Amina Mama

Dr. Mama was born in a mixed race household. She was born in Kaduna, Nigeria. Her father is Nigerian and her mother is English. Her ancestral roots on her paternal side trace back to Bida. Several members of Mama's family were involved in the development of the post-colonial local educational system. == Education ==

Mama moved to the United Kingdom and attained a Bachelor of Science in Psychology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland in 1979, a Master of Science in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London in 1981 and a doctorate in organizational psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London in 1987. Her thesis was titled "Race and Subjectivity: A Study of Black Women". == Career ==

After graduating with her Bachelor of Science in 1979 Dr. Mama worked as independent consultant giving policy advice to international agencies such as: UN, Govt. of Sweden, Govt. of the Netherlands, UK department of international development. Some of her early work involves comparing the situations of British and Nigerian women. She moved to the Netherlands and then back to Nigeria, only to encounter more upheaval in 2000. Then she moved to South Africa, where she began to work at the historically white University of Cape Town (UCT). At UCT, she became the director of the African Gender Institute and co-founded Feminist Africa, which is the first continental journal of gender studies and activism In 2008, Mama accepted a position at Mills College in Oakland, California. After moving, she commented: "I have learned America isn't just a big, bad source of imperialism." She was appointed the Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills, and co-taught a class called "Real Policy, Real Politics" with Congresswoman Lee on topics concerning African and African-American women, including gender roles, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and militarism. In 2010. she appointed Chair of the Department of Gender and Women Studies at the University of California, Davis. Mama was the chair of the board of directors for the Global Fund for Women, and continues to advise several other international organizations. She has sat on the board of directors of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Between 2020 and 2022, Mama served the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies, which is situated in Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. One of her best known works is Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender and Subjectivity. She is also involved in film work. In 2010, she co-produced the movie The Witches of Gambaga with Yaba Badoe. Currently she works as a professor in the dept. of gender, sexuality and women's studies at the University of California, Davis. She has worked there from 2010–present ==Thought==

Mama describes herself as a feminist and not a womanist, arguing that feminism originates in Africa and that white feminism "has never been strong enough to be 'enemy'—in the way that say, global capitalism can be viewed as an enemy". She has also argued that African universities continue to show entrenched patriarchy, in terms of both interpersonal sexism and institutional gender gaps. A primary area of interest for Mama has been gender identity as it relates to global militarism. She is an outspoken critic of AFRICOM, which she describes as part of violent neocolonial resource extraction. ==Publications==

• The Hidden Struggle: Statutory and Voluntary Sector Responses to Violence Against Black Women in the Home. Runnymede, 1989; republished by Whiting and Birch, 1996. • Black Women and the Police: A Place Where the Law is Not Upheld, in Inside Babylon: The Caribbean Diaspora in Britain, ed. Winston James and Clive Harris. London: Verso, 1993. . • Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender, and Subjectivity. New York: Routledge, 1995. . • National Machinery for Women in Africa: Towards an analysis. Third World Network, 2000. . • "Is It Ethical to Study Africa? Preliminary Thoughts on Scholarship and Freedom". African Studies Review 50 (1), April 2007. • Mama, A. (2011). What Does it Mean to Do Feminist Research in African Contexts? Feminist Review, 98(1_suppl), e4-e20. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2011.22 (Original work published 2011) ==References==