Political-affective scenarios of black women in post-colonial contexts: an intersectional analysis of Buchi Emecheta’s works

Abstract

This study aims to investigate, from the perspective of intersectional theories and gender studies, what oppressions affect Nigerian women portrayed by writer Buchi Emecheta in the novels The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and Second Class Citizen (1974). Such analysis allows us to observe the effects of post-colonialism, motherhood, marriage and race on the lives of the characters Nnu Ego and Adah, who leave their original communities trying to conquer better living conditions in urban contexts. In order to substantiate the observations set out in the article, Crenshaw (1989), Hill Collins (2000), Kilomba (2019) and Hudson-Weems (2019) were used as main bibliographic contributions. By aligning the theoretical references with the literary text, this study also seeks to understand the cross-cultural nuances that are presented in the narratives of African authors. Through these two narratives, the importance of the article is justified by the need to combat the social and anthropological stigmas imposed to African women.