User:Mbv016/Amina Mama

Background[edit]

Mama was born in northern Nigeria in 1958 in a mixed household. Her father is Nigerian and her mother is English. According to Mama, her eclectic family background and upbringing has shaped her worldview. She grew up in Kaduna, an ethnically and religiously diverse town in northern Nigeria. Her ancestral roots on her paternal side trace back to Bida. Several members of Mama's family were involved in the development of the post-colonial local educational system. Mama has been ambitious and says that she has stood out from her peers since she was a young age because she was studious and confident which was not expected from her at such a young age and with being a girl. In 1966, she left her community in Nigeria due to anti-Muslim riots. In 1992 she married Nuruddin Farah, with whom she has two children.

Thought[edit]

Mama describes herself as a feminist and not a womanist. She humbly identifies with the term and describes the word feminism as a "positive, movement-based term" and sees the movement as a refusal of oppression. She argues that feminism originates in Africa and that white feminism "has never been strong enough to be 'enemy'—in the way that say, global capitalism can be viewed as an enemy". She has criticized discourses of women in development for stripping gender studies of politically meaningful feminism. She has also criticized African regimes and society for misrepresenting feminism and for ignoring its presence and has criticized the lack of research on black femininity and the presence of the subject of black femininity in psychological studies about colonised people. She has also argued that African universities continue to show entrenched patriarchy, in terms of both interpersonal sexism and institutional gender gaps.

A primary area of interest for Mama has been gender identity as it relates to global militarism. She is an outspoken critic of AFRICOM, which she describes as part of violent neocolonial resource extraction.

Mama has also written about modern violence against women in Africa writing that violence against women has become the most candid and normalized form of oppression against black women.