, the implementation and maintenance of site inventory systems), the Dhar Nema region in southeastern Mauritania (the paper by MacDonald, Vernet, Fuller and Woodhouse), Timbuktu (the paper by Insoll) and Buganda (the papers by Reid, and by Reid and Young). A number of papers involve reexamination of (perhaps too easily) accepted assumptions made about the African past. Mitchell's trenchant appraisal of the role that ethnographic concepts about hxaro exchange relationships play in Late Stone Age archaeological reconstructions, Haour's reconsideration of the role played by wall systems around West African

African Traditional Religions: Mawu's Legacy and Women's Power in Haitian Vodou and the Diaspora

The notion that African traditions are maintained for their symbolic power is evident in Haitian Vodou and its diaspora. The Fon of Dahomey is renowned for its ruling Empire and their belief in the Creator -Mawu-Lisa (now the Republic of Benin). Mawu is a female deity who established long lasting motivations in women to maintain their role as custodians of their culture. The disruption of the transatlantic slave trade severely undermined the coherence of Dahomean religious life. However, Vodou remained resilient to oppressive colonial structures because of women's power in remaking communities via the ritual domain. This essay employs a post-colonial analysis and argues that women's power works to remain as custodians of Dahomean culture as it is supported by the mythological narrative of Mawu-Lisa. This will be discussed in two respectsfirst, pre-colonial evidence illustrates that Dahomean women were fierce protectors of the royal cult and second, 1 the notion that women continue to be regarded as the custodians of Dahomean culture in the post-colonial era by using evidence from the Haitian revolution and the ability of Haitian Mambos (priestesses) to intensify the symbol of Mawu-Lisa in the diaspora. My thesis is important because it illustrates how women play an integral role in ensuring that Vodou remains resilient to oppressive colonial structures via the ritual domain. First, it is important to understand the mythico-historical framework of Mawu-Lisa, and its significance to the kingdom of Dahomey. In Abomey, the centre of the old Dahomean kingdom, is found the narrative of Mawu being celebrated as a female deity. 2 Mawu is heavily associated with creation. It is claimed that Mawu created the earth and then retired into the sky because she was disheartened by men. 3 Mawu utilised her feminine powers to create the first 1Stanley B. Alpern, Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey (Hurst and Company: London, 1998), 7. 2Geoffrey Parrinder D.D, West African Religion: A Study of the Beliefs and Practices of Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Ibo and Kindred Peoples (The Epworth Press, 1961), 13.

Postcolonial Feminist Perspectives on African Religions

In E: K. Bongma, ed. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions. John Wiley and Sons., 2012

What is the basic structure of African Indigenous Religions (AIR/s)? How is it gendered? How did colonialism affect AIR/s? Is the academic study of AIR/s among Africanists and feminists decolonized? Using the context of Southern Africa, this paper will address the above questions by exploring the construction of gender in AIR/s’ concepts of community, ancestorhood and the Divine. The paper will investigate the academic frameworks of Africanists and feminist scholars of AIR/s by investigating the naming of AIR/s and the frameworks of gender analysis within the postcolonial history. It will further make some proposals on decolonized frameworks of studying AIR/s.