Judith Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” and the Foundation of Igbo Women’s Studies

Abstract

Research Article| September 01 2017 Judith Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” and the Foundation of Igbo Women’s Studies Ndubueze L. Mbah Ndubueze L. Mbah State University of New York—Buffalo Ndubueze L. Mbah is an assistant professor in the history department at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Mbah utilizes oral histories, emic interpretations of material culture, and gendered rituals to study masculinities, female power, dissident sexualities, and slavery practices in pre-twentieth century West Africa. His research focusses on the relationship between changes in women’s sociopolitical power and the shifting gender constructions and performances of hegemonic masculinities. His book project entitled “Emergent Masculinities: Gendered Power and Social Change in the Biafran Atlantic Age,” demonstrates how Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria made sense of, and domesticated broad changes in the Atlantic world economy over 170 years, through shifting local articulations of hegemonic masculinity. Mbah argues that the Bight of Biafra’s eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ transatlantic engagements transformed gender identities, ushering a shift from a precolonial period characterized by female breadwinners and more powerful female political institutions to a protocolonial period of male domination. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of West African History (2017) 3 (2): 156–165. https://doi.org/10.14321/jwestafrihist.3.2.0156 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ndubueze L. Mbah; Judith Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” and the Foundation of Igbo Women’s Studies. Journal of West African History 1 September 2017; 3 (2): 156–165. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/jwestafrihist.3.2.0156 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressJournal of West African History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2017 Michigan State University2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.