The Nordic Africa Institute

Publication

Folklore gives new perspectives to peace and gender research


 

Date • 20 Feb 2019

What has Nigerian author Amos Tutuola to do with gender and peacebuilding? Quite a lot, according to NAI guest Professor Heidi Hudson. “Tutuola can make a huge contribution because he tells us to look at something that we cannot see, and to consider that as legitimate knowledge.”

Watch the film with Heidi Hudson on Youtube External link, opens in new window.

New book

A (Wo)man for all seasons: Amos Tutuola and the Gendering of Peace in Africa - Claude Ake Memorial Paper No. 11 By Heidi Hudson External link, opens in new window.

This book explores the work of Nigerian author Amos Tutuola and how it can enhance our understanding of gender and peacebuilding in Africa. Critical feminist contributions on how a gender perspective can broaden inclusion in post-conflict processes, as well as change institutions and mindsets are surely innovative but have not succeeded in dislodging liberal peace as the means of dealing with conflict on the African continent. Such works also draw their critiques from largely rationalist, Western roots.