Anansesem: Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies

Ntozake Adwoa Onuora

• Publisher: Demeter Press
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781926452951
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Notice
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• Note to Readers
• Chapter 1. Pedagogies of the Spirit
• Tell Me a Story
• Webbed Toes and Fingers
• Nine-Night
• Chapter 2. It Takes a Village of Mammas
• Anancy and Him Story1
• Sweet Shop
• Washday
• Chapter 3. Bright Eyes, Brown Skin, Nappy Hair: Epistemologies of Beauty
• Nuttin Weh Too Back Nuh Good1
• The Erace(ing): Trapped in a Pigmentory Prison
• Silky Straight
• Chapter 4. The M(other) in the Mirror
• (Im)polite Violence1
• Bending Gender
• Killing Me Softly
• Chapter 5. I Feel Therefore I Can … (Be)long
• Anancy and Common Sense1
• In My Mamma’s House
• I’m a Black Girl
• Epilogue
• HERstory is OURstory: The Narrative of My Method
• Glossary of Words
• Adinkra Symbols: Their Meaning and Significance
• Bibliography