This volume, which gathers prominent scholars, feminists, womanists, and creative writers from Africa and the African Diaspora, engages with candor and vigor issues and conflicts in feminism and black women studies - feminism and womanism debates, sisterhood and power struggles, research and documentation questions, elite and grass roots women relationship, urban and rural dichotomy, African and the African Diaspora relationship. Focusing on the pluralisms of feminisms, these essays address the conflict between indigenous African feminisms and the radicalism of variants of Western feminism with their emphasis on sexuality and seeming oppositions to motherhood. They collectively argue that the African environment specifically should provide the context for any meaningful analysis of feminisms on the continent.

The volume weaves theoretical questions, personal and collective engagements into a complex tapestry that spans Africa and the African Diaspora - from women organizing for change in South Africa and women's insurgency against colonialism in Nigeria to the problems of doing research on women in Uganda and building of a sisterhood in Memphis Tennessee. Above all, Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power makes a convincing case of dialogue across geographic and ethnic lines, across genders and within gender. In aggregate, the book is an important step towards that critical dialogue.

"Edited with skill and commitment, Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power underscores the fact that feminisms in Africa are inseparable from politics, economics and religions. One cannot stress enough the relevance and import of this volume that adroitly links the local to the global and the individual to the collective. This important and long overdue work merits the serious attention of women and men all over the world." - Nawal El Saadawi

ABOUT THE EDITOR
OBIOMA NNAEMEKA is associate professor of French, Women's Studies, and African American Studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis. She is the president of the Association of African Women Scholars (AAWS). Her numerous publications have appeared in edited volumes and scholarly journals including Signs, Feminist Issues, Law and Policy, The Western Journal of Black Studies, Research in African Literatures, and Dialectical Anthropology.

CATEGORY
Gender Studies, Cultural Studies/AFRICA