On Convergences and Divergences : Gendered and Layered Political Citizenship in Ghana and Uganda

Abstract

This chapter explores the dynamics of contemporary political citizenships in West African Ghana and East African Uganda with a focus on junctures of convergences and divergences shaping the pathways for gendered in-/exclusions of citizenships. It interrogates the ways women’s political citizenships have developed and the pathways to power in the two countries. It draws on the notion of Ubuntu and afro-communitarianism as a pathway for understanding collective political citizenships and belongings as an alternative to Western state centric and individualised notions of citizenship. By mapping historical trajectories, the chapter seeks to understand the continuities, and changes defining present gendered citizenships. Despite being on similar paths in terms of the development of political systems, institutions and the gender subtext in the postcolonial eras, the two countries have developed unevenly. Whereas Uganda is characterised by authoritarian features with a relative high level of women’s political representation, the more democratic Ghana has a low level of women’s political representation. It concludes, that related to the notion of Ubuntu the achievement of women’s substantive political citizenship will be located within women’s collective lived realities and demands a broad based intersectional mobilisation.

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