Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa: Gender, Religion, and Ethno-cultural Identities

Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa: Gender, Religion, and Ethno-cultural Identities explores the changing dynamics of identities in Africa, with a focus on gender, ethno-cultural, and religious identity. Toyin Falola and Emmanuel M. Mbah argue that because identity defines who we are as individuals or groups, studies on African identities must focus on understanding the changing dynamics in the socio-economic and political spheres in the continent. These chapters cover subjects such as women’s career identity, gender roles and knowledge, childlessness, ethnocentrism and democracy, cultural identity through theater, Black identity in the diaspora, and diasporic consciousness. Using existing scholarship, the chapters in this edited volume challenge our understanding of what identity entails and provide new discussions on the hitherto politicized historiography of some identities in Africa.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa: Gender, Religion, and Ethno-cultural Identities by Emmanuel M. Mbah and Toyin Falola Chapter 1: Sowing in the Wind: Girls’ Education in Kenya’s Bungoma County by Namulundah Florence Chapter 2: Gendered Political Institutions and Women’s Career Identity Construction by Wakil Ajibola Asekun Chapter 3: To Have or Not to Have: An African Perspective on Childlessness by Namulundah Florence Chapter 4: Gender and Initiation Rites in Ejagham Land of Cameroon by Victor Ntui Atom Chapter 5: Restoring Gender Knowledge in Kenya’s Mau Mau War: New Methods and Perspectives by Mickie Mwanzia Koster Chapter 6: Gender Inequality in the Peace Building Process during the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon by Primus Fonkeng Chapter 7: From Hapless Victims to Helpful Collaborators? The Contradictions of Boko Haram Female Suicide Bombers (FSBs) in Nigeria, 2009-2019 by Femi Adegbulu Chapter 8: A Comparative Study of the Influence of Modernization on T

About the Author :
Toyin Falola is University Distinguished Professor and the Jacob and Francis Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities Department at the University of Texas at Austin and Extraordinary Professor of Human Rights at the University of the Free State. Emmanuel M. Mbah is professor of history and Deputy Chair of the History Department at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island.

Review :
This book is a bold and illuminating discussion on forms of identities in Africa. Gender, religion, and ethno-cultural affiliations are often a part of African identities. The strength of the book is in coverage of themes; the variety of interesting, well-researched, and well-analyzed topics, written by experts and experienced African scholars. The editors did an excellent job in structuring the book to make it readable, especially for undergraduate and graduate students of global identities and the African diaspora. In Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa, Toyin Falola and Emmanuel Mbah have assembled an impressive team of scholars from multiple disciplines who present new and challenging perspectives on gender, religion, and ethno-cultural identities in Africa. The volume is a most timely and significant contribution to the study of the problematics of identities in African economic, political, and social manifestations in our contemporary world. Approaching the topics from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this volume elaborate on diverse aspects of socially constructed, intersectional identities in contemporary Africa. Individual chapters show how those identities interact with everyday life on the local level and how they impact a wide range of national and global experiences in Africa and abroad. There’s something here for everyone interested in gender, ethno-cultural, and religious identities in Africa. Emmanuel Mbah and Toyin Falola's, Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa: Gender, Religion, and Ethno-cultural Identities, expertly delves into nearly all forms of identities among Africans and successfully demonstrates how those identities are constructed, negotiated, and emanated as lived experience among the African people. Consisting of thirteen well-crafted chapters by some of the leading authorities on the subject telling us about how Africans in Africa, and their descendants living outside Africa identify and define themselves, this book is an exciting addition to the growing body of scholarship on identity politics in Africa, in particular, and, the world, as whole. Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa expertly delves into nearly all forms of identities among Africans and successfully demonstrates how those identities are constructed, negotiated, and emanated as lived experiences among African people. Consisting of thirteen well-crafted chapters by some of the leading authorities, this book is an exciting addition to the growing body of scholarship on identity politics in Africa, in particular, and, the world, as a whole.