ABSTRACT

This paper examines the legacy of Ifi Amadiume's Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (1987) to African gender theorisation three decades after its publication. We argue that Amadiume's detailed ethnography of the Nnobi society provides an example of what can be achieved when African scholars centre local histories, languages, and kinship ties to provide contextualised understandings of sex and gender. In southern African societies, we assess the ways in which gender fluidity, drawing from local languages, age, seniority and lineage do not strictly fix sex to gender, thus providing possibilities for flexible gender structures that allow women to access institutions of power through the lineage as first daughters (umafungwashe) and wives, among others. We further examine the ways conservative patriarchal discourses continue distorting African cultures and traditions, thus undermining women's rights and access to social, cultural, economic and political power. We argue that current Eurocentric attempts that aim to delink sex and gender do not move us beyond the universalised binaries of gender and sex. Through revisiting local social and linguistic histories that practised gender fluidity and tolerance, we can also begin to challenge the conservative attitudes towards the LGBTQIA+ communities. Given the continued sexual and gender diversities that are being challenged daily in the African continent, it is timely that we revisit the historical meanings along with their contemporary implications for sexual citizenship and gendered power relations today.

摘要

这篇论文研究了 Ifi Amadiume 的《男性女儿和女性丈夫：非洲社会中的性别和性别》（1987）在出版三十年后对非洲性别理论的影响。我们认为，Amadiume 对 Nnobi 社会的详细民族志提供了一个例子，说明当非洲学者以当地历史、语言和亲属关系为中心以提供对性和性别的情境化理解时，可以取得什么成就。在南部非洲社会中，我们评估了性别流动性的方式，从当地语言、年龄、资历和血统中汲取的知识不会严格将性别固定为性别，从而为灵活的性别结构提供了可能性，允许女性通过血统获得权力机构作为第一个女儿（umafungwashe) 和妻子等。我们进一步研究了保守的重男轻女的话语如何继续扭曲非洲文化和传统，从而损害妇女的权利以及获得社会、文化、经济和政治权力的机会。我们认为，当前旨在将性与性别脱钩的以欧洲为中心的尝试并没有使我们超越普遍化的性别和性二元对立。通过重新审视当地实行性别流动和宽容的社会和语言历史，我们也可以开始挑战对 LGBTQIA+ 社区的保守态度。鉴于非洲大陆每天都面临持续的性和性别多样性挑战，我们重新审视历史意义及其对当今性公民和性别权力关系的当代影响是及时的。