Abstract
This article explores the space between politics and literature occupied by feminist writers in Francophone Africa. In the social realist novel, these writers have established an arena in which to engage in the politics of gender, modernity and change in Francophone sub‐Saharan Africa and articulate a culturally‐located discourse of development. The reception of this literary genre in its locality helps reposition the discourse of gender and development within the region, offering a culturally‐embedded voice in the gender and development debate that has been marginalised in the framing of the international development agenda for Africa over the past half century.
Highlights
This article explores the space between politics and literature occupied by feminist writers1 in Francophone Africa
The Gender of Change in Sub‐Saharan Africa Following the publication of a series of ground‐breaking studies in the 1970s on the role of women in the African economy, politicians began to take note of the myriad ways in which the growth of the postcolonial African economy depends upon women
While GAD was generally lauded as a significant advance on ear‐ lier policies seeking to improve women’s socio‐economic position in sub‐Saharan Africa, the results on the ground have been disappointing
Summary
While the role of literature in sociological theorisation has been recog‐ nised not least for its potential to « servir le sociologue à relativiser, à montrer la pluralité des “petites vérités“, [...] qui nous anime au quo‐ tidien [...] ce que Dantec qualifie de “laboratoire anthropologique ex‐ périmental“ » (Ricard, 7), in practice the social science theorisation that currently underpins development policy‐making is wedded to method‐. From the perspective of feminist standpoint theory, the discus‐ sion will argue in favour of the construction of knowledge around so‐ cial policy‐making theory and practice being relocated in its cultural environment Within this perspective, the hypothesis posited here sug‐ gests that social realist fiction illuminates the cultural distance that sep‐ arates international modes of conceptualising gender and development in Africa from the localised, more ‘embedded’ constructions of gender expressed in these novels. Social realist fiction that focuses on issues of gender in society has the potential to explain why outcomes have fallen short of expectations in development politics in the region for over half a century Through their culture‐rich analysis of gender, development and modernity in Francophone Africa these texts have already made an invaluable contribution to historical and anthro‐ pological studies in the region. The following discussion will look at ways in which novels from countries where French has been maintained as the principal language of published literature, have the potential to inform academic and development theory, and development practice in the region
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