Imagining an Ethics of Political Participation for Women in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The dissertation draws upon African and Christian ethics as well as on African women's experiences of resistance to violations of their human dignity and womanhood. It takes a theological approach drawing on resources including African women’s theology, Jon Sobrino, Emmanuel Katongole, and Catholic social teaching. An important lens for diagnosing the problems faced by women in Sub-Saharan Africa is Engelbert Mveng’s concept of “anthropological poverty.” This concept refers to the multiple aspects of the loss of dignity resulting from slavery and colonialism; a basic argument of this dissertation is that anthropological poverty affects women in unique ways, that are exacerbated by religious and cultural histories of oppression of women. To address this situation, I will advocate for an interplay between the sacredness of life of every individual that is a salient principle of Christian ethics and the collective consciousness of solidarity that is distinctive of African cultures. The dissertation uses the narratives of abuse of women from the Democratic Republic of Congo that mirror those of Sub-Saharan African women more generally. It argues that these abuses impoverish women not only economically but also and especially anthropologically. While anthropological poverty is rooted in the history of slavery and colonization of African nations, it continues to be worsened by an intermingling of androcentric Christian views with the cultural patriarchal gender biases which significantly shape women's identity and women’s roles in society. Another factor that worsens women's anthropological poverty is sexual violence, especially rape used as a weapon of war. The dissertation argues that the Catholic social teaching's discourse of the preferential option for the poor overlooks the ways these factors doubly impoverish women and obstruct their political participation in society. The Church's teaching tends to focus on economic over anthropological poverty. The dissertation undertakes the task of moral imagination using narrative criticism as a method of biblical exegesis. It assesses the foundations of the political participation of women in African traditions and Scriptures, using the feminist biblical lens of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, "discipleship of equals." Through a "sophialogical" hermeneutic, the dissertation identifies the epistemology that arises from women's resistance to anthropological poverty. From the perspectives of Latin American liberation theology and a political theology of hope for Africa, it theorizes that the passion of anger offers a particular epistemology of liberation, and can become a praiseworthy and effective means of women’s social participation when it is solidaristic and resistant. The dissertation concludes by assessing the extent to which Catholic social teaching on the preferential option for the poor lacks an adequate analysis of women's specific poverty. The option for the poor needs to regard women's suffering and responses to suffering as loci theologici. This option needs to consider the "conative interruption" dimension of anger that women's narratives disclose as a sign of the times. The dissertation resolves that the Christian virtues of fortitude and prudence need to be rearticulated in the contexts of grave abuses of womanhood, connecting them to solidaristic and resistant anger through which women's sacredness of life can be significantly ennobled.