International Journal of Gender & Women's Studies

Female Historians and Knowledge Production for Women’s Studies: The Nigerian Example Since 1974
Mutiat Titilope Oladejo, PhD

Abstract
Knowledge production is fundamental to the development of African history. Professor Bolanle Awe (a foremost Nigerian female historian) once affirmed that: „„socio-economic conditions of African universities are not conducive to the production of knowledge, hence US and European scholars publish more about Africans than do African scholars‟‟. It is based on this conviction that she engaged the process that African women should be studied in their own terms. Several scholarly works of female historians on women has been purpose driven. Bolanle Awe, Nina Mba and La Ray Denzer are the most prominent female historians that located the directions of research on African women. They institutionalised African women‟s historical studies in spite of the difficulties encountered in presenting and promoting its scholarship. This paper examines the forms of knowledge production that evolved from these women and other female historians across Africa and the Diaspora. Furthermore, it investigates how the knowledge produced was institutionalised. It also explains the multi disciplinary nature of the knowledge forms produced. The methodology adopted here is a content analysis of books, journals and academic biographies and/or autobiographies.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijgws.v6n1a3