Extenders : Women , Sacrality , and Transformative Art

Writings on African art are produced from a Euromodernity standpoint that presupposes gender as a universal hierarchical category. Yet according to the author in many of Africa’s ontologies and social logics there is no category of. In this article, Nzegwu argues that the concept of gender at the core of imperialism is complicit in perpetuating African women’s subjugation and diminishing their capacities and achievements. First, she examines and bypasses the dystopian concept of gender that never transcends its pivotal idea that sex differences entail social relations of male power and dominance. Secondly, she examines the world of humanness that emerges after banishing the dystopian reality of imperialism and sexism in which the agency and creative potentialities of women emerge in fulness while analyzing the role of art in African societies. Lastly, she describes ideas of knowledge and creativity life in these conceptually different worlds.