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Body and Representation pp 21–34Cite as

Bodies, Choices, Globalizing Neo-colonial Enchantments: African Matriarchs and Mammy Water

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Abstract

As I engage the discourse on empowering and disempowering agencies in body signs, I will examine collectivist notions of women’s solidarity in relation to women’s power in traditional cultures and societies in Africa. More importantly, it is my intention to highlight growing tensions between this traditional African matriarchitarianism and new counter-forces in notions of individual agency in cultural encounters and subsequent contestations in post-colonial and neocolonial African contexts. With globalization, new biologies, new desires, new destinies, how is subversion renegotiated and at what cost? What is the place of individual self and choice for women and girls in the new conditions of social change?

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Authors
  1. Ifi Amadiume
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University Bremen, Germany

    Sigrid Schade (professor for art science and aesthetical theory) (professor for art science and aesthetical theory)

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© 2002 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

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Amadiume, I. (2002). Bodies, Choices, Globalizing Neo-colonial Enchantments: African Matriarchs and Mammy Water. In: Härtel, I., Schade, S. (eds) Body and Representation. Schriftenreihe der Internationalen Frauenuniversität »Technik und Kultur«, vol 6. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-11622-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-11622-6_1

  • Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-8100-3254-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-663-11622-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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