Becoming Postcolonial:<i>African Women Changing the Meaning of Citizenship</i>

Abstract

In the twenty-first century we are confronted with the reality of both the collapse of neocolonialism and the need to craft new social and political systems that will fulfill the needs of millions of African people including African women who by and large were excluded from the benefits of independence. Zimbabwe provides an excellent example of how the transition to a postcolonial society has given rise to new sociopolitical challenges and how in particular the twenty-first-century women’s struggles can lead us to a new framework in meeting them. I position women’s resistance agency for rights and entitlements and their engagements with the state at the center of this notion because they are at the cutting edge for the emergence of a different politics on the continent which can lead to all citizens living the wholesome lives promised by the extraordinary moment of change that independence provided. (excerpt)