Decolonizing Development in Africa

Catalog description

The purpose of this course is to continue a discussion on the debates, structures, and agents that inform international development in Africa but through the varied perspectives and experiences of African women. Their perspectives offer critical interventions into development discourses and practices traditionally viewed through masculine and Western lenses. In studying development from the African woman’s perspective, one is better able to engage both the successes and failures of this formal process we call “development” in Africa. By examining African women and their relationship to this process, we will also see the alternative frames of feminisms and knowledges that emerge from these realities. The core questions driving this course are: (i) what are the various development ideologies and processes that have shaped contemporary Africa? (ii) How have African women adopted, rejected, and/or creolized these ideologies and processes for the purposes of changing their cultural, political, and economic conditions? The course readings come predominantly from African women, although there are texts from non-African women and men that generally serve to highlight the larger discourses taking place around a particular topic. Satisfies Africana Studies major Social Thought and Institutions track requirement. Satisfies Gender and Sexuality Studies major requirement. Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.