View article

While the postsecular turn has been hailed as a relatively new development by some feminist theorists, others point to “the long history of coexistence and contestations between religious and secular feminist approaches”(Smiet 2015: 7), arguing effectively that the postsecular moment does not signal a sudden discovery or acceptance of religiosity in feminist ideology but rather a reconsideration of the relationship between religion and feminist ideology in its varied forms and beyond Western contexts. The silencing of the tradition of coexistence of feminism and religion can be seen as part of a broader history of marginalization of alternative feminisms by “mainstream”(read: Western, liberal) feminism, which has been indicted for a lack of understanding of the historical, geopolitical, and cultural contexts in which other feminist struggles are forged. In Ghana, as in many African countries, the context in which feminism …