Simukai Chigudu publishes article in International Feminist Journal of Politics

Simukai Chigudu (@SimuChigudu), a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholar, has recently pubished an academic article entitled 'The Social Imaginaries of Women's Peace Activism in Northern Uganda.' It has now been published in the latest edition of the International Feminist Journal of Politics. The article covers Simukai's research in Uganda with female grassroots activists.

Below is a summary of the article. Read the full article here.

Simukai Chigudu

The metanarrative of global feminism is often constructed as a progressive and emancipatory movement emanating from the West and fostering radical politics elsewhere in the world. Such a view is not only ethnocentric but, critically, it fails to engage with the complex ways in which feminist politics travel and are evinced in specific localities. In this article, I seek to understand how marginalized women in the “Global South” – particularly in Africa – interpret, experience and negotiate feminist ideas to wield political power within the context of their social and moral worlds. I focus on women's organized resistance to violence and armed conflict, known as “women's peace activism.” Using a case study of a women's peace movement in Uganda mediated by an international feminist organization called Isis Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange, I conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with a wide range of activists in the organization and in its network in postconflict areas in Northern Uganda. I argue that the feminist peace discourse is most meaningful when its universal values of equity and securing the dignity of women are appropriated and re-signified through the cultural institutions and the collective memory of activists in their local settings.