Public Motherhood in West Africa as Theory and Practice.

Perhaps no image is more fraught with contradiction than that of the black mother, often seen as embodying power and vulnerability at the same time. Based upon field and archival research in West Africa, I propose the concept of public motherhood as a broader definition of women’s authority and influence. The secondary feminist literature often examines motherhood within three frameworks, identified here as biological, sociohistorical and discursive. This article highlights the contribution of black feminist and Africanist scholars whose attention to race, class and empire expands upon the general scholarship on motherhood in innovative ways. The concept of public motherhood builds upon all of these writings by recognising the intellectual dialogue among them and then placing Africans at the centre of new ways of understanding power relationships between women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]