1- Re-appropriating Matrifocality: Endogeneity and African Gender Scholarship
African Sociological Review,
Vol. 14 No. 1 (2010): African Sociological Review
Abstract
A central concern of many Southern sociologists has been the crisis ‘intellectual dependence’ (Alatas 2000). Averting what Hountondji (1997) refers to as ‘extraversion’ involves separat- ing what is idiographic in western social science scholarship from its nomothetic aspirations; what chakrabathy (2000) called ‘provincializing europe.’ It involves excavating local ‘li- braries’ (Zeleza 2006b) and scholarship that takes its ‘locale’ or research site on its own terms. ‘The study of Africa’, Oyewumi (2004) argued, ‘must start with Africa.’ In this paper, we ex- plore the works of Ifi Amadiume and Oyeronke Oyewumi as such ventures in endogeneity, and examples of the contribution that African sociologists make when they take their ethnographic data on its own terms; without status anxiety. we examine the contributions of Amadiume and Oyewumi to gender scholarship, focusing on the idea of matrifocality or matricentricity. while not a new concept, the idea of matrifocal or matricentric societies acquires distinct valency in their epistemic framework and as the basis for theorising matriarchy. Rather than an exercise in the archaeology of a ‘mythical pre-historic past’ (eller 2000), matricentricity in Amadiume’s works accounts for the structural and ideo- logical conditions of many African societies. It affords us the basis for transcending the ‘bio- logic’ (Oyewumi 1997) of dominant western feminist discourses. Beyond the epistemic rupture that it produces in gender Studies, we argue that the concept of matrifocality has wider heu- ristic value. we illustrate its theoretical value for rethinking ‘Identity’, beyond the prevailing patricentric framing, and in allowing us to make sense of contemporary African data.
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- Adesina, Jimi. 2001, “Sociology and Yorùbá Studies: epistemic intervention or doing sociology in the vernacular,” Annals of the Social Science Academy of nigeria. 13: 57-91.
- Adesina, Jimi. 2006a. “Sociology, endogeneity and the challenge of transformation.” African Sociological Review 10(2): 133-150.
- Adesina, Jimi. 2006b. “Sociology beyond despair: recovery of nerve, endogeneity, and epistemic intervention.” South African Review of Sociology 37(2): 241-259.
- Adesina, Jimi. 2008. “Sociology, African.” In William A. Darity (ed.) International encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
- Alatas, Hussein Syed. 2000. “Intellectual Imperialism: Definition, Traits and Problems.”Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science. 28(1): 23–45.
- Amadiume, Ifi. 2005 [1992]. “Theorizing Matriarchy in Africa: kinship ideologies and systems in Africa and Europe” in O Oyewumi (ed.) . (pp.83-98).
- Amadiume, Ifi. 2000. Daughters of the goddess, Daughters of Imperialism: African women, culture, Power and Democracy. London: Zed Books.
- Amadiume, Ifi. 1997. Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and culture. London: Zed Books.
- Amadiume, Ifi. 1993. “The mouth that spoke falsehood will later speak the truth: going home to the field in Eastern Nigeria.” In Bell et. Al. (eds.) 1993, pp. 182-198.
- Amadiume, Ifi. 1987. Male Daughters, female Husbands: gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books
- Arnfred, S., B. Bakare-Yusuf, E.W. Kisiang’ani, D. Lewis, O. Oyewumi, and F.C. Steady. 2004.
- African gender Scholarship: concepts, methodologies and paradigms. Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Bakare-Yusuf, B. 2004. “’Yorubas Don’t do Gender’: A critical review of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s The Invention of women: making an African sense of western gender discourses” in Arnfred et.al. (2004), pp. 61-81.
- Bell, D., P. Caplan, and W. J. Karim (eds.). 1993. gendered fields: women, men and ethnography. London: Routledge.
- Bott, Elizabeth. 1968 [1957]. family and Social network. Second edition with new material. London: Tavistock Publishing Ltd.
- Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
- Chimbiri, Agnes M. 2006. “Development, Family Change, and Community Empowerment in Malawi” in Y. Oheneba-Sakyi and B.K. Takyi (eds.), pp. 227-247.
- Dashú, Max. 2005. “Knocking down straw dolls: a critique of Cynthia Eller’s The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: why an Invented Past won’t give women a future.” feminist Theology 13: 185-216).
- Diop, Cheikh Anta, 1991. civilization or Barbarism: an authentic anthropology. Brooklyn, NY:
- Lawrence Hill Eller, Cynthia. 2000. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: wny an Invented Past won’t give women a future. Boston : Beacon Press.
- Fenton, William N. 1998. The great Law and the Longhouse : a political history of the Iroquois confederacy. Normal: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Fortes, M. 1969. Kinship and the Social Order: the legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago: Aldine.
- Hountondji, P. 1990. “Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la science dans les pays de la périphérie.” Africa Development, XV(3/4): 149-158. Hountondji, P. 1992.
- “Recapturing” in V.Y. Mudimbe (ed.) The Surreptitious Speech:
- Presence Africaine and the Politics of Otherness 1947-1987. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 238-248.
- Hountondji, P. J. 1997. endogenous knowledge: research trails. Dakar, Senegal: Codesria.
- Isiugo-Abanihe, U.C. 1984. “Child fostering and high fertility inter-relationships in West Africa.” Studies in Third world Societies, 29:73-100.
- Isiugo-Abanihe, U.C. 1985.“Child fosterage in West Africa.”Population and Development Review, 11(1): 53-74.
- James, Wendy. 1978. “Matrifocus on African Women” in Shirley Ardener (ed.) Defining females: the nature of women in society. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
- Jennings, Francis. 1984. The Ambiguous Iroquois empire: the convenant chain confederation of Indian tribes with english colonies from its beginnings to the Lancaster treaty of 1744. New York: Norton.
- Jennings, Francis. 1985. The History and culture of Iroquois diplomacy: an interdisciplinary guide to the treaties of the Six nations and their league. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
- Ki-Zerbo, Joseph. 1990. educate or Perish: Africa’s Impasse and Prospects. Paris: UNESCO. Mafeje, A. (2000). “Africanity: A Combative Ontology.” cODeSRIA Bulletin, (1): 66-71.
- Meyer, Fortes. 1949. “Time and Social Structure: an Ashanti case study” in F Meyer (ed.) Social Structure: studies presented to A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
- Meyer, Fortes. 1969. Kinship and the Social Order: the legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
- Nzegwu, Nkiru. 2005. “Questions of Identity and Inheritance: A Critical Review of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s In My father’s House.” In Oyeronke Oyewumi (ed). 2005. African gender Studies: A Reader. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, originally published in Hypatia 11(1): 175-200, Winter, 1996.
- Oheneba-Sakyi, Yaw and Takyi, Baffour K. (eds.). 2006. African families at the turn of the 21st century. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
- Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2006. “Conceptualising gender in African Studies” in P.T. Zeleza (ed.), pp. 313-320.
- Oyewumi, Oyeronke (ed.) 2005. African gender Studies: a reader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2004. “Conceptualising Gender: Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies” in Arnfred et. al. (2004), pp. 1-8.
- Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 1997. The Invention of women: making an African sense of western gender discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Parkin, R. 1997. Kinship: An introduction to basic concepts. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Ritcher, Daniel K. 1992. The ordeal of the longhouse: the peoples of the Iroquois League in the era of european colonization. Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press.
- Ritcher, Daniel K. And James H. Merrell (eds.) 2003. Beyond the covenant chain: the Iroquois and their neighbours in Indian north America 1600-1800. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press.
- Smith, Raymond T. 1956. The negro amily in British guiana: family structure and social status in the villages. London: Routledge & Paul.
- Smith, Raymond T. 1973. “The Matrifocal Family” in Smith (1996), pp. 39-57.
- Smith, Raymond T. 1996. The Matrifocal family: power, pluralism, and politics. London: Routledge.
- Tooker, Elisabeth. (ed.) 1986. An Iroquois sourcebook. 3 volumes. New York: Garland.
- Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe (ed.). 2006a. The study of Africa: Disciplinary and interdisciplinary en counters. Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. 2006b. “The disciplinary, interdisciplinary and global dimensions of African Studies.” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 1(2):195-220.
References
Adesina, Jimi. 2001, “Sociology and Yorùbá Studies: epistemic intervention or doing sociology in the vernacular,” Annals of the Social Science Academy of nigeria. 13: 57-91.
Adesina, Jimi. 2006a. “Sociology, endogeneity and the challenge of transformation.” African Sociological Review 10(2): 133-150.
Adesina, Jimi. 2006b. “Sociology beyond despair: recovery of nerve, endogeneity, and epistemic intervention.” South African Review of Sociology 37(2): 241-259.
Adesina, Jimi. 2008. “Sociology, African.” In William A. Darity (ed.) International encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
Alatas, Hussein Syed. 2000. “Intellectual Imperialism: Definition, Traits and Problems.”Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science. 28(1): 23–45.
Amadiume, Ifi. 2005 [1992]. “Theorizing Matriarchy in Africa: kinship ideologies and systems in Africa and Europe” in O Oyewumi (ed.) . (pp.83-98).
Amadiume, Ifi. 2000. Daughters of the goddess, Daughters of Imperialism: African women, culture, Power and Democracy. London: Zed Books.
Amadiume, Ifi. 1997. Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and culture. London: Zed Books.
Amadiume, Ifi. 1993. “The mouth that spoke falsehood will later speak the truth: going home to the field in Eastern Nigeria.” In Bell et. Al. (eds.) 1993, pp. 182-198.
Amadiume, Ifi. 1987. Male Daughters, female Husbands: gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books
Arnfred, S., B. Bakare-Yusuf, E.W. Kisiang’ani, D. Lewis, O. Oyewumi, and F.C. Steady. 2004.
African gender Scholarship: concepts, methodologies and paradigms. Dakar: CODESRIA.
Bakare-Yusuf, B. 2004. “’Yorubas Don’t do Gender’: A critical review of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s The Invention of women: making an African sense of western gender discourses” in Arnfred et.al. (2004), pp. 61-81.
Bell, D., P. Caplan, and W. J. Karim (eds.). 1993. gendered fields: women, men and ethnography. London: Routledge.
Bott, Elizabeth. 1968 [1957]. family and Social network. Second edition with new material. London: Tavistock Publishing Ltd.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Chimbiri, Agnes M. 2006. “Development, Family Change, and Community Empowerment in Malawi” in Y. Oheneba-Sakyi and B.K. Takyi (eds.), pp. 227-247.
Dashú, Max. 2005. “Knocking down straw dolls: a critique of Cynthia Eller’s The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: why an Invented Past won’t give women a future.” feminist Theology 13: 185-216).
Diop, Cheikh Anta, 1991. civilization or Barbarism: an authentic anthropology. Brooklyn, NY:
Lawrence Hill Eller, Cynthia. 2000. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: wny an Invented Past won’t give women a future. Boston : Beacon Press.
Fenton, William N. 1998. The great Law and the Longhouse : a political history of the Iroquois confederacy. Normal: University of Oklahoma Press.
Fortes, M. 1969. Kinship and the Social Order: the legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago: Aldine.
Hountondji, P. 1990. “Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la science dans les pays de la périphérie.” Africa Development, XV(3/4): 149-158. Hountondji, P. 1992.
“Recapturing” in V.Y. Mudimbe (ed.) The Surreptitious Speech:
Presence Africaine and the Politics of Otherness 1947-1987. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 238-248.
Hountondji, P. J. 1997. endogenous knowledge: research trails. Dakar, Senegal: Codesria.
Isiugo-Abanihe, U.C. 1984. “Child fostering and high fertility inter-relationships in West Africa.” Studies in Third world Societies, 29:73-100.
Isiugo-Abanihe, U.C. 1985.“Child fosterage in West Africa.”Population and Development Review, 11(1): 53-74.
James, Wendy. 1978. “Matrifocus on African Women” in Shirley Ardener (ed.) Defining females: the nature of women in society. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Jennings, Francis. 1984. The Ambiguous Iroquois empire: the convenant chain confederation of Indian tribes with english colonies from its beginnings to the Lancaster treaty of 1744. New York: Norton.
Jennings, Francis. 1985. The History and culture of Iroquois diplomacy: an interdisciplinary guide to the treaties of the Six nations and their league. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Ki-Zerbo, Joseph. 1990. educate or Perish: Africa’s Impasse and Prospects. Paris: UNESCO. Mafeje, A. (2000). “Africanity: A Combative Ontology.” cODeSRIA Bulletin, (1): 66-71.
Meyer, Fortes. 1949. “Time and Social Structure: an Ashanti case study” in F Meyer (ed.) Social Structure: studies presented to A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Meyer, Fortes. 1969. Kinship and the Social Order: the legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
Nzegwu, Nkiru. 2005. “Questions of Identity and Inheritance: A Critical Review of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s In My father’s House.” In Oyeronke Oyewumi (ed). 2005. African gender Studies: A Reader. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, originally published in Hypatia 11(1): 175-200, Winter, 1996.
Oheneba-Sakyi, Yaw and Takyi, Baffour K. (eds.). 2006. African families at the turn of the 21st century. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2006. “Conceptualising gender in African Studies” in P.T. Zeleza (ed.), pp. 313-320.
Oyewumi, Oyeronke (ed.) 2005. African gender Studies: a reader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2004. “Conceptualising Gender: Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies” in Arnfred et. al. (2004), pp. 1-8.
Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 1997. The Invention of women: making an African sense of western gender discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Parkin, R. 1997. Kinship: An introduction to basic concepts. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ritcher, Daniel K. 1992. The ordeal of the longhouse: the peoples of the Iroquois League in the era of european colonization. Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press.
Ritcher, Daniel K. And James H. Merrell (eds.) 2003. Beyond the covenant chain: the Iroquois and their neighbours in Indian north America 1600-1800. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Smith, Raymond T. 1956. The negro amily in British guiana: family structure and social status in the villages. London: Routledge & Paul.
Smith, Raymond T. 1973. “The Matrifocal Family” in Smith (1996), pp. 39-57.
Smith, Raymond T. 1996. The Matrifocal family: power, pluralism, and politics. London: Routledge.
Tooker, Elisabeth. (ed.) 1986. An Iroquois sourcebook. 3 volumes. New York: Garland.
Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe (ed.). 2006a. The study of Africa: Disciplinary and interdisciplinary en counters. Dakar: CODESRIA.
Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. 2006b. “The disciplinary, interdisciplinary and global dimensions of African Studies.” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 1(2):195-220.