Anansesem: Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies

Overview

Anansesem: Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies is a composite story on African Canadian mothers’ experiences of teaching and learning while mothering. It seeks to celebrate the African mother’s everyday experiences and honor her embodied and cultural knowledge as important sites of meaning making and discovery for the African child. Through the Afro-indigenous art of Anansi storytelling, memoir, creative non-fiction and illustrations, the author takes you on an evocative narrative journey that focuses on how African descended women draw upon and are central to African childrens’ cultural, social and identity development. In entering these stories, readers access their joys, sadness, strengths and weaknesses as they mother in the midst of marginalization. The book is a testament to the power of counter-storytelling for inspiring internal and external transformation.

Reviews

"Hallelujah! Finally! One of our "babies" has used the language and the euro-cen-tric dominated system of the academy to document, re-validate, and reassure African descendant parents in Canada, about the "rightness" of our parenting! Anans-esem reiterates what sister/sistah/granny/aunty/uncle/father/brother/ community Mothers of African-descendant children have been "doing": it extrapolates the "knowing and doing" of our ancestorsâ€â€Âfree or oppressed, who used art forms as "cultural instruction" for thriving. Onuora is undoubtedly a product of "cultural genetics": she knows, genetically and culturally! Everyone who believes in the equality of all peoples must read this. Anansesem is unequivocal about the essentiality of using cultural forms in the making of a person. She is rightâ€â€Âour children's "thrive barometer" is elevated by strategies that build "cultural, social and identity consciousness": their "African Selfhood"; their "Being". Peaceful Resistance! Survival! Possibility!" â€â€ÂJoan Grant Cummings, parent, Black feminist activist, 2015  

"Readers put your hands together for Adwoa Onuora's book which shines the spotlight on those Knowledge Creators who are seldom in the light: Mothers, Afro-origin mothers; the Village it takes to raise a child; Storytellers and Artists. Adwoa's book is Soul-affirming and Fun." â€â€ÂRita Shelton Deverell, theatre artist, media producer, co-founder of Vision TV, and Adjunct Professor of Women's Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University

Author Biography

Adwoa Ntozake Onuora received her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education. A feminist mother, she lives in Toronto with her four year old daughter. Her work primarily focuses on using narrative representation and Afro-indigenous folk storytelling to explore the intersections and impact of gender, sexuality/sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, class and culture on African women’s lived experiences.