In this collection, continental and diasporan African women interrogate the concept "sacred text" and analyze ways oral and written religious "texts" intersect with violence against African-descended women and girls. While the sanctioned idea of a sacred text is written literature, this project interrupts that conception by drawing attention to speech and other embodied practices that have sacral authority within the social imaginary. As a volume focused on religion and violence, essays in this collection analyze religions' authorization of violence against women and girls; contest the legitimacy of some religious "texts"; and affirm other writing, especially memoir, as redemptive. Unraveling and Reweaving Sacred Canon in Africana Womanhood arises from three years of conversation of continental and diasporan women, most recently continued in the July 6-10, 2014 Consultation of African and African Disaporan Women in Religion and Theology and privileges experiences and contexts of continental and diasporan African women and girls. Interlocutors include African traditionalists, Christian Protestants and Catholics, Muslims, and women embodying hybrid practices of these and other traditions.
Introduction: Continental and Diasporan African Women Engage Each Other and Sacred Texts, Rosetta E. Ross.........vii Section I. Reinterpreting, Revising, and Re-Inscribing Oral Texts Chapter 1. "Akok bere nso Nim Adekyee": Women's Interpretation of Indigenous Oral Texts, Rose Mary Amenga-Etego.........3 Chapter 2. Exploring Yoruba Proverbs with Feminine Lexis as a Tool for Reimaging African Womanhood, Helen Adekunbi Labeodan.........21 Chapter 3. A Critique of Indigenous "Wisdom" as Enshrined in Some Fanti Sayings and Practices on Wife-Beating in Ghana, Agnes Quansah.........35 Section II. Embodied Texts, the Body as Text Chapter 4. When Caged Bodies Testify: African and African-descended Women's Memoirs as Sacred Texts, Liz Alexander and Melanie C. Jones.........51 Chapter 5. "You Don't Have the Right to Keep Us Silent, We Have Reference in Matters of Religion and Law": Voices of Ghanaian Muslim Women in Dawah, Rabiatu Ammah.........69 Chapter 6. Considering Violence Perpetrated against Women in Central Africa in the Light of God's Word: Two Case Studies, Antoinette Yindjara.........87 Chapter 7. Boko Haram Insurgence, the Chibok Girls' Abduction and the Implications for the Girl Child in Nigeria, Ruth Oke and Helen Adekunbi Labeodan.........93 Chapter 8. "Now You Have Struck a Rock": Rizpah, Black Mama Trauma, and the Power of Shaming in the Face of the Powers, Valerie Bridgeman.........107 Section III. Written Texts: Interrogating, Unmasking, and Taking Charge Chapter 9. "Those Who Entrusted Their Affairs to a Woman Will not Prosper": Its Implication in the Ghanaian Muslim Community, Fatimatu Sulemanu.........121 Chapter 10. Judges 19 and the Virgin Daughter's Trauma: "Small Voice" Implications for African Women and Girls, Elizabeth Siwo-Okundi.........139 Chapter 11. Sita's Story as a Text of Terror: A Motswana Woman's Impressions, Elizabeth Motswapong.........153 Chapter 12. Say My Name: Failure to Name, Misnaming, and Renaming as Acts of Violence against Africana Women, NaShieka Knight.........167
