For I am an African (Feminist) and Other Meanings of Subjectivity

Abstract: To be an African feminist can sometimes be elitist, especially when removed from the communities and stories from which we come. However, when we remember ourselves in relation to where we come from and what we have been taught to forget, we engage in liberating and healing work that affords us self-reinterpretation in the worlds we make. In this essay, I reflect on actions by mothers—specifically my grandmother, Nyamasazi, and my mother, Tibifumura—as feminist role models who taught me that presence and remembering can be practices of feminist resistance against colonial erasure and patriarchal oppression. This involves reconnecting to spirit, reclaiming our humanity— obuntu —and reinterpreting our interdependencies with Mother Earth. In conversation with other feminists, I consider human relations as radical feminist actions that create new knowledge and meanings.