Indigenous Women in Ecofeminist Politics: A Reading of Nkemngong Nkengasong’s Ancestral Earth

Abstract

The study entitled “Indigenous Women in Eco-Feminist Politics: A Reading of Nkemngong Nkengasong’s Ancestral Earth, investigates and analyses the text from an ecofeminist sensitive point of view. It examines the duality of logic seen through domination, discrimination and oppression with anthropocentric consciousness in the relationship between humanity and nature as well as androcentric sensitivities in the relationship between male and female as evident in Ancestral Earth. The study is predicated on the contention that the female and nature are victims of circumstances in the hands of male and humanity respectively; a situation which needs to be addressed in the 21^st century as we preach species independence and sustainability. The research adopts ecocriticism as a critical tool in the analysis of the work. I argue that as we preach anthropocentrism as a way of life, we should also examine the place of the woman in this dispensation wherein her plight under her male counterpart is as bad as the vulnerability of natural species in the hands of humankind.