Abstract
The 1960s institutionalization and formalization of Africa’s continental integration was a manifestation of the ontological fragility of the concept of emancipation in the African context. As a concept, continental emancipation excluded concerns of women and formalized the divorce between decolonization and racial domination on the one hand and social emancipatory movements on the other. This divorce was contrary to the expectation of women who sought the end of colonial subjugation as a turning point for women’s emancipation from not only colonial and racial domination but also from social oppression. This Article argues that the continental emancipation project betrayed the hopes of women who sought decolonization or the end of white racial domination as central to the end of gendered and gendering social subjugation. This Article will have four parts. The first part will be a general introduction and will explore women’s emancipation in the context of regional integration studies. The second part will explore the internal contradictions of the concept of emancipation. The third part will explore the marketization of regional integration in Africa and the debates surrounding gender in trade agreements. The fourth part will be the conclusion and suggest a way forward.
Recommended Citation
Luwam Dirar,
Emancipation, Decolonization, and Gender in the Context of African Integration,
35 Fla. J. Int'l L.
235
(2024).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/fjil/vol35/iss3/1