FSP 1 / FSP 2 / FSP 3 - Pamela Ohene-Nyako : Caught in the Crossfire of Multiculturalism: Black Women's Transnational Anti-Excision Activism in Hexagonal France, 1970s-1990s

03. Juli | 10:00

Pamela Ohene-Nyako (Université de Genève)
Caught in the crossfire of Multiculturalism: Black Women’s transnational Anti-Excision Activism in Hexagonal France. 1970s-1990s

Diskutanten : Cornelia Moser (CMB)

In this intervention, I aim to discuss my historical findings and new project on Black women’s transnational activism against excision in postcolonial France from the 1970s to the 1990s. During these decades, immigrant and racialized communities formulated demands calling for the right to have their cultural differences acknowledged. The latter were partially recognized in 1981 under François Mitterrand’s government and the principle of le droit à la différence culturelle [the right to cultural difference]. Droit à la différence focused on culture in its broader sense, namely ways of being, and was an attempt to deal with multiculturalism in postcolonial France (Martigny 2016). However, highly mediatized legal cases and controversies rapidly emerged pertaining to polygamy and excision. Whilst several African women mobilized against these practices in the name of women’s rights and health, they concurrently fought against racist recuperations which stigmatized African women and communities. Indeed, inasmuch African female activists acknowledged the need to value and transmit African languages, values, and creativity, and fought against racism, they called for a critical assessment and the abolition of polygamy and excision along other sociocultural practices deemed patriarchal.

The first part of my intervention will present the main conclusions I came to in PhD project in terms of Black women’s intersectional fight against excision in postcolonial France. The second part of my presentation will provide some introductory insights into my new postdoctoral project. I will briefly present the French section of Groupe Abolition contre les Mutilations Sexuelles (GAMS), an association that comprised white French women and African women who advocated for the prevention of excision and its abolition. I then wish to discuss my analytical framework which seeks to blend postcolonial perspectives with an Africana approach. The latter postulates for an integrated understanding of the African continent and its diasporas when relevant (Diouf 2023; Soumahoro 2020; Rabaka 2009). This analytical tool is thus fruitful in the case of the GAMS because the group was integrated into a wider network of African and European associations advocating for the prevention and abolition of excision.

To attend online, click on the zoom link indicated on the semester programme of research focus 1.

Séance commune / Gemeinsames Seminar
Pôle 1 : État, normes et conflits politiques
Pôle 3 : Dynamiques et expériences de la globalisation

Seminar im Sommersemester 2025 zum Thema: Gender
Programme du semestre d’été 2025 sous le titre : Genre

Ort