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Thematic Article
Decolonising gender knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa: empirical insights and theoretical innovations from early career researchers—Introduction
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Abstract
This article introduces the Thematic Collection ‘Decolonising Gender Knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa: Empirical Insights and Theoretical Innovations from Early Career Researchers’, edited by Alicia Bowman, Evelyn Garwe and Juliet Thondhlana. It highlights the under-representation of Global South scholars, particularly early career researchers (ECRs), in gender knowledge production in the region and advocates for grounding the study of gender in Africa in local realities and knowledge systems, in line with African feminist perspectives. Moreover, the article positions the collection as a powerful step towards decoloniality not simply by amplifying African perspectives, but by actively creating space for African scholars to shape the future of gender studies. The article discusses how the Thematic Collection fostered the co-production of knowledge by empowering African scholars to develop their own research questions and methodologies, free from Eurocentric constraints, thus promoting complete epistemic freedom. It also showcases the interdisciplinary nature of the Thematic Collection, spanning gender studies, higher education, and legal, labour, and urban studies. Overall, the introduction argues that, by centring the research of African ECRs, established power dynamics can be disrupted, and the dominance of Western-centric paradigms can be challenged.
Keywords
decolonialitygender studiesAfricaearly career researchersinterdisciplinarityIntroduction
Knowledge production in Africa is deeply embedded within complex social, political, and economic systems, further shaped by historical and on-going North–South power imbalances (Connell 2014; Mbembe 2016). Although there has been a significant increase in research in/on Africa, it remains marginalised, reflecting broader global inequalities (Iroulo & Tappe Ortiz 2022). This marginalisation is particularly evident in the under-representation and under-valuation of Global South scholars, including early career researchers (ECRs) from Sub-Saharan Africa. This Thematic Collection seeks to challenge this status quo by centring the voices and perspectives of this group of ECRs, who in this collection offer critical insights into gender dynamics within the region.
The lack of visibility and recognition of African scholarship is exacerbated by the enduring legacy of colonialism, which continues to shape global knowledge production (Akanle et al. 2013; Byrne & Z’Étoile 2019; Collyer 2018). The Global North has frequently been described as dominating research agendas and funding priorities, treating the Global South as ‘fields for study and as repositories for concepts developed in Northern academia’ (Bouilly et al. 2022: 1, Mitchell et al. 2020). Compounding these issues, the lack of funding and academic career mobility for Global South researchers has also been identified as a significant issue (Charlton & Sayegh 2019). This intellectual imperialism (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2023) and epistemological racism (Kubota 2020) limit the dissemination and recognition of African voices, including those that focus on gender-related issues. These dynamics shape how gender knowledge is produced, understood, and disseminated, and they hinder the development of solutions that benefit women’s and men’s lives in the Global South.
While attention to women and gender has grown exponentially in Africa in the last three decades (Cole et al. 2007; Mama 2007, 2011), colonial legacies continue to influence Gender Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa (Medie & Kang 2018; Mohanty 2003). One key issue is the enduring influence of Western feminist thought, which, while offering valuable insights, can overshadow the diverse social realities of African women. One way this overshadowing occurs is through the imposition of Western feminist frameworks and categories onto African contexts. Concepts like patriarchy or empowerment, for example, while relevant, may manifest differently in African societies with their own unique histories, cultural norms, and power dynamics. Applying these concepts without considering the plurality of African women’s values, experiences, and contexts, including, for example, their differing experiences of race, ethnicity, apartheid, military rule, culture, tradition, or religion, can lead to misinterpretations and fail to capture the complexities of their lives. Indeed, Kolawole (2002) argues that the failure to consider contextual realities accounts for the scepticism with which gender issues have been approached by some African male and female gender scholars, with gender continuing to be a divisive concept, one which has been seen as ‘imported from the West to “enslave” African women and alienate them from African men and the general struggle against racism’ (p. 93).
Global North scholarship has also been challenged for attributing gender inequalities in Africa to universal experiences of womanhood, whilst neglecting to explore how historical and contemporary global factors such as post-colonialism, globalisation, and neoliberalism interact to affect women’s experiences of inequalities and discrimination (Mohanty 1984, 2003; Oyewumi 2009, 2011). The exoticisation and reduction of African women’s voices and experiences to simplistic narratives of victimhood have also been challenged in the literature for their racist and sexist biases, inequities which help perpetuate harmful stereotypes and obscure the agency and resilience of African women (Abu-Lughod 2002; Fourshey et al. 2016; Win 2004). The focus on certain issues within Western feminist discourse, such as reproductive rights or workplace equality, without considering other priorities, such as challenges related to poverty, access to education, or land rights (Kolawole 2002), or how gender intersects with other forms of marginalisation, such as age, disability, and marital status, has also resulted in a disconnect between academic gender discourse and the lived experiences of African women.
The call for cultural specificity and an intersectional lens to inform gender studies in Africa and address the needs of African women has led to African scholars proposing different feminist models. Grounded on indigenous philosophies and worldviews, such models seek to resist cultural imperialism. Examples include womanism (Ogunyemi 1985), stiwanism (Ogundipe-Leslie 1994), motherism (Acholonu 1995), femalism (Opara 2005), and nego-feminism (Nnaemeka 2003). Although these theories differ in important ways, they also share similarities. According to Nkealah (2016), African feminisms speak ‘from (1) an African cultural perspective; (2) an African geopolitical location; (3) and an African ideological viewpoint’ (p. 62). The latter includes an ideology of gender inclusion, where both women and men, albeit not always equally, play a role in improving the material conditions of women.
In addition to challenging Western-centric paradigms and amplifying African feminist perspectives (Ampofo et al. 2004), there has been a growing movement within African academia to decolonise research methodologies, ensuring that the study of gender in Africa is grounded in local realities and knowledge systems (Malembanie 2014). There is also increasing awareness and resistance against harmful cultural practices and societal norms that perpetuate gender inequality in the continent (Ramtohul 2021), with African governments increasingly adopting national gender policies and legal frameworks that (1) guarantee equal rights for women in terms of education, healthcare, and political participation (Moyo & Dhliwayo 2019); (2) prohibit discrimination based on gender (World Bank Group 2018); and (3) criminalise violence against women, including domestic violence, female genital mutilation, and sexual harassment (UN Women 2023). Nonetheless, challenges remain, including limited funding for gender studies research, patriarchal attitudes, and uneven progress on gender equality across countries and regions in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A decolonial understanding of gender
The articles in this Thematic Collection contribute significantly to decolonising gender knowledge production in Sub-Saharan Africa. This commitment to decolonisation, nonetheless, must begin with a nuanced exploration of gender. As Medie (2022) argues, gender is not peripheral but central to understanding how power operates and how knowledge is produced. In the context of this Thematic Collection, gender is understood not as a fixed binary but as a fluid and contested concept deeply embedded in specific social, cultural, and historical contexts (Oyewumi 2004). We recognise that gender intersects with other dimensions of identity, such as race, class, sexuality, and age, and that these intersections shape the lived experiences of African women and men in complex ways. This understanding is rooted in the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989), which argues that various forms of discrimination combine to create unique experiences of oppression. As Collins (1990) argues, these dimensions operate within a matrix of domination, where intersecting power relations shape individual experiences. The way in which these intersections shape the lived experiences of African women and men is, in many cases, distinct from Western contexts. Mama (2007), for example, strongly argues that it is of critical importance that gender is examined within local histories, cultures, and power structures in order understand the specific challenges and opportunities African women and men face and develop effective and equitable solutions to gender inequality in the continent.
While this collection centres primarily on women, acknowledging their historical marginalisation and the persistent gender inequalities they continue to face in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, it does so with an awareness of the interconnectedness of gendered experiences. This emphasis is not intended to diminish the experiences of other genders. Rather, we recognise that the particular barriers faced by women in these contexts demand explicit attention to their experiences and perspectives as a necessary starting point for broader understanding.
Afro-feminism provides a strong justification for this approach. As Tamale (2006) argues, African women possess a unique worldview shaped by their positioning on the geopolitical margins. Because knowledge is shaped by power relations and lived realities, research focused on power dynamics must begin with the perspectives of those on the margins, recognising their unique insights into how power operates. We further acknowledge the importance of examining the experiences of men and other marginalised genders. Accordingly, this Thematic Collection explores men’s experiences of gender-based violence, understanding that attention to masculinities in different contexts is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of gender dynamics in Africa. This necessitates moving away from Western feminist frameworks, which may not adequately capture the complexities of African experiences.
Following Tamale (2020), we advocate for approaches rooted in African contexts and realities. Tamale (2020) asserts that Africa must begin ‘to examine itself and theorise its gender relations through fresh prisms and ontological frameworks’ (p. 229). She proposes Ubuntu as a relational ethic, prioritising the well-being of the community over the individual, as a potential foundation for this. She suggests that ‘the core values of communitarianism, humanness and egalitarianism enshrined in Ubuntu can be strategically deployed to operationalise gender justice, albeit after a careful interrogation and historicisation of the concept itself’ (p. 229). This approach suggests that, based on the pan-African discourse on Ubuntu, gender-based inequalities can be addressed more effectively than if addressed solely on the basis of Western concepts. This collection seeks to gender knowledge about Africa by decentring dominant frameworks and amplifying marginal narratives, recognising that the fundamental implication of power differentiation and subordination does not hold the same meaning in every African society and culture. Notably, one of the articles in this thematic collection explores gender through a theoretical fusion of Ubuntu and Ethics of Care, demonstrating the practical application of African decolonising approaches, and offering potential pathways towards more equitable and just gender relations for all.
Background to the thematic collection
In October 2023 and March 2024, the University of Nottingham (UoN) ran a British Academy-sponsored writing workshop (conducted online and followed by an in-person session in Ghana) in collaboration with the Association of African Universities (AAU). This workshop series was carefully planned as a collaborative venture from the start, involving both a Global North institution (UoN) and a pan-African organisation (AAU) in its design and execution. The aim was not only to strengthen the research and grant-writing skills of ECRs in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also to foster an intellectual community of scholars working co-productively across North–South divides. As Ishengoma (2017) argues, these co-created approaches to partnership are essential for moving beyond extractive models of research and toward equitable collaborations that strengthen research capacity in African institutions. To this end, the planning team included stakeholders from both Africa and the Global North, and the content and goals of the workshop were co-developed to reflect the priorities of the participants. ECRs from diverse Sub-Saharan African countries were selected to participate, and senior scholars were recruited as mentors. Crucially, the mentors included both African academics (including several successful alumni of previous writing workshops, now in senior positions) and scholars from the Global North, as well as editors of academic journals based in Africa and abroad. This diverse mentor pool was deliberate: it created a mentorship structure in which knowledge flowed in both directions. ECRs were paired with mentors in a hybrid format (initial virtual preparatory sessions and a subsequent intensive face-to-face workshop in Ghana) to enable ongoing dialogue, feedback, and mutual learning. Rather than a one-way transfer of expertise, mentors and mentees engaged in an ongoing exchange: experienced scholars provided guidance on academic writing and publishing, while Global North mentors learned from the local insights and context-specific expertise of African ECRs, and Global South mentors helped bridge local research with broader scholarly conversations. By involving past ECR workshop alumni as mentors, and according significant agency to the participants, the workshop embodied a model of mentorship that blurred the typical Global North–South hierarchy.
This Thematic Collection intentionally centres the contributions of ECRs to draw attention to the lived realities of their participants, and to challenge conventional hierarchies in academic knowledge production. Highlighting that these articles are authored by African ECRs is a critical intervention, not merely a gesture of inclusion. This emphasis recognises that ECRs in the region often produce some of the most urgent, innovative, and empirically grounded gender research in the region, yet remain underrepresented in the global circulation of knowledge. Their marginalisation is not merely institutional or economic; it is also epistemic, operating through unequal access to publication platforms, limited research mentorship, and narrow definitions of scholarly authority (CODESRIA 2018; Nyamnjoh 2012).
What constitutes an early career researcher is itself contextually specific. Internationally, the term often refers to individuals within five to ten years post-PhD who are in the early stages of academic employment (for example, postdoctoral researchers, assistant lecturers, or junior faculty) (Horta et al. 2010). In African contexts, however, this category includes a broader and more heterogeneous group of scholar-practitioners: university lecturers with master’s degrees who are expected to publish while pursuing doctoral qualifications; doctoral candidates whose programmes include structured publishing components; and part-time or adjunct faculty whose precarious employment conditions do not match their research responsibilities (CODESRIA 2021; Teferra 2016). This complexity demands a flexible and inclusive definition that reflects how research labour is actually organised on the continent.
The characteristics of early career researchers in these contexts are shaped by their liminal status—often simultaneously positioned as students, teachers, and emerging scholars. Many must navigate heavy teaching loads, minimal institutional support, and uneven access to research funding or training in academic writing for publication. Yet it is precisely this precarious and transitional position that often sharpens their critical insight, as ECRs are attuned to the politics of knowledge production, aware of whose voices are missing, and motivated to challenge inherited paradigms with empirically grounded alternatives (Cloete et al. 2015). Far from being junior in impact or relevance, their contributions often engage directly with community-based knowledges, gendered lived experiences, and alternative epistemologies that enrich and diversify African feminist thought.
Yet the emphasis of this Thematic Collection on early career scholars does not imply that senior African scholars are always well represented. On the contrary, the relative visibility of established scholars is often a hard-won achievement within global knowledge circuits that still prioritise voices from the Global North (de Sousa Santos 2014). Moreover, established scholars may themselves operate within systems of privilege or institutional gatekeeping that inadvertently reproduce hierarchies of access within African academic spaces. ECRs, in contrast, often occupy more precarious positions and are more likely to be experimenting with decolonial, intersectional, and community-embedded methods, work that challenges dominant structures both within and beyond academia (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013).
In this light, the collection does not frame early career researchers as simply ‘emerging’ or ‘learning’. Rather, it insists on their analytical authority and epistemic legitimacy, recognising that their insights are not only valuable but essential to the future of decolonial gender knowledge in Africa. By foregrounding their work, we aim to recalibrate what counts as scholarly intervention, who gets to theorise, and from where knowledge is allowed to speak.
Co-producing the thematic collection
This workshop dynamic was fundamentally aligned with the principle of co-production of knowledge. All participants, both early career and senior, African and international, collaborated as partners in the creation of new gender research. Instead of imposing predefined research agendas or theoretical frameworks, the workshop encouraged ECRs to develop and refine their own research questions and methodologies, with mentors facilitating that process. In practice, this meant that African scholars were empowered to ‘think, theorise, interpret the world … and write from where one is located, unencumbered by Eurocentrism’, echoing Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s notion of ‘complete epistemic freedom’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018: 1). Participants were explicitly encouraged to draw on indigenous concepts, locally grounded experiences, and African feminist paradigms in their work. For example, some projects incorporated frameworks like Ubuntu and other African philosophies alongside, or in place of, Western theories. By according equal legitimacy to African epistemologies, the mentorship process created space for ECRs to assert intellectual ownership of their projects, a key aspect of decolonial praxis. This approach embodied co-production in that mentors did not act as top-down instructors, but rather as collaborators who helped sharpen the participants’ voices and analysis. As editors, we positioned ourselves as facilitators rather than gatekeepers, ensuring that the power dynamics typically present in Global North–South academic relationships were consciously adjusted toward greater equity. Notably, in a few cases the mentor–ECR collaboration developed into co-authorship of articles in this collection, underscoring how the workshops enabled genuine scholarly partnerships. Overall, the workshop’s structure and ethos were designed to put into practice the oft-stated ideals of equitable research partnerships, including shared decision-making, mutual capacity building, and respect for context-specific knowledge, which are integral to a decolonial, co-productive approach.
In implementing this collaborative model, we were mindful of critical scholarship on the ethics and power dynamics of Global South–North academic partnerships. Musila (2019), in particular, cautions that even well-intentioned North–South collaborations can easily reproduce asymmetries if not carefully managed. She provides an incisive, Africa-centred critique of how the concentration of scholarly resources and infrastructure in the Global North (from research funding and mobility to journals and publishers) pressures African academics to conform to Northern-dominated paradigms. The result is what Musila (2019) describes as ‘mono-epistemic publishing infrastructures’ into which African scholars ‘must either fit or perish’ (p. 288). In other words, if knowledge production remains structured around Eurocentric norms, Southern researchers are forced to ‘bend over backwards’ to make their work legible to Northern gatekeepers, often at the expense of their own epistemic perspectives. Musila (2019) further notes the ‘deeply embedded mode of erasure’ in the Global North academy that is mediated by a ‘fetish of the new’ (p. 288), wherein knowledge from African contexts is undervalued or rendered invisible unless it is packaged through Northern theoretical innovations. Perhaps most pertinent to our mentorship model, Musila (2019) documents the exhaustion and depletion that African scholars frequently experience when repetitively navigating collaborations offered as ‘ethical’ by Northern partners who may unconsciously perpetuate unequal power relations. In such scenarios, Global South scholars often carry the burden of pushing back against subtle dominance or presumptions of incompetence, even as they participate in projects purportedly designed to help them. Given these realities, Musila (2019) provocatively suggests that under oppressive conditions, an African scholar might choose not to collaborate (to ‘wander off’ on their own) rather than remain in a partnership that demands intellectual subservience (p. 292).
We took these critiques to heart. The workshops were explicitly structured to avoid the pitfalls Musila (2019) identifies: we strove to ensure that our Global South colleagues did not have to ‘fit’ themselves into predefined moulds, nor constantly fight to have their viewpoints respected. By co-creating the agenda and focus of the research with the participants, and by including African mentors who could relate to participants as peers, the process sought to flatten traditional hierarchies. Mentors from the Global North were briefed to be conscious of power differentials and to prioritise listening and enabling, rather than directing. Likewise, the inclusion of African journal editors and senior scholars in mentorship roles meant that participants received guidance that validated local relevance and innovation, not just advice on meeting the expectations of Western academia. In essence, our approach aimed to model the kind of ethical, reciprocal collaboration that Musila (2019) and others call for, one where Global South scholars exercise complete epistemic freedom in practice, and Global North mentors engage with humility and respect, resulting in genuine knowledge co-production rather than a one-sided ‘capacity building’ exercise.
One tangible outcome of this co-productive, mentorship-driven process was the very focus of the research collection. Rather than being predetermined by the workshop organisers, the thematic scope emerged organically from the participants’ shared concerns. It was within these workshop interactions that gender became a central topic of interest. Early in the online discussions, some ECRs identified gender inequality as a systemic barrier hindering their career progression and limiting their contributions to academia. By the time of the face-to-face sessions in Ghana, these conversations had coalesced into a collective proposal to make decolonising gender knowledge the focus of our Thematic Collection. Participants highlighted how various gender inequalities, affecting both women and men, were intersecting with other challenges in their research contexts, and impeding progress toward goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations 2022). At the same time, in the spirit of frank dialogue that the workshop encouraged, other participants voiced scepticism or ambivalence about centring ‘gender’ in their work. This scepticism aligns, at least in part, with Kolawole’s (2002) argument that gender remains a divisive and sometimes misunderstood concept in African scholarship, often viewed by critics as an idea ‘imported from the West’ (p. 93). These differing viewpoints were debated openly, reflecting the workshop’s success in creating a space where Global South researchers could critically engage with each other’s perspectives on sensitive issues. Ultimately, the group’s decision to pursue gender as the unifying theme for the collection, despite some hesitations, exemplifies the collaborative spirit of the project; it was a negotiated outcome shaped by the ECRs’ own research interests and lived experiences of gender-based barriers. The mentorship team supported this choice, seeing it as an opportunity to address a pressing set of issues identified by the researchers themselves.
In sum, the logistics and dynamics of the writing workshops not only built capacity and partnerships but also embodied a co-production approach that granted ECRs epistemic freedom in practice. This decolonial collaborative process set the stage for the four articles that follow, each developed through the workshop and shaped by the voices and theoretical lenses of the African ECRs at the helm. Together, these studies (introduced in the next section) demonstrate how shifting the research-production process to be more inclusive and mentorship-driven can yield new insights into gender in Sub-Saharan Africa, while also challenging the power structures of knowledge creation that Musila (2019) and others urge us to reform.
The articles
The four articles in this Thematic Collection make significant contributions to decolonising gender knowledge production, both in subject matter and in the way they came into being. They prioritise issues relevant to Sub-Saharan Africa, centre African experiences and perspectives, and showcase a range of feminist and social science frameworks, including Afro-feminism, Ethics of Care, Ubuntu, human dignity, intersectionality, masculinity theory, the right-to-the-city framework, and urban feminist theory, often blending global theories with indigenous concepts. The interdisciplinary nature of the collection further enhances its scholarly contribution, with gender issues examined in contexts spanning higher education, legal rights, labour and employment, and urban development. Each article stands as an example of how locally grounded research, supported by cross-continental mentorship, can expand our understanding of gender dynamics while pushing back against the epistemic dominance of the Global North.
In ‘Gendered effects of corruption: the South African state capture experience’, Ogunyemi, Bowman, and Iipumbu delve into the intricate and often overlooked ways in which corruption disproportionately affects women and girls. While the general consequences of corruption, such as increased inequity, are widely acknowledged, this article sheds light on the specific gendered repercussions that often remain unaddressed. These include women’s limited access to healthcare, reduced financial capacity, and increased vulnerability to gender-based violence under corrupt regimes. Focusing on the well-documented case of state capture in South Africa, the authors argue that existing research has not adequately explored the full extent of these gendered impacts. They draw on the findings of the Zondo Commission Report and other investigations, providing a rich and nuanced understanding of how systemic corruption operates through a gendered lens in this context. Notably, the article employs a combination of Ethics of Care and Ubuntu as its theoretical foundation, offering a uniquely African ethical perspective on corruption and governance.
In ‘Gender, precarious employment, and coping strategies: lived experiences of domestic workers in urban Nigeria and Ghana’, Onayemi, Ogunyemi, and Smith explore the often-overlooked realities of female domestic workers within the informal economy of two West African urban centres: Accra (Ghana) and Lagos (Nigeria). Domestic work is a vital sector supporting many families in these urban centres; however, the challenges, motivations, and coping strategies of the women who perform this work have remained largely unexamined in mainstream feminist scholarship. This article addresses that gap by examining the lived experiences of female domestic workers, drawing on interviews and ethnographic data. The analysis is framed through feminist Ethics of Care and the concept of human dignity, highlighting how these women navigate precarious employment, assert their agency, and find resilience in the face of low wages, job insecurity, and social stigma. By centring the voices of the workers themselves, the authors challenge prevailing narratives and call for policy approaches that recognise female domestic workers’ rights and contributions.
In ‘Exploring gender-based violence against men in African universities’, Paulus, Kalengay, and Duncan investigate a rarely discussed dimension of gender-based violence (GBV), namely, violence against men, within African higher education settings. Whereas research on GBV in universities has focused predominantly on female victims, this study shines a light on the experiences of male lecturers and students who have faced harassment, abuse, or other forms of gendered violence. Using an intersectionality lens in conjunction with masculinity theory, the authors explore various forms of GBV affecting men (including physical, emotional, and sexual violence) and examine factors that influence these men’s willingness (or reluctance) to report incidents. The article reveals how societal expectations of masculinity, fear of stigma, and institutional cultures can all render male victims invisible or silent. By bringing these issues to the fore, Paulus and colleagues complicate the discourse on GBV and argue for more inclusive strategies that address the needs of all victims, irrespective of gender, in African universities.
In ‘The role and influence of women in housing cooperatives: evidence from Caledonia, Zimbabwe’, Mpahlo, Garwe, and Thondhlana examine the complex roles of women in an urban housing cooperative on the fringes of Harare, Zimbabwe. Housing cooperatives are intended to provide affordable shelter for low-income communities, but they often struggle with issues of inclusion, governance, and gender equity. This article uses the right to the city framework along with urban feminist theory and intersectionality to analyse women’s participation in the Caledonia housing cooperative. The authors investigate how women access housing through the cooperative, the extent of their involvement in leadership or decision-making, and how gendered power dynamics manifest in this context. Their findings reveal both empowering opportunities and persistent challenges. On one hand, the cooperative offers women a platform to attain homeownership and influence community development; on the other hand, entrenched patriarchal norms and structural barriers continue to limit women’s full empowerment within the cooperative. The study not only contributes new empirical insights from Zimbabwe’s urban periphery but also speaks to broader debates on gender and urbanisation in Africa, suggesting ways to foster more inclusive and gender-responsive urban governance.
Each of these four studies offers a unique contribution to knowledge, and collectively they illustrate the value of decentring Eurocentric narratives and amplifying African scholarly voices. Ogunyemi, Bowman, and Iipumbu provide a much-needed gendered analysis of grand corruption, demonstrating how a focus on African experiences (in this case, South Africa’s state capture experience) uncovers dimensions of corruption that mainstream approaches overlook. Onayemi, Ogunyemi, and Smith shed light on the precarious lives and resilience of West African domestic workers, foregrounding the perspectives of women who are often invisible in labour studies and feminist literature alike. Paulus, Kalengay, and Duncan address a critical gap by examining GBV against men, thereby challenging dominant assumptions about victimhood and expanding the scope of gender studies in the African context. Meanwhile, Mpahlo, Garwe, and Thondhlana deepen our understanding of women’s agency in community-driven urban housing solutions, highlighting the structural obstacles they face and offering lessons for gender-inclusive development. It is worth emphasising that all these articles were conceptualised and developed through the co-production process described above. The topics arose from the authors’ own engagements and concerns, and the analytical frameworks blend established theories with local epistemologies because of mentorship that encouraged innovation rather than compliance. In this way, the content of the collection is as decolonial as its process, together marking a step toward complete epistemic freedom in the field of gender studies.
Decolonising gender studies: amplifying African voices and scholarship
Addressing the asymmetries in the production of gender knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa involved continually questioning the power dynamics between ourselves (as editors) and our Southern colleagues (the ECR authors). In our view, however, merely acknowledging these dynamics was not sufficient to decolonise gender knowledge production. We sought to actively transform those dynamics through the co-production approach outlined above. Engaging with the crucial point of collaboration raised by scholars such as Musila (2019), we understood that effective North–South partnership requires moving beyond rhetoric to transparent practice. Therefore, our commitment to co-production was not an afterthought; it was the foundational principle of the entire project. In practice, this meant dismantling traditional hierarchies in several ways. Firstly, the workshop adopted a co-design approach, wherein the agenda was not imposed but collaboratively developed by the UoN and AAU partners. Feedback from prospective mentors and alumni of previous workshops was integrated to ensure relevance and responsiveness to the needs of early career researchers. Secondly, the mentorship model intentionally avoided a hierarchical structure, positioning mentors from both the Global North and South as facilitators rather than gatekeepers. Their role involved offering constructive feedback, sharing experiences with publishing politics, and assisting in navigating academic conventions. Simultaneously, the ECRs were recognised as authors and experts on their own research, maintaining full ownership of their intellectual contributions. Thirdly, the thematic focus of this collection emerged organically from workshop discussions. Rather than pre-defining the scope, the editors prioritised listening to the ECRs’ research interests and the systemic barriers they identified, particularly those related to gender, shaping the Thematic Collection to reflect these priorities. Finally, the journey from workshop presentation to final article included multiple rounds of feedback within a supportive community. This collaborative review process encompassed peer review among the ECRs, intensive feedback sessions with assigned mentors, and developmental reviews from the editorial team. This multi-layered approach sought to demystify academic publishing and foster a sense of collective ownership. In this way, the co-production of this Thematic Collection was an attempt to enact Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s principle of complete epistemic freedom (2018: 1) understood as ‘the right to think, theorise, interpret the world, develop one’s own methodologies and write from where one is located, unencumbered by Eurocentrism’.
These four articles make a significant contribution to the decolonisation of gender studies by addressing several key areas. Firstly, they foreground the perspectives and lived experiences of women and men in Sub-Saharan Africa who participated in these studies. This emphasis is essential for decolonising knowledge production, which has historically marginalised or excluded them. By centring Sub-Saharan African experiences, and pursuing research questions rooted in African contexts, the articles in this Thematic Collection help reclaim African narratives and disrupt the hegemonic power of Western knowledge production in defining what constitutes valid knowledge about gender in Africa.
Secondly, the articles in this Thematic Collection bring to light under-explored gender issues in Sub-Saharan Africa, acknowledging the diversity and complexity of gender dynamics across the subcontinent. They highlight how colonialism and its legacy intersect with gender to exacerbate vulnerabilities, and examine the interplay between traditional gender roles, cultural practices, and contemporary challenges, such as corruption, poverty, housing, and employment. In doing so, they show how these factors shape the gendered experiences of both African women and men. Alongside this analysis, the articles offer concrete recommendations for addressing gender inequities, thereby advancing a more nuanced and locally grounded understanding of gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Thirdly, foregrounding the research of African early career researchers contributes to diversifying gender studies and strengthening African scholarship. This focus on ECRs is vital for decolonising academic institutions, as it creates space for new generations of African scholars to challenge existing paradigms and contribute to knowledge production. The mentorship model employed in this project, bringing together early career researchers, successful writing workshop alumni (some now promoted to professorial levels), editors, and mentors, has a decolonial impact that is both transformative and empowering [see Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations (Perivoli Africa Research Centre 2023)]. This collaborative approach not only reconfigures how research is produced, but also contributes to building a more inclusive and equitable academic community, thereby advancing the broader decolonisation project. By providing African ECRs with sustained mentorship and support from established scholars, the model facilitates their integration into academic networks, empowers them to contribute meaningfully to knowledge production, and allows them to interpret participants’ experiences from diverse perspectives shaped by the complex colonial and post-colonial web, thus reinforcing the importance of epistemic diversity in shaping the future of gender studies.
However, while the four studies in this collection demonstrate a commitment to centring African experiences and perspectives and are grounded in local realities and knowledge systems, they only partially fulfill Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2018) principle of complete epistemic freedom, which he describes as ‘writing from where one is located’ (p. 1). Yet, their methodological approaches reveal a more complex engagement with decoloniality. Although some studies incorporate African philosophical concepts, and all address African contexts and challenge Western assumptions, they do not fully adopt alternative decolonial methodologies. This points to the need for deeper engagement with epistemic freedom, through approaches such as indigenous knowledge systems, participatory research, or other methods that actively disrupt Eurocentric dominance.
Conclusion
This collection makes a significant contribution to decolonising gender knowledge production, not merely by including, but by actively amplifying the voices of African ECRs working in the field of gender studies. It moves beyond simply acknowledging the need for diverse perspectives to actively creating space for these scholars to shape the future of the field. By centring their research and amplifying the voices of their participants, the collection disrupts established power dynamics and challenges the dominance of Western-centric paradigms. The actionable insights generated within these works have the potential to inform gender-sensitive policies and interventions, contributing not only to more equitable spaces for women and men in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also to a more just and equitable academic landscape globally. This Thematic Collection represents a powerful step towards dismantling the coloniality of knowledge and fostering a truly inclusive and representative field of gender studies, empowering future generations of African scholars to lead the way in generating transformative knowledge.
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DOI: 10.5871/jba/013.a33
Published on: 18 September 2025
Volume: 13
Issue: Issue 3
Article view count: 326
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© The author(s) 2025. This is an open access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International LicenseCite this article
Bowman, A., Garwe, E. & Thondhlana, J. (2025), ‘Decolonising gender knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa: empirical insights and theoretical innovations from early career researchers—Introduction’, Journal of the British Academy, 13(3): a33 https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/013.a33Crossref
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July 2023
The civic importance of John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934) Isobel Armstrong
In the Harvard lectures that became Art as Experience (1934) Dewey developed a democratic account of art that not only expanded the range of creative experience (watching a huge digger, the architectonics of a mutually satisfactory conversation, are included in the reach of art) but developed an account of art that was vitally reciprocal, participatory and social. Maker and perceiver are equally interactive creators as they mutually develop new modes of feeling and thinking. For Dewey this relationship necessarily re-makes the experience of community and, just as important, creates a civic space for interrogation and critique. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)
17 September 2024
Assessing the contribution of local journalism: the local newspaper as accidental social infrastructure Rachel Matthews
The value of local journalism is a pressing question for society because of the challenge posed to established business models by digital platforms. However, while local journalism is understood to be of benefit to people, discussion of the nature of those benefits and the ways in which they are accrued is dominated by a comparatively narrow focus on its outputs. Using the case of the legacy commercial local newspaper, this paper argues that local journalism as a process, practice and presence can be considered part of the accidental social infrastructure—part of the fabric which underpins strong communities, even if its intended purpose is something else. Data drawn from interviews with people working with local newspaper archives demonstrates how local journalism facilitates the development of social capital and processes of sociality. It demonstrates an expanded conceptual lens to articulate its benefits.
25 February 2025
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