Abstract:

In this lecture I will outline the theoretical background of my MIASA project about ‘Christianity’, ‘feminism’, and associated terms, in the English-speaking YWCA movement on the continent. I aim to outline the epistemological basis for taking a narrative approach to researching ethics and identity in African contexts referring to African/a, Black, and decolonial feminist theory. I will then explain how this relates to identity, and why identity is significant for thinking about ethics, taking ‘Christianity’ and ‘feminism’ as illustrations.

Eleanor Tiplady Higgs (UK) is currently Lecturer in Sociology at Brunel University, London. She is an interdisciplinary feminist scholar in the humanities who completed her PhD in Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London in 2018. She was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Cape Town, and Fellow of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, in the 'Moralities' research section. Her first monograph, Narrative, Identity and Ethics in Postcolonial Kenya The Young Women’s Christian Association was published by Bloomsbury Academic in July 2021.