Exploring the Transformative Essence of Intellectual Feminism in Africa: Some Contributions of Amina Mama - De Gruyter
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Open Political Science, 2021; 4: 126–135
Research Article
Al Chukwuma Okoli*
Exploring the Transformative Essence
of Intellectual Feminism in Africa:
Some Contributions of Amina Mama
https://doi.org/10.1515/openps-2021-0013
received October 21, 2020; accepted January 14, 2021.
Abstract: The paper seeks to explore the transformative essence of intellectual feminism in Africa, with particular
reference to the contributions of Amina Mama. Following textual and contextual exegeses of works by or on the
focal scholar-activist, as well as insights drawn on extant literature on aspects of her gender/feminist engagements/
scholarship, the paper posits that Amina Mama has made significant transformative contributions in various sites of
intellectual feminism, especially in the areas of intellectual resourcing, academic leadership and mentoring, as well as
strategic scholarly activism/advocacy. Among other things, the study intends to set an agenda on how to effectively link
feminist scholarship to practice in an effort to mainstreaming social transformation in Africa.
Keywords: Amina Mama, feminism, intellectual feminism, social transformation, transformational feminism
1 Introduction
Feminism is a social belief system or movement dedicated to the emancipation of women from cultural and structural
and allied inhibitions of the patriarchal world. It refers to “a complex set of political ideologies used by the women’s
movement to advance the cause of women’s equality and put to an end to sexist theory and practice of social oppression”
(Ngwainmbi, 2004: 95). As conceived by Mama (cited in Encyclopedia.com, 2018) “Feminism is broadly defined as the
struggle for the liberation of women, and encompasses epistemologies, methodologies, theories, and modes of activism
that seek to bring an end to the oppression and subordination of women by men”. Vitally,
feminism refers to the area where theory and practice meet with regard to transforming the unequal power relationships between women
and men. It is more than an intellectual enterprise for the creation of knowledge. It also draws on the struggles of the women’s movement
and the theorizing emanating from those experiences (Hudson, 2005: 155).
Among other things, contemporary feminism is characterized by radical intellectualism (Mama, 2007). It consists of “a
variety of inter-related frameworks used to observe, analyze, and interpret the complex ways in which the social reality
of gender inequality is constructed, enforced, and manifested from the largest institutional settings to the details of
people’s daily lives….”(Ngwainmbi, 2004: 94). As Mama (2011:1) observes “As a theory of knowledge and an intellectual
practice, feminism deconstructs the epistemological foundations of patriarchy and contributes to the emancipation of
women as subjects, but also in the transformation of institutions as sites for critical intellectual engagements”.
Broadly, two schools of thought have dialectically evolved over the years, namely liberal and radical feminism.
Liberal feminism “identifies gender inequality as the main problem and seeks to promote women’s equality with men
in all spheres of life” (Kitunga & Mbilinyi, 2006:46; USAID, 2012). It maintains a conservative and technocratic approach
to women’s liberation, with its tokenist, reformist and conformist faith in so-called affirmative action (USAID, 2012).
Liberal feminism is typified in the WID-WAD-GAD developmental feminism propagated by transnational development
*Corresponding author: Al Chukwuma Okoli, Federal University of Lafia, Nigeria, Lafia, Nigeria, E-mail: okochu007@yahoo.com
Open Access. © 2021 Al Chukwuma Okoli, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.Exploring the Transformative Essence of Intellectual Feminism in Africa: Some Contributions of Amina Mama 127
agencies (Rathgeber, 1989). It is characteristically pro-Western and orthodox. On the other hand, radical feminism takes
a revolutionary approach to feminism. It questions patriarchal relations from the perspective of de-constructionism,
arguing that all gender relations are socially constructed (Steady, 2004). In this regard, Kitunga & Mbilinyi (2006:46)
posits that “Radical feminism challenges us to deconstruct ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ and explore how these gender
identities – and others – have been constructed”. So, whilst the liberal perspective to feminism favours biological
determinism, the radical paradigm identifies with social constructivism as the basis of gender relations (Smith, 2000;
Steady, 2004).
Intellectual feminism involves feminist praxis, activism and advocacy within the domain of academia, whether
established/institutionalized or not. With respect to the established academia, the universities and institutionalized
research organization count as veritable sites. Essentially, intellectual feminism involves the production, reproduction
and appropriation of feminist knowledge through avenues such as teaching, research and publications, academic
socialization, mentorship, and scholarly activism (cf. Betran & Mehrotra, 2004; Liinason, 2011). It seeks to engender
gendered scholarship and consciousness for social mobilization and transformation. In effect, the essence and end of
intellectual feminism is to propagate and mainstream feminist-oriented intellectual and social capital for progressive
societal change.
Africa’s contemporary intellectual feminism is focused on confronting and transforming the abiding patriarchic
gender relations on the continent towards entrenching a progressive social order amenable to the concerns of women
rights and wellbeing. Essentially, intellectual feminism situates the struggle for women’s liberation and empowerment
within the context of social engineering, using organized academia as a focal point of activism. Africa’s intellectual
feminism utilizes the platform and offerings of the established academia to engender and mainstream the feminist
project through a variety of strategic actions. In the views of Mama:
Africa’s feminist thinkers work in multiple locations to integrate theories and practices, and link research with activism. Those of us
equipped with the social consciousness developed by our involvement in women’s movements treat the classroom as a key site – for
changing consciousness and equipping students to effect change in the wider world. Indeed, the presence of over five million youths
enrolled in Africa’s universities at any one time provides a major motivation for working within them (2008:38).
Whilst the place of intellectual feminism as a pivotal expression of the contemporary African feminist movement has
been widely acknowledged (Imam, Mama, and Sow, 1996; Mama, 2008), much is yet to be said about the practical
outcomes associated with this pattern of feminism. It is in the light of the foregoing that the proposed study would seek
to explore the transformative import of intellectual feminism in contemporary Africa, with particular reference to the
contributions of Amina Mama.
The remainder of the paper is organized into a number of thematic areas. What comes next is the analytical
framework whereby the theory of transformational feminism is advanced as the analytical anchorage. This is followed
by a description of Amina Mama’s personality and profile, which is in turn followed by her thoughts on feminism and
intellectual feminism. Next to this is a discourse on Mama’s intellectual feminism’s legacies. The last section is the
conclusion.
2 Analytical Framework: Transformational Feminism
Transformational activism presupposes “a new kind of activism that aims to catalyse a mindset shift” towards changing
“the direction of our culture” (Gaines, 2016: para. 6). It posits that feminism is a “transformative project” (Linason,
2011:5) dedicated to qualitative radical ‘social change’ (Ngwainmbi, 2004). According to Kitunga and Mbilinyu:
Transformative feminism struggles against all forms male domination/supremacy (often referred to as ‘patriarchy’); class exploitation
on the basis of capitalism, the dominant economic structure today; imperial domination and growing supremacy of the G7 countries
(often referred to as corporate globalization); oppression on the basis of race/ethnic differences; and fundamentalism and traditionalism
(2006:46).128 Al Chukwuma Okoli
Transformational feminism is thus an attempt to pragmatize the feminist thinking and practice in order to make them
become creditably a change agency (Morley &Wash, 1995). In effect, transformational feminism aspires to transcend the
orthodoxies of liberal and radical feminism in an effort to evolve an inclusive and progressive feminist praxis capable of
not only resisting or fighting iniquitous gender relations, but also ‘transforming them’ (Sow, 1997:45). So, in addition to
challenging structures of patriarchy and gender hierarchies, transformational feminism “promotes the interests of the
subalterns; challenges (and changes) the status quo; and takes risks in the pursuit of creating a radical social change”
(Campbel, 2014:5).
The epistemological orientation of transformational feminism is characterized by intersectionality, interdisciplinarity
and subversive activism/advocacy. Intersectionality presupposes that gender relations intersect other modes of identity,
such as ethnicity/race, class, religion, elitism, etc. in dynamic and complex ways (Hooks, 2000; Delamater & Hyde,
2010; Steady, 2004). Interdisciplinarity refers to the articulation of feminist analysis with allied disciplines at the levels
of epistemology, pedagogy and methodology. Situating this epistemological orientation, Mama (2011: 4) observes that
feminism “embraces trans-disciplinary methodology, in order to subvert these academic disciplinary decisions”.
The subversive tendency in transformational feminism enables it to explore “subversive alternatives” towards
encouraging and opening up “possibilities for resistance and change” (Amadiume, 2006:26). This alludes to how
feminist activists seek to “assert agency” by strategically negotiating “with relevant actors in a patriarchal terrain”
(Okeke-Ihejirika, 2017). The essence of this pattern of feminist activism has been aptly described thus:
In very general terms, feminism as a radical thinking/conceptual tradition has deliberately ruptured the boundaries of conventional,
often reactionary knowledge production everywhere it has been practiced, and has challenged convention as an ideological practice, by
arguing for a politics of transformation and of daily life (Cited in McFadden, 2011: para. 1).
The analytical pragmatism of transformational feminism places it in an advantageous position to effectively bridge
the orthodox divides between radical and liberal feminism, presenting thereby a more robust, inclusive and objective
paradigm of feminist praxis. It is in the light of this fate that this paper adopts transformational feminism as its
theoretical framework.
3 Of Amina Mama: A Highlight of Personality and Profile
Amina Mama was born and raised in the city of Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, in 1958. She holds a B.Sc. in psychology
from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and an M.Sc. in Social Psychology from the University of London (www.
uct.ac.za/org/agi). She completed her Doctorate Degree from the University of London with a thesis entitled: Race and
Subjectivity: A study of Black of woman (www.uct.ac.za/org/agi).
Mama has lived and worked with women’s movements and universities across Africa, the Caribbean, United
Kingdom and the Netherlands (amama@ucdavis.ed). She spent ten (10) years in University of Cape Town in South
Africa, where she founded and led the African Gender Institute (Salo & Mama, 2001). She was the founding editor of
Africa’s flagship gender studies journal, Fminist Africa (amama@ucdavis.ed).
Amina Mama has been a member of the Board of Directors of the United Nations Institute for Research on Social
Development (UNIRSD), the Global Fund for Women (GFW), and Council for the Development of Social Science
Research in Africa (CODESRIA). (www.uct.ac.za/org/agi). She is widely published and travelled. Mama is an advocate
of transformative scholarship dedicated towards bridging the gap between feminist theory and activism. Her research
interests centre on women in government and politics, militarism, women’s organizing and movement, race and
subjectivity, and gender inter-sectionalities.
Mama is a prolific researcher and author. Her major seminal publications include: (i) The Hidden Struggle: Statutory
and Voluntary Sector Responses to Violence against Black Women in the home (Runnymede Trust, 1999) (ii) Beyond the
Mask: Race, Gender and Subjectivity (Rutledge, 1995) (iii) Engendering African Social Sciences (co-edited with A. Imam
and F. Sow, CODESRIA, 1997), and a host of important journal articles.
Currently, Amina Mama is a professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of California. She has
remained vibrantly active in various feminist platforms in African and the wider world. Over the years, she has raised
and nurtured a generation of scholars and mentees who identify with her ideo-intellectual influences.Exploring the Transformative Essence of Intellectual Feminism in Africa: Some Contributions of Amina Mama 129
4 Amina Mama’s Approach to Feminism/ Intellectual Feminism
Primarily, Amina Mama sees feminism as concerned with “challenging patriarchy and liberating women” (Mama,
1997: 417). In a more advanced sense, she defines feminism as “an international political and intellectual movement to
challenge the subordination of women” (Mama, 2005:5). This definition is important because it captures the intellectual
and political sides of feminism. For Mama, feminism is necessarily and inherently intellectual as well as political;
hence her “insistence on sabotaging the false separation between African feminist thought and activism” (Abbas, 2014:
para. 2). More significantly, Mama holds a sort of syncretic perspective on feminism:
Feminism is the theory, philosophy, politics and practices of the movement for women’s liberation. It has numerous manifestations all
over the world. It offers us tools and strategies for demystifying and working to change the myriad historical and material realities that
oppress and exploit women. I prefer to refer to ‘feminism in Africa’ or ‘Africa feminisms’ rather than to use the singular term ‘African
feminism’ because the theories and practices that comprise the struggle for women’s liberation vary widely according to context (Mama
in Abbas, 2014: para. 3).
Amina Mama also sees feminism as a system or mode of identity, based on a conscious and conscientious identification
with feminist struggles. According to her:
I have never felt offended by being addressed as a feminist, but rather humbled and daunted at the responsibility it bestows on me.
Feminism remains a positive movement based term, with which I am happy to be identified. It signals a refusal of oppression- internal,
external, psychological and emotional, socio-economic, political and philosophical. I like the word because it identifies with a community
of confident and radical women, many of whom I respect, both as individuals and for what they have contributed to the development of
the world as we know it (cited in AFF, 2010:3).
Mama’s approach to feminism is characteristically intersectionalist and interdisciplinary. As an intersectionalist
feminist thinker, analyst and activist, Mama maintains a socio-structural bent towards gender cum feminist praxis.
According to her:
As an intellectual worker and thinker, I am particularly interested in the application of feminism to the analysis and demystification of
women’s oppression and the manner in which this is always inflected by the interactions of gender and sexuality with other dimensions
of systematic injustice such as nationalism, ethnocentrism, stratifications of class, caste, location, and social status, heteronormativity,
unjust and undemocratic political and economic regimes. All of these affect our psychology, our cultural, political and material realities
in ways that we must critically analyze and understand if we seek to liberate ourselves and our people’ (cited in Abbas, 2014: para. 4).
Mama’s interdisciplinary approach to feminism is evident in her scholarly eclectism, which is geared towards evolving
dynamic and holistic epistemological paradigm capable of sufficiently addressing the ramifying intersectionalities of
gender relations. This approach has also defined Mama’s attitude to feminist practice. According to her:
By bringing African women, not all of whom identify as feminist thinkers and their ideas together – across disciplinary, institutional and
geographic borders, our work has aimed to make the boundaries between research, pedagogy and activism porous, so that these arenas
can become epistemologically coherent (Mama, 2017:5).
Amina Mama dynamic approach to feminism also finds expression in her conception of intellectual feminism and/
or gender scholarship. For Mama, intellectual feminism is an “ethical scholarship”, and by ethical scholarship it is
meant “socially responsible scholarship that supports freedom, not scholarship that is free from social responsibility”
(Mama, 2017:23). Elsewhere, Mama defines the essence and purpose of intellectual feminism, noting that, “As a
theory of knowledge and intellectual practice, feminism deconstructs the epistemological foundations of patriarchy
and contributes to the emancipation of women as subjects and studies on and about women as critical intellectual
engagements” (Mama, 2011:1).130 Al Chukwuma Okoli
5 Transformative Impacts of Intellectual Feminism in Africa: Amina
Mama’s Contributions
Intellectual feminists have been on the forefronts of the feminist vanguard in Africa. Through their strategic engagements
in the various sites of feminist struggle, these dramatis personae have, among other things, generated enormous
intellectual ideological and social capital geared towards turning around gender relations in the continent. What is the
character of these engagements and how are they bringing about transformation impacts? The sub-sections that follow
attend to this analytical poser from the standpoint of Amina Mama’s contributions.
5.1 Mama and Intellectual Resourcing
Amina Mama’s exploits have been particularly outstanding in relation to research and publication. She is a vibrant
and prolific researcher cum author that has published more than a hundred seminal works, including internationally
acclaimed top-ranking books and journal articles. Her works are highly widely read and cited, as indicated by the
Google Scholar’s citation index (Table 1).
Table 1: Citation Tracking of selected Works of Amina Mama.
Year Title Publisher/Source No. of citation Remark(s)
Publication by 2018
2002 Beyond the mask: Race, gender, and subjectivity Taylor & Francis 672
1996 The hidden struggle: Statutory and voluntary White & Birch Limited 229
sector responses to violence against black
women in the home
1997 Engendering African social sciences Council for the Development 195 Co-edited with A. Imam
of Social Science Research in & F. Sow
Africa(CODESRIA)
1997 Heroes and villains; conceptualizing colonial and Africabib.org, 197 Co-edited with
contemporary violence against women in Africa Alexander, M. Jacqui &
Mohanty, Chandra T.
1996 Women’s Studies and Studies of Women in Africa Council for the Development 190
during the 1990s of Economic and Social
Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
1995 Feminism or Democracy? State feminism and Africa Development/Afrique 128
democratization in Nigeria et Development-JSTOR
2003 Restore, reform but do not transform: The gender Journal of Higher Education in 107
politics of higher education in Africa Africa (JSTOR)
2001 Challenging subjects : Gender and power in African Sociological Review 89
African contexts (ajol.info)
1989 Black women, the economic crisis and the British Feminist Review (Springer) 77
state
1989 Violence against black women: gender, race, and Feminist Review (Springer) 73
state responses
1997 Shedding the mask and tearing the vials: Cultural CODESRIA 53 Engendering African
studies for a post-colonial Africa social sciences (above)
1989 The hidden struggle London Race and Housing 59
Research UnitExploring the Transformative Essence of Intellectual Feminism in Africa: Some Contributions of Amina Mama 131
Table 1: Citation Tracking of selected Works of Amina Mama.
Continued
Year Title Publisher/Source No. of citation Remark(s)
Publication by 2018
1998 Khaki in the family: Gender discourses and African Studies Review 56
militarism in Nigeria (cambridge.org)
1984 Editorial Springer 56 Co-edited with V.
Amos, G. Lewis, & P
Parmar
1992 Black women and the British state: Race, class Sage 53
and gender analysis for the 1990s
2005 Gender studies for Africa’s transformation Books.google.com 37
1990 The role of academics in limiting and expanding CODESRIA 33
academic freedom
2007 Critical Connections: feminist studies in African Zed Books 26
context
2011 What does it mean to do feminist research in nigs.ufsc.br 28
African contexts
2004 Demythologizing gender in development: Wiley Online Library 25
feminist studies in African contexts
2000 National machinery for women in Africa: Towards Africabib.com 24
an analysis
2000 Violence against black women in the home Books.google.com 26
2012 Militarism, conflict and women’s activism in the Springer 23
global era: challenges and prospects for women
in three West African context
2000 Why we must write: Personal reflections on Taylor & Francis online 20
linking the alchemy of sciences with relevance of
activism
2008 Militarism, conflict and women’s activism agi.ac.za 20 Co-edited with M.
Okazawa-Ray
2004 Critical capacities: facing the challenges of Princeclauschair.nl 19
intellectual development in Africa
1993 Woman abuse in London’s Black communities The Caribbean Diaspora in 18
Britain
2000 Transformation Thwarted: Gender-Based Violence africabib.org 17
in Africa’s New
Democracies
1987 Race and subjectivity: a study of black women ethos.bl.uk 16
2006 Pursuing gender equality in the African university Taylor & Francis 16
1997 Postscript: Moving from analysis to practice CODESRIA 15 In: Engendering Africa
social sciences
2006 Towards academic freedom for Africa in the 21st Journal of Higher Education in 14
century Africa (JSTOR)
2002 Gains and Challenges: Linking theory and Discurso inaugural del 14 Unpublished
practice Congreso Mundial de la Mujer132 Al Chukwuma Okoli
Table 1: Citation Tracking of selected Works of Amina Mama.
Continued
Year Title Publisher/Source No. of citation Remark(s)
Publication by 2018
1991 Shedding the mask and tearing the veils Gender analysis and African 13 Unpublished
social sciences seminar
1999 Dissenting daughters/ Gender politics and civil Africabib.org 12
society in a militarized state
2009 Rethinking African Universities: Gender and Scholar and Feminist Online 11
Transformation
2000 Strengthening civil society: participatory action Taylor & Francis 10
research in a militarized state
Source: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=20&q=Amina+Mama&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
Mama’s intellectual resourcefulness goes beyond research and publications. She has been editing and reviewing for
numerous academic journals in various parts of the world (Okeke Ihejirika, personal communication, May 2018).
She has also been very active in the areas of academic advising, supervising and mentoring. In this regard, she has
distinguished herself as a highly productive and efficient resource-person for various academic and policy bodies.
5.2 Mama and Academic Leadership and Consultancy
Amina Mama was the Director of AGI from 1999 to 2009. Before then, she was the Chair of University of Cape Town’s
programme on Gender and Women Studies. She pioneered the establishment of the foremost feminist journal in Africa,
named Feminist Africa. The editorial of the maiden issue of the journal captures its focus this way:
Feminist Africa responds to the heightened salience of gender in African political and intellectual landscapes. It
provides a forum for intellectual activism that has always been intrinsic to feminism. It provides the first continental
platform for reflecting on the accumulated wisdom which has matured in the cauldron of post-colonial gender
contradictions ….. (Feminist Africa, Editorial, 2002:2).
Mama’s contributions in terms of academic leadership are also evident in her pioneering roles in respect of the
development and institutionalization of Women and Gender Studies in Africa (Mama, 1996). She worked with and for
universities in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, and elsewhere in the continent in evolving an African oriented feminist
pedagogy and epistemology (Danai, personal communication, June 2018).
Mama has been very active on the various pan-African feminist platforms and networks. A case in point is the
African Feminist Forum (AFF) established in 2006. Of the purpose of AFF, Imam (2009:167) opined that “The AFF is an
autonomous space for African feminists to reflect, reconnect and re-energize in order to strengthen African feminist
visions, analyses, movements and campaigns and strategies in order so as to promote women’s rights and transform
African realities in socially just and emancipatory ways”. Other platforms where the impact of Mama has been well
felt is the Council for the Development of Social Sciences in Africa (CODESRIA), Association of African Women for
Research and Development (AAWORD), and so on. Mama has been a vital resource person at various CODESRIA’s
programmes over the years. She counts as one of the Council’s esteemed college of mentors as well as board of directors.
The contributions of Mama to forums, such as the above, are mostly evident at the level of intellectual resourcing,
mentoring and ideological conscientization. It has been observed by one of Mama’s student-associate/mentees that
Mama “utilizes such platforms as veritable avenues for her kind of ‘subversive’ feminist activism and intellectualism”
(Awino Okech, personal communication, May, 2018).Exploring the Transformative Essence of Intellectual Feminism in Africa: Some Contributions of Amina Mama 133
5.3 Mama and Pragmatic Feminism
Mama’s pragmatic feminism consists of trans-locational intellectual networking and collaborations, strategic
engagement with the establishment, and persistent and theory-driven advocacy, as well as subversive activism (Abbas,
2004; Mama, 2017). She has made a number of strategic interventions within and without the established academia
seeking to negate, infiltrate, or subvert unfavourable gender relations/practices. A veritable case in point is the protest
letter that she wrote to the editors of an UK-based journal, Feminist Review, over its Euro-centric bias against African
feminist contributions. The letter not only got positive feedback; it was also published in an issue of the journal in
Winter, 1983. The publication is excerpted in Box 1.
Box 1: Amina Mama’s Protest Letter to Feminist Review as Published
“I feel that your omission (to date) of indigenous Black feminism is symptomatic of ‘Third-Worldism’, which I am defining as an abstract
anti-imperialism that places all non-white and Mediterranean descent people into a single category. This allows coverage of any ‘Third
World’ issue to provide a salve on the conscience of white feminism. It also facilitates the subversion of racism to anti-imperialism, on
the basis of a theoretical equation of the two. Proponents of anti-imperialism can then overlook internal racism, which is denied by this
expedient dissonance”.
“Your coverage of various ‘Third World’ women’s struggles is commendable, but in the context of your omission of Black feminism in
Britain, is highly suspect. Black feminist readers are, of course, interested in Iranian and Indian women’s struggles. I am suspicious of
the colourless nature of your ‘ANC Women’s Struggles’ (Feminist Review No. 12), since colour is fundamental to the class system found in
South Africa. Black women in this country have a collective interest in other women’s struggles against imperialism that is only slightly less
abstract than that of white feminists, the ‘slightly’ being due to the fact of our existence in Britain, the ‘less’ being due to our historical and
experimental appreciation of imperialism”.
“The failure of mainstream (to date, white) feminism to acknowledge its inherent racism, the failure of the readily coined ‘sisterhood’
to transcend racial boundaries indeed the class characteristics of the feminist movement, are all part of an idealization process which
precluding progress in fundamentally important directions. The failure to incorporate black feminist analysis into anti-imperialism has
repercussions in feminist theory and practice, not least of which is the facilitation of racism within feminism locally….
Source: Mama (1983: 99-100).
6 Conclusion
Intellectual feminism in Africa has been championed by scholar-activists who have dedicated substantial aspects of
their scholarly practice to the feminist struggle. In this paper, the example of Amina Mama has been used to illustrate the
teleological significance of intellectual feminism in contemporary Africa. Through her resourceful and resilient feminist
engagements within the main and side-lines of academia, Amina Mama has distinguished herself as a celebrated
intellectual feminist, both in Africa and the wider world. Amina’s legacies include contributing to the development
Gender Studies Programme, curriculum and pedagogy in African Universities, raising and nurturing a generation
of vibrant feminist scholar-activists through academic mentoring and networking, pioneering the establishment of
Africa’s flagship feminist journal named Feminist Africa, authoring a multiplicity of seminal publication on gender/
feminist studies, and promoting Africa’s feminist epistemology and ideology.
Mama’s intellectual feminism is characteristically transformational. She does not favour tokenist, reformist and
conformist approaches to feminism. Rather, she insists that gender relations should be transformed in a manner that
makes for sustainable social inclusion, equity and co-existence. Her pragmatic and subversive approach to gender/
feminist scholarship and activism enables her to penetrate, negotiate, infiltrate and thwart established patriarchal
spaces with a view to bringing about transformative changes in gender relations. By modulating theory and practice,
Mama has systematically transformed feminism into a more actionable strategy and praxis for social change. To a
reasonable extent, Mama’s endeavours as an intellectual feminist have been impactful. However, it should be stated
that Amina Mama’s feminist undertakings have not been entirely without blemish. Although teleological significant,
Mama’s intellectual feminism, much like other forms of feminisms, bears some trappings of identity politics, which, in
effect, makes it liable to possible counter-feminist backlashes.134 Al Chukwuma Okoli
Acknowledgement: The initial draft of this paper was presented at the 2018 Gender Institute organized by the Council
for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), held in Dakar, Senegal. The author wishes to
appreciate CODESRIA for inspiring the paper as well as providing the platform and incentive for its development.
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