| The genesis of this dissertation is the combination of my personal experience in the United States and a meditation on socio-historical, cultural, economic, anthropological and literary domains of investigation. The work is divided into five inter-related chapters. It uses a multidisciplinary approach to find explanations to my theory. Moreover, it brings to light the notion of sisterhood and provides a futurist perspective through a new syncretic paradigm: Akan-Kemetism. Chapter one is an autobiographical account of my personal experience and friendship with an African American woman. Chapter two "Identity and the Quest for Sisterwood: Parallel Theories" grounds the study in a conceptual framework based on Cheikh Anta Diop's cradle theory and the cultural unity, displays the different African feminine discourses. Chapter three, "The Empire And the Dynamics of Dependency" serves as a historical explanation for understanding the behavioral differences existing as oppositional socio-economic systems, and why poor countries are progressively being engulfed in an economic abyss. Chapters four and five "African Descended Women's Experiences, Resistance to Violence and Opression as a Means of Survival and Empowerment," a concrete application of the theory, present a literary perspective through Flora Nwapa's Efuru and Toni Morrison's, Beloved. Chapter Four "African Women's Experiences: Redefining ourselves within Traditional Constraints" discusses contemporary African women's predicaments, while Chapter Five explores Toni Morrison's reconstruction of African American history. An analysis of the diversities existing among African Descended women, and the quest for sisterhood leads to an urge for returning to the Ancient Kemetic world vision through the belief and practice of MAAT (Truth, Justice, Order) for the improvement of the present and a brighter future. |
