African women and de/colonization: Strategies of resistance and dynamics of change in Senegalese women's literature and film

The concept of AlterNarrative as a frame of analysis for Senegalese women's literary and filmic texts first takes into account women's new found agency in writing themselves in. What do the texts of this long standing Other (the alter ) reveal about women's effective roles and place in Senegalese society? Analyzing these texts as AlterNarratives also stresses an effort on their part to offer alternative narratives in form, language, and ideology to the dominant patriarchal narratives of the oral tradition and of more recent male-authored texts. Senegalese women novelists such as Mariama Ba, Nafissatou Diallo, Aminata Sow Fall, Adja Boury N'Diaye, Fama Diagne Sene as well as poets such as Kine Kirama Fall and N'Deye Coumba Diakhate will be taken into account. Film director Safi Faye follows in the footsteps of her literary sisters to present aspects of Senegalese women that were previously not stressed. Her films strongly complement Senegalese women's literature as they give voice to an under-represented segment of the population: the rural world and rural women in particular. From these works, an African feminist perspective emerges as one rooted in African realities and history, but scrutinizing both tradition and modernity, conscious of gender specific issues, but also unveiling the ills of post-colonial societies such as poverty, capitalist exploitation, and the defacement of moral values.