Defiant knowledges and Black ecofeminism: reworlding Africa against empire

Book section : Chapter

The project of learning with the provocations of defiant knowledges for anti-imperial and decolonial understandings of lands, bodies, people–nature relations, and violence within African geographies is ongoing (Daley & Murrey, 2022) and (as with several related intellectual-political projects) now faces forms of organized political backlash. Through an examination of the political thought and practices of Thomas Sankara, Patricia McFadden, and Wangari Maathai, we examine how Black ecofeminist thought in Africa has taught us about the interconnected struggles against imperialism, militarism, and patriarchy; how imperial powers both appropriate non-Western knowledges and delegitimise Black and African knowledges, and the necessity of active reworlding even in the face of oppression. Drawing from these defiant thinkers, we contend that imaginative decolonial scholarship is indispensable but insufficient in isolation; it must always occur within and alongside an intellectual defiance that confronts the interrelated material and epistemic violence of militarism, fascism, authoritarianism, and neo-imperialism.

Authors: Murrey A; Daley, P

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Host title: Feminist Political Ecologies: A fusion of feminist thinking on nature and society
• Publication date: 2026-01-01
• Language: English
• Keywords: anti-imperialism; Black ecofeminism; defiant scholarship; militarism; Pan-African; patriarchy
• Subtype: Chapter