Chair: Dr Amanda Chisholm, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security

Speakers: Dr. Omotola Ilesanmi, Nigerian Institute for International Affairs, Professor J. Jarpa Dawuni, Howard University, Professor Akosua Darkwah, University of Ghana. 

How do we approach the study of African women in ways that centre their perspectives and original contributions to African society, politics, knowledge production, and development?

Dr Ilesanmi, Professor Dawuni and Professor Darkwah discuss the launch of the Palgrave Handbook of African Women’s Studies,  a book that brings decolonial feminist perspectives to major African concerns of peace, justice and development. Ilesanmi accounts for African women’s contributions to realising the landmark UNSCR 1325 and critically assesses its impact for African women. Dawuni contributes to the writing and rewriting of African women’s history and lives by exploring women’s entry into the judiciary, their influence on it, and their challenges and triumphs at the intersections of gender, class and professional hierarchies. Darkwah analyses African women’s roles in African development narratives by foregrounding their dexterity in navigating changing times, space, and social networks in the currents of globalisation through intra-continental and intercontinental trade.