Spanning multiple generations and different geographies, Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing (2016) explores the lingering effects of colonialism, slavery, and dislocation, unfolding the complexities of the black diasporic experience. Mapping the family branches of Esi's and Effia's descendants - one in Ghana and the other in America - the novel unfolds the tensions surrounding the African diaspora, throwing light on the fractures, estrangements, and shifting identities that complicate notions of return and belonging. While Ghana's Year of Return initiative in 2019 encourages descendants of the African diaspora to reconnect with their long-lost roots and ancestral belonging, Homegoing complicates this idea of diasporic return, portraying it as a fraught, incomplete negotiation rather than a resolution to historical displacement. Under the colonial rule in Ghana, Effia's descendants grapple with the contradictions of postcolonial identity and cultural hybridity, indicating how Africa is not an unchanged and unproblematic homeland. On the other hand, through the experiences of Esi's descendants in the US, Gyasi highlights how the African diaspora survives the violent legacies of the Middle Passage, Jim Crow segregation, and systemic racism, and also how diasporic Black women withstand the general trauma induced by racial division. By foregrounding these parallel narratives of displacements and mutual estrangements between Africa and the Black diaspora, Homegoing not only interrogates narratives of seamless returns and reconnections but also reinforces that diasporic returns are mediated by history, memory, and the limitations of belonging. Analyzing the female characters' experience of displacement and return, this paper examines Homegoing as a diasporic narrative that resists the fixity of "homeland" and instead presents return as an uncertain, often illusory process shaped by historical trauma and generational rupture. Drawing on Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic and Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother, this paper aims to situate Homegoing within critical discussions of Black diasporic identity and the afterlives of slavery and argue that Gyasi's novel ultimately reframes return not as a physical journey back to the continent, but as an ongoing, contested and gendered process of diasporic self-making across time and space.
Groundwater is a substantial source of freshwater that supports the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. Intensifying climate crises and mounting pressure on water reserves have increased dependence on groundwater, a resource that is highly vulnerable to overexploitation and mismanagement. Growing demands and shrinking aquifers have triggered competition among stakeholders, where deepening inequities may further escalate tensions and disputes around water-communal spheres. Amid these realities, contestations in managing groundwater are scholarly under-studied in transboundary settings, despite such regions being widely recognized for longstanding conflicts over surface water sharing. Focusing on the invisible water (groundwater) from a cross-border context encounters another gap from a gender perspective. Despite women being frontline water handlers and managers, the state of recognition for their water service and meaningful inclusion in governance is questioned by experts. Referred to as water-vulnerable, women's subjugation, shaped by sociocultural dogmas, undermines their livelihoods and intensifies the sufferings of women who depend on this scarce resource at conflicted borders. To voice their rights and needs, governance systems need to instill gender considerations into transboundary regimes to leverage women's water knowledge and their capacity in resolving disputes for peaceful and diplomatic transboundary aquifer management. Scholars recommend analytical tools and methodologies, instigated by new concepts like, socio-hydrogeology, to examine society-groundwater relations to guide systemic change in governance. To operationalize this shift, the study proposes a novel 3'R' framework- Resource Knowledge, Rights, and Roles: as key dimensions through which gender can be embedded in transboundary aquifer governance and applies socio-hydrogeology as a methodological foundation to address issues in each of these domains. Thus, this paper critically examines the interplay within the transboundary groundwater-gender-governance nexus, guided by the integrated 3'R'-socio-hydrogeology approach, which attempts to contribute to the transboundary water management literature, where the gender-groundwater relation in shared waters remains insufficiently explored.
In the US and global medical systems, research has shown that black women, generally, disproportionately experience higher rates of maternal and infant mortality due to implicit bias and systemic anti-black racism. Accordingly, black women, including doulas and midwives, continue to rethink alternative practices grounded in African epistemologies to advance birthing, healing, and wellbeing within black communities. This article conducts a transnational black feminist analysis of the birthing epistemologies and healing practices of African and African diasporic women (AADW) in the diaspora, particularly in the US. We frame birthing as a critical site of black feminist intervention for theorizing wellbeing as AADW return, physically and epistemologically, to Africa to reclaim and repurpose ancestral knowledge. Our analyses show that AADW use birthing as a radical site for: sharing knowledge reciprocally, enacting transnational communal black wellness, refusing epistemic erasure, trusting black women's knowledge of their bodies, and reclaiming African ancestral identities.We argue that the multidirectional relationships between Africans and diasporans demonstrate the transnational exchange of gendered birthing knowledge, prompting new approaches to diaspora scholarship and rethinking gendered wellness in transnational Blackness. Theoretically, we draw from black and African feminist standpoint theories and African epistemological concepts such as Ubuntu and Omoluabi, which necessitate communal interconnectedness and responsibility. These frameworks allow us to frame "return" as multidirectional and shared epistemological encounters grounded in the oral histories and experiences of the AADW drawn from the US, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania. Within the discourse of return, our work offers new insights into how African birthing epistemologies are translated into contemporary wellness practices and emphasizes gendered reciprocal connections between African diasporic communities. It expands black and African feminist discourses by integrating birthing traditions and maternal wellness as critical yet underexplored sites of decolonial praxis.
Young women and girls in Nigeria face significant barriers to full civic engagement, including through activism While Nigeria has a rich and storied history of gender activism by women's organizations who have been at the forefront for gender transformation (Madunagu, 2008), generations of women continue to fight similar struggles for equality in a society that continues to undermine and underplay the roles of women (Omotoso, 2024). Through this article we trace our activist journeys as women from Jos, Nigeria. It is a conversation between a researcher and three young co-researchers and mentees that have worked together for six years. We will reflect on our journeys through engaging with research and community-based programming, and how that has impacted our life trajectories, activism, and civic engagement.
This paper examined the experiences of three women school principals who have been denied the act of leadership while at the helm of leadership in their schools. Owing to patriarchal barriers and contextual inequities, women in school leadership continue to experience bias, discrimination, and prejudice in their respective institutions. Underpinned by the qualitative interpretive paradigm and using a phenomenological multiple case study as a research design, we used semi-structured interviews to generate data from three women school principals who were purposively selected. The participants were purposively selected based on gender and position, and their schools were located in one education district in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We used thematic analysis to analyse data, and the findings revealed that entrenched patriarchal norms, institutional gatekeeping, and conflicting gender expectations undermined the leadership authority of women principals, often reducing their roles to symbolic positions. Participants faced a leadership paradox, expected to be both nurturing and assertive, yet penalised for either. Despite these challenges, the women actively resisted structural barriers through solidarity, mentorship, and professional networks, which served as strategic tools of resilience. The study recommends structured mentorship programmes, gender-sensitive leadership training, participatory community dialogues, and institutional accountability mechanisms such as gender inclusive recruitment practices to create more equitable leadership environments for women.
This article describes early analysis from the Achieving Gender Justice in Education project, involving 20 open-ended 'storytelling' interviews as an approach to narrative inquiry with educators and administrators from three Canadian provinces. Participants describe various forms of gender-based violence and discrimination experienced in schools, including inappropriate touching, sexual harassment, unwillingness to enhance school safety for girls and 2SLGBTQ+ students, and blocking of such initiatives by community members. They also convey substantive efforts to fight for the rights of girls and 2SLGBTQ+ students and support boys to embody positive interpretations of masculinity. This paper analyzes the experiences and considers how the stories might inform the practical application of gender justice and transformation in schools. Gender transformation is a term used primarily in international development, building on a premise that problematically suggests that Global South societies need transformation whereas Global North societies are transformed. This research highlights that, while it is important to attend to the context of violence, the call for gender transformation should extend to all countries and societies, not only those in the Global South.
Gender inequality and gender-based violence (GBV) continue to pose significant challenges worldwide, particularly in South Africa. Addressing these issues requires a commitment to 'staying with the trouble' in every possible way. This article draws on research conducted with fourteen first-year women students studying education at a South African university, highlighting the potential of participatory visual methodology (PVM) to facilitate transformative learning and social change. I adopt the theoretical perspective that transformative learning encompasses both personal transformation and social change, as individual and societal transformations are intrinsically interconnected. The central research question posed is: How can transformative learning be facilitated through participatory visual methodology with young South African women? Over a decade of research with these young women employed various participatory visual methods, which enabled them to explore, reflect on, and critique their experiences of gender inequality and GBV. By gaining new perspectives, they were able to envision different ways of being an Indigenous woman, positioning themselves as agents of social change within their communities. This article critically examines participatory visual research as a means of enabling transformative learning in the context of gender inequality and GBV in South Africa.
This paper examines what sustains the persistent cases of female genital mutilation (FGM), regardless of its illegality in Kassena-Nankana West and Pusiga districts in the Upper East Region of Ghana. In particular, it assesses the efficacy of national anti-FGM policy intervention. Based on perspectives from the local people, data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) from two districts with a sample size of 40 participants. An interpretive phenomenological approach is utilised for data analysis. This qualitative case study reveals that legislative measures, in conjunction with a health education approach, demonstrate only moderate effectiveness in eliminating FGM. The limited success can be attributed to neo-liberalism and the capitalist patriarchal system, which create a condition that restrains women's capacity to stand against FGM, something that conventional cultural norms or political stance theories cannot adequately explain. These findings suggest that public perceptions are gradually shifting in response to interventions in health education policy. However, marginalisation and low socio-economic status hinder the uptake and comprehension of 'rights' and medical knowledge, thereby suppressing females' autonomy and motivation to abandon FGM.
The discussion on gender transformation has predominantly been articulated via the perspective of gender equality, through constitutional rights, legal forms, policy measures, and institutional representation. This article reframes the paradigm of gender transformation in the Global South from a focus on equality to a focus on liberation. Although Global North liberal feminism-inspired equality measures have improved representation and legislative reforms, they are nonetheless constrained by neoliberal, technocratic, and epistemically colonial presumptions. The paper makes the case that real change necessitates breaking down the structural, cultural, and epistemic underpinnings of colonialism and patriarchy, drawing on postcolonial feminist theory. It presents freedom as a decolonial practice with roots in inclusive masculinities, community action, and indigenous knowledge systems. It emphasises the significance of community-driven initiatives, radical feminist practices, and localized approaches in confronting patriarchal systems that perpetuate oppression. The article illustrates how locally based initiatives produce long-lasting, context-responsive change using examples from Africa and other Southern countries. A Southern epistemology of gender justice that emphasizes relational ethics, collective emancipation, and emancipatory social transformation is presented in the study's conclusion.
This article explores the "how" of gender transformation under conditions of increasing inequality and insecurity in the Canadian province of Ontario. The point of entry for our exploration is the increase in gendered survival work associated with acute poverty and homelessness - both of which are rapidly increasing alongside stagnating national progress towards gender equality in Canada as indicated by the 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Gender Index. To produce our analysis, we drew on qualitative interview data from 18 women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness. Data was drawn from a larger sample of 49 people experiencing homelessness in Peterborough. Our findings illuminate critical dimensions of Canada's stagnating progress towards gender equality. We explicate how the intensification of women and gender-diverse people's work is organized by institutional responses to material and relational precarity across the life-course; the provision of homelessness services organized by the gender-binary; and the normalization of gender-based violence, and gendered experiences of (un)safety for women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness.
Through the story of Carmen, a young woman from Wentworth, South Africa, we explore the limits and possibilities of gender-transformation work in contexts shaped by systemic violence. Wentworth is a community marked by apartheid spatial legacies, intergenerational trauma, and the constant threat of gangsterism. In early 2025, Carmen arrived at the transnational TRANSFORM Youth Summit alone-despite having prepared alongside a group of her peers using photovoice methods. The other young people from her community did not come. Fear of kidnapping, territorial violence, and gang surveillance kept them home. Through Carmen's story, we consider how gender issues can be displaced or silenced in times of crisis, and how absence itself can be understood as a form of visual evidence. Drawing on feminist and affect theory, including Lauren Berlant's concept of the impasse, Harraway's entreaty to stay with the trouble, and Pumla Gqola's framing of refusal in the context of pervasive gendered violence, I argue for a more nuanced understanding of gender-transformation that accounts for the limits of participation under structural violence, and honours the subtle, complicated ways that youth continue to resist, witness, and make meaning. Ultimately, I call for an expanded praxis that sees youth not only as change-makers, but also as survivors negotiating the layered violence of their environments.
Launched in 2017, Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) aims to champion gender equality in development cooperation and programming. Proposals submitted to Global Affairs Canada for funding are rigorously assessed according to gender equality criteria, and applicants are required to conduct gender-based analyses and consult local women's groups. Global Affairs Canada has also prioritized 95% of their funding for projects that adequately integrate and target gender equality. While the FIAP policy has good intentions, it inadequately conceptualises gender equality and intersectionality, and contains Western-centric, neo-liberal, and instrumental notions of feminism and development. An understanding of how development organisations and their local partner organisations in the global South navigate, operationalise, and transform the FIAP is also lacking.This article argues that Canadian development organisations and their local partners in the global South have a crucial role to play in improving the FIAP's efficacy by sharing their experiences, successes, and challenges with Global Affairs Canada. Global Affairs Canada, for its part, must be open and receptive to these critiques, feeding organisations' suggestions into future iterations of the FIAP. A robust feedback loop is needed to truly decolonise Canadian foreign assistance. This necessitates Canadian organisations and their local partners to proactively advocate for creating channels that enable them to share their experiences and insights with Global Affairs Canada. This feedback should aim at not only providing criticism of the FIAP, but also amplifying promising approaches. For instance, some organisations have developed complex and localised understandings of gender and intersectionality, using decolonised and participatory approaches, and have built strong partnerships with local partners and local gender activists. These organisations can and should be allowed to positively influence future policies and practices with donors, policymakers, and practitioners.
Women's incarceration is rising around the world; yet insufficient research on women's distinctive experiences behind bars remains a barrier to effective advocacy and policy reform. This article examines how participatory visual methodologies (PVMs) can support incarcerated women in sharing their stories and addressing gender discrimination in the criminal legal system. I consider the extent to which PVMs can serve as Gender Transformative Methodologies in carceral settings: methods that identify gender inequities and develop strategies for change. To do so, I share the design, implementation, and impact of my participatory visual research in a South African women's correctional facility. The research adopted a four-week workshop protocol to investigate the challenges women face in their communities, South African correctional centers, and their visions for social and policy change. I present examples of artwork from three workshop cohorts and highlight the participants' creative and critical insights. I detail how their work was shared with institutional authorities, civil society, and policymakers during art exhibitions. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of PVMs for facilitating gender transformation in the criminal legal system and other restrictive contexts.
This paper explores the intersection of food insecurity and gender-based violence (GBV) in Cape Town, South Africa, through a four-year participatory action research project with women operating community kitchens in low-income areas and informal settlements. It identifies a significant statistical correlation between food insecurity and GBV, highlighting the compounded vulnerabilities experienced by women in marginalised communities.The study presents findings from a feminist initiative that supported women running community kitchens to take on roles as GBV First Responders-transforming these kitchens from mere food distribution points into hubs of safety, solidarity, and political agency. Drawing on Silvia Federici's concept of the urban food commons and feminist critiques of reproductive labour, the paper explores how communal food practices can resist both hunger and violence as intertwined forms of structural oppression.Using a mixed-methods approach, we combine statistical data on food insecurity and GBV with qualitative insights from a participatory research process. The findings demonstrate that women who have experienced GBV are three times more likely to be food insecure, and that hunger functions as a gendered mechanism of control within unequal food systems.This paper critiques the reliance on charity-based food relief and advocates for systemic change led by grassroots actors. We contribute to feminist debates on structural violence and care by showing how everyday acts of commoning in marginalised urban contexts can offer pathways toward healing, social justice, and food security.
Transgender people in Ukraine face a lack of attention to their rights from both society and the law. To uphold the values of the rule of law, which ensures equality and dignity of all citizens, and to ensure compliance with international human rights standards, it is necessary to analyse the legal protection of their labour rights. The following methods were used in the study: dialectical technique, formal logical and systemic methodologies, formal logic, systemic technique, formal legal approach, comparative legal technique, and modelling method. The purpose of the study is to examine the current state of legislation and employment practices for transgender people to develop recommendations for improving the protection of their labour rights and supporting inclusiveness and equality in the workplace.
The menace of violence against women is a global epidemic that requires a holistic approach to address. Feminist ideology has evolved over the centuries while undergoing an unprecedented transformation in addressing global women's issues. This study employed the social marketing theory and digital ethnographic approach to identify the primary type of social media campaigns, the prevalent forms of violence against women, and the key themes of social media campaigns used to address and reduce violence against women in Nigeria. The data of about twenty distinct social media campaigns within ten years were analysed using frequency counts and percentages. Findings revealed that about 35 percent of the social media campaigns used single media while about 65 percent used multiple media platforms. Sexual violence such as sexual harassment and rape were the recurring forms of violence against women, promoted by digital feminists in Nigeria. The study confirmed that digital feminism is an emerging dimension of feminism using digital media to advance the cause of women across the globe. The use of social media campaigns is beneficial for digital feminists in promoting ideas and conversations that advocate the rights of women globally, especially regarding ameliorating the menace of violence against women.
