African literature and ecofeminism

This chapter focusses attention on the creative work of selected African women—such as Adelaide Tantsi Dube, Joyce Chigiya, Napo Masheane, Olajumoke Verissimo, Ijeoma Umebinyuo and Nobantu Ndlazulwana, as well jazz artist Dorothy Masuka and rap performer Lydia Owano Akwabi—in aiming to contribute to the dearth in critical scholarship on African women’s oratory practices through poetry as well as developing a critical analysis of their literary work from an ecofeminist standpoint. The discussion argues that via a concept of “nommo”—the reproductive power of the spoken word to evoke or call into being that which is spoken—it is possible to develop an innovative understanding of “African ecofeminism” as a naming practice; a presage to realizing a speculative paradigm attentive to emphasizing the distinctive and intricate relationship between African women’s cultural experiences, their connections to the natural environment, and the aesthetic dimensions of their creative oratory with respect to ecological, geographical and spiritual contacts with the natural world. Through “nommo” as an aesthetic of African women’s oratory, this chapter argues that African women expose social concerns through the speaker’s individual experience as addressed to responders, thus recalibrating private challenges of ecological concern as public ecofeminist issues shared by the community.