Paper/Proposal Title
Sarah Bartman and Demystifying African Women History: Feminist Engagement and New Epistemologies from Africa
Location
M2380
Start Date
November 2023
End Date
November 2023
Keywords
feminism Sarah Bartmann, epistemology, history, women, justicce
Abstract
I was recently awarded a Sarah Bartman fellowhip by the University of Cape Town and in my inaugural lecture, I posed a critical question. How should we commemorate Sarah Bartmann legacy in history and culture in contemporary Africa? It is important to make our students to understand the history of sexism and oppression and the many barriers and biases that women have historically faced. Historical interpretation of, or representations of women as victims, projecting victimhood onto meta-historical narratives allows for imagining the trajectories of communities along a ‘zigzag’ historical timeline, wherein the present is portrayed as a juncture similar to fateful junctures in the past. The logic of historical victimhood, I argued, propagates a forked historical consciousness and seeks to monopolise how it is imagined in terms of a series of points in history wherein the trajectory of the community may take a wrong turn. In this paper I argue that women claims are primarily political claims for change in specific settings since it embraces women's ongoing quests for educational equity, economic opportunity, civil rights, and political inclusion. In this paper, I reexamine why African women history of should recapture the gendered critique of the meanings and capaciousness of fundamental concepts in political theory such as democracy, representation, nationality, and citizenship
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Babere Kerata Chacha is a Senior Lecturer in African History in the Department of Public Affairs and Environmental Studies at Laikipia University in Kenya. Former Director of External Linkages and the founder an coordinator of the Centre for Human Rights at Laikipia University. Chacha has been a fellow School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Junior fellow St. Antony’s College University of Oxford; Fellow, Wolfson College Cambridge, Global fellow, University of New South Wales, Australia and More recently given Sarah Bartmann Award for the year 2022. In the past he has taught as an Adjunct Lecturer in history and development Studies at the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton and Egerton University. Chacha has also been engaged in teaching Police Science, Military History and Military Thought at the Kenya Military Academy in Lanet. His main research interest includes in political assassinations and human rights, but he also has wide interests in environment, terrorism, reconciliation, religion, and sexuality. He consulted for the TJRC in Kenya on political assassinations, and spearheaded the launch of the police science programme and the study of human rights as a common core course at Laikipia University.
Sarah Bartman and Demystifying African Women History: Feminist Engagement and New Epistemologies from Africa
M2380
I was recently awarded a Sarah Bartman fellowhip by the University of Cape Town and in my inaugural lecture, I posed a critical question. How should we commemorate Sarah Bartmann legacy in history and culture in contemporary Africa? It is important to make our students to understand the history of sexism and oppression and the many barriers and biases that women have historically faced. Historical interpretation of, or representations of women as victims, projecting victimhood onto meta-historical narratives allows for imagining the trajectories of communities along a ‘zigzag’ historical timeline, wherein the present is portrayed as a juncture similar to fateful junctures in the past. The logic of historical victimhood, I argued, propagates a forked historical consciousness and seeks to monopolise how it is imagined in terms of a series of points in history wherein the trajectory of the community may take a wrong turn. In this paper I argue that women claims are primarily political claims for change in specific settings since it embraces women's ongoing quests for educational equity, economic opportunity, civil rights, and political inclusion. In this paper, I reexamine why African women history of should recapture the gendered critique of the meanings and capaciousness of fundamental concepts in political theory such as democracy, representation, nationality, and citizenship
