African indigenous knowledge systems and the empowerment of African women

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on some of the conceptual issues and variables associated with the empowerment process with particular reference to the women of Africa. The chapter also pays attention to the conceptual underpinnings of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS) or African Indigenous Knowledges (AIK) as an epistemological framework for understanding, analyzing, articulating, and discussing the past and present. The intersections between AIKS and female empowerment in the African context constitute a major area of discourse throughout the chapter, and we discuss their interconnections with development strategy. We consider that male-centric science is often complicit with Western corporations and in several occasions has proven to be obstacles to genuine understanding and meaningful research for the promotion of gender equity. The chapter concludes with reflections on the variables that are of greatest significance for policy making and the implementation of gender equity.