Report on Workshop on Images of Motherhood - African and Nordic Perspectives, 15 February- 18 February 2003

Written by: Signe Arnfred, Nordic Africa Institute
Edited by the African Gender Institute

The workshop on "Images of 'Motherhood': African and Nordic Perspectives", which took place mid-February 2003 in Dakar/Ile de Gorée, was organised in collaboration between Eva Evers-Rosander (Dept of Religious Studies, Uppsala University), Penda Mbow (Dept of History, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar) and myself (Sexuality, Gender and Society Research Programme at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala).

On Sunday 16 February, after an initial meeting in Dakar on Saturday, all conference participants set off on a twenty-minute boat ride for Ile de Gorée. Ile de Gorée is an island with very particular historical connotations. Because it is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Dakar peninsula, it served from the 15th century as a strategic port for European traders and slave raiders. Many of the buildings on the island today date back to the heyday of the slave trade in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the enduring architecture and atmosphere of the island resonates with a centuries-old legacy of interaction between Africa and western Europe. Presumably, then, for many participants at the Motherhood conference the setting was a strong reminder of a long history of particular kinds of exchanges between north and south, between Africa and the west, and, even within particular regions, between those in positions of power and those exploited by the powerful. The setting of the conference, at the Gorée Institute, encouraged participants to reflect on broad issues of power, identity and justice that reach back several centuries, and to historically and geographically contextual specific questions about struggle, politics and subjectivity that formed the conference focus: "Images of 'Motherhood' - African and Nordic Perspectives".

'Motherhood' has long been a contentious and key subject for feminists globally. Some of the most cutting edge and insightful feminist theories and interventions have been raised by feminists thinkers and scholars who have theorised about particular women's social roles, subject positions and symbolic constructions in relation to 'mothering', or from the perspective of 'motherhood' as a culturally variable institution. These thinkers include Ifi Amadiume, whose Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture (1997) offers important ways of speculating about the distinctiveness of many African women's social and symbolic powers in terms of 'mother-centred' forms of social organisation in Africa. Also in Oyèrónké Oyéwùmí's thinking the wife/mother distinction and the centrality of 'motherhood' in Africa play important roles, as developed in her book The Invention of Women. Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (1997) and in subsequent papers (2000, 2002). Early and important insights regarding these issues are available in Niara Sudarkasa's volume of selected writings from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s: The Strength of our Mothers (1996). As an African-American feminist Patricia Hill Collins, in her well-known Black Feminist Thought (1990), has shown the ways in which white images of black 'motherhood' - as 'the mammy' (faithful, obedient domestic servant), or as 'the matriarch' (aggressive, assertive, unfeminine black mother) has worked as controlling images for African-American women. Adrienne Rich's book (1976) Of Woman Born, is a classic within the field. One of her points in making the distinction between 'motherhood as institution' and 'motherhood as experience' is to show that 'motherhood' in Western contexts is a patriarchal institution, and that 'motherhood' as experience has been marginalised and silenced. Elizabeth Spelman (1988) endorsed the argument that mothering has very distinctive meanings and resonances in different contexts when she critiqued Nancy Chodorow's seminal psychological study of mothering (1978). Chodorow's study tended to assume that motherhood and mothering were universal for all women, and that certain psycho-analytical insights had a cross-cultural relevance.

The range of positions and debates around motherhood and mothering therefore indicate that the topics can be at the centre of influential theoretical and political positions and interventions, and can constitute important ways for developing cross-cultural dialogues and exchanges. Meetings, seminars, workshops or conferences on motherhood that offer comparative perspectives have the potential to open path-breaking trans-national and global discussion on how women are perceived and situated, what the nature of their struggles are, and, hence, to take forward the intellectual work, strategising and agenda-setting that are key priorities for feminists at the start of the twenty-first century.

This potential was strongly evidenced in view of the fact that 13 different countries were represented at the workshop. One important impetus for organising the workshop was the need to animate existing feminist intellectual work on "motherhood". According to Adrienne Rich "patriarchy could not survive without motherhood and heterosexuality in their institutional forms" (1976: 43). 'Motherhood', however, in view of its obvious centrality to political struggles and questions of identity, could be more central to cross-cultural and collaborative feminist work that explores different forms of patriarchy. Moreover, the range of feminist work that has surfaced in many third-world contexts and that often indirectly engages with "motherhood" (see, for example, Nira Yuval Davis' Gender and Nation, 1997) has the potential to considerably deepen much existing feminist work on the subject.

The sense of crucial comparative and innovative theoretical and political work was captured in many of the conference papers presented by African and Nordic/European researchers.

Keynote addresses were given by some of the more prominent feminist and gender scholars who have worked on issues related to "motherhood". They were:
· Niara Sudarkasa, former professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan whose paper was titled: "Conceptions of Motherhood in Nuclear and Extended Families, with Special Reference to
Comparative Studies involving African Societies"

· Molara Ogundipe, professor of English, Africana Cultural and Gender Studies at the University of Arkansas, with a paper titled: "Africana Women Theorizing Motherhood"

· Nkiru Nzegwu, professor of Africana studies at the University of Binghamton: "The Concept and Epistemology of 'Motherhood' within Patriliny"

· Zenebeworke Tadesse, from the Forum for Social Studies, Addis Ababa was also programmed as a keynote speaker ("Reflection on Motherhood and the Care Economy"), but could unfortunately not attend.

Apart from the keynote speeches above, conference proceedings followed the programme below:

Workshop I: Images of 'Motherhood': Conceptual issues
Chair: Eva Evers Rosander
Discussant: Nkiru Nzegwu

Penda Mbow, Cheikh Anta Diop University: "Le matriarcat dans l'oeuvre de Cheikh Anta Diop"
Signe Arnfred, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala: "Deconstructing/Reconstructing 'Motherhood'. African Inspirations"
Ulla Vuorela, University of Helsinki: "Motherhood in the Naming. Mothers and Wives in the Finnish-Karelian Cultural area".

Workshop II: Mother Images: Historico-Ideological issues
Chair: Signe Arnfred
Discussant: Molara Ogundipe

Elaine Tweneboah, Universty of Ghana, Legon: "Looking Back: Narratives of Ashanti women in Pre-colonial and colonial Ghana"
Eva Evers Rosander, University of Uppsala: "Mam Diarra Bousso - la bonne mere de Porokhane, Senegal"
Karin Sporre, University of Falun (Sweden): "Images of Motherhood - conflicts and creative new thinking from within and from out of the Christian tradition"
Hebron L. Ndlovu, University of Swaziland: "The Significance of the Queen Mother in the Swazi Dual Monarchy: Notes for Feminist and Gender Studies"

Workshop III: Case Studies of Motherhood
Chair: Eva Evers Rosander
Discussant: Zenebeworke Tadesse

Doria Daniels, University of Stellenbosh: "They need to know where they came from to appreciate where they are going to - Visual commentary of informal settlement women on Motherhood"
Mireille Rabenoro, University of Antananarivo: "Motherhood in Malagasy society: A major component in the tradition vs. modernity conflict"
Lisa Jeannes and Tamara Shefer, University of the Western Cape:
"Discourses of motherhood among a group of South African mothers"

Workshop IV: Cross-cultural Images of Mothers/Motherhood, A
Chair: Signe Arnfred
Discussant: Niara Sudarkasa

Akosua Adomako Ampofo, University of Ghana, Legon: "Cultural Factors and Socialization: Mothering among Black and White Non-Ghanaian Women in Ghana"
Thenjiwe Magwaza, University of Natal: "Perceptions and Experiences of Motherhood: A Study of Black and White Mothers of Durban, South Africa"

Workshop V: Cross-cultural Images of Mothers/Motherhood, B
Chair: Eva Evers Rosander
Discussant: Fatou Sow

Catherine Raissiguier, University of Cincinnati: "Troubling Mothers: Immigrant Women from Africa in France"
Shereen Mills, University of the Witwatersrand: "Mothers in the Corridors of the South African Legal System: Assessing the Johannesburg Family Court Pilot Project"

Throughout the conference, presentations and discussion emphatically stressed that 'motherhood' was a cultural construction. Discussion raised the extent to which, in the West motherhood was generally experienced and codified in relation to the patriarchal structures of nuclear family ideals, whereas in Africa social experiences and subjective identities tended to conceptualise 'motherhood' with reference both to extended family structures and to broader communal and national collectivities.
Among the questions animating discussion were:
· What is to be learnt by comparative studies and approaches?
· How can knowledge about different socio-cultural-economic conditions for 'motherhood' open our minds for different ways of thinking and strategising as feminist or gender scholars and activists?
· How does one explore questions around gender equality and justice by taking 'motherhood' into consideration?
· How do different institutions and experiences of motherhood shape different political responses among women, and what perspectives are appropriate in evaluating these responses?

In what follows, I focus on a few of the many debates during the three days of the meeting. One debate on feminist politics in relation to family forms, was initiated by Niara Sudarkasa. She discussed women's roles as wives and mothers in conjugal families based on marriage, as distinct from women's roles in consanguineally-based extended families, rooted 'in blood' rather than 'in law' (marriage). The wife in a nuclear family context is usually subordinate to her husband, but her position is often conceptualised as a co-equal in the marital relationship that is at the core of the family. (When the husband and wife divorce, the nuclear family becomes a 'broken home'.) The wife in the patrilineal extended family is by definition an 'outsider', subordinate to her husband as well as to the other adult members of his lineage (male and female), to whom she is also a 'wife'. (When the husband and wife get a divorce in the context of an extended family, the family does not 'break up' - because its stability adheres in the larger group, not in the conjugal pair). To be a 'wife' in African contexts is often a subordinate position, because it means being an outsider to the lineage. (In matrilineal groups the subordinated outsiders to the lineage will be men). The position of mother is often, however, contrastingly central and respected, in patri- as well as in matrilineal contexts. Important insights were therefore raised into the need to distinguish between the position of 'wife' and the position of 'mother' in certain contexts. These insights are significant when we bear in mind that 'wifehood' and 'motherhood' are often conflated.

Points raised above led Sudarkasa on to a critique of the general Western and Christian view of polygamous families. This view, she said, is rooted in the concept of woman-as-wife; if a point of departure is taken by seeing woman-as-mother, the assessment of polygamy would need to be more nuanced. Seen from this angle, polygamous marriages may have advantages for women - just like other forms of extended families, where the work burden of motherhood can more easily be shared, and male/female power relationships are diffused and modified by a variety of other relationships, including relationships among women.

This argument, however, was opposed by other participants, who wondered how it was possible to be a feminist and have a favourable view of polygamy. "African feminists are struggling to have nuclear families", they said. This view is pertinent in Senegal, where 56% of married women are in polygamous unions: "In Senegal, when you get married, the nuclear family is your space of power, economically and socially. You do not want to share neither space nor money with another wife."

In the ensuing discussion, differences between current processes in Africa and in the West were pointed out: In Africa there is an increasing trend towards the process of family nuclearisation (strongly promoted by rampant Pentecostal churches), while in Europe and in the US, the current move is towards new types of non-nuclear families: for example, many families comprise divorced parents living with different partners and different sets of children; or increasing numbers of men and women are living alone (the 'family' having shrunk to "one person and one pet") or as single parents (generally mothers). However, a solid nuclear family ideology is usually retained as a background, even if statistics show a different picture.

Another discussion, based on presentations from South Africa, focused on different conditions for 'motherhood' in black and white communities in that country. It was shown that modern motherhood is contradictory per se, since wage work demands and children's needs pull mothers/parents in different directions. In many white communities (as often in the North) motherhood
is individualised, mothers/fathers are met with unequal expectations (in the North in spite of overall equality-discourses), and motherhood more often than not is ridden with guilt. In many black communities co-mothering is much more of a norm, making motherhood easier by softening the contradictions; here motherhood may even be perceived as a resource.

The concept of 'motherhood' was debated from different disciplinary and analytical perspectives. These ranged from historical studies following lines of development of words for 'mother' (based in Finland and Madagascar) to contradictions in contemporary mothers' lives, created by structures of economy and by unequal relations of race and gender (based in South Africa and Ghana). The influences of colonisation, state and religion (Christianity and Islam) in reinforcing patriarchy were repeatedly pointed out.

One aim of the conference was to contribute to the development of a theoretically insightful and politically focused language for analysing 'motherhood' as institution. Several participants, however, also talked about the need for discourses exploring 'motherhood' as personal and social experience. Both approaches are needed in studies of cross-cultural patterns of 'motherhood' in order to be able to influence trends of development, to contribute to strategising about justice and equity, and to support women struggling for change.

Plans are currently afoot to edit a book based on a selection of papers from the conference along with a few additional papers. This is especially important in order to give a fuller view of the 'Nordic perspective', which was only
sporadically represented at the meeting in Ile de de Gorée. Before the publication of the book, however, a selection of the papers presented at the conference will be available in two forthcoming editions of the e-journal JENdA (www.jendajournal.com).

References

Amadiume, I. 1997. Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture. London and New York: Zed Books.

Chodorow, N. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Psychology of Gender. Berkley: University of California Press.

Collins, P. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Oyéwùmí, O. 1997. The Invention of Women. Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. University of Minnesota Press.

Oyéwùmí, O. 2000, 'Family Bonds/ Conceptual Binds: African Notes on Feminist Epistemologies', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 25, no. 4.

Oyéwùmí, O. 2002, 'Conceptualizing Gender: The Eurocentroc Foundations of Feminist Concepts and the Challenge of African Epistemologies', in JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women's Studies, vol. 2, no. 1.

Rich, A. 1976: Of Woman Born. Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Virago.

Spelman, E. 1988. Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought. Beacon.

Sudarkasa, N. 1996: The Strength of our Mothers. African and African Amerrican Women and Families: Essays and Speeches. Africa World Press.

Yuval Davis, N. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage.