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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Exemplary lives and public distinction: the making of gendered and religious identities among Ghanaian Methodists in London.
| Panel |
42. Transnational spaces/cosmopolitan times: African associations in Europe
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| Paper ID | 397 |
| Author(s) |
Fumanti, Mattia
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | This paper explores the making of gendered and religious identities among a group of Ghanaian women living in London. I here focus my analysis on the members of Susanna Wesley Methodist Auxiliary UK (SUWMA), a Ghanaian women’s association based in London. Since its inauguration, three years ago, SUWMA has established itself as one of the most successful association in the Ghanaian Methodist community in London. A charitable association, SUWMA runs like many other migrant religious associations, educational and life skills courses, donations and other charitable events both in London and in Ghana. However great emphasis is placed in this organisation on what the members refer to as the welfare of the Church. By welfare of the church, these women refers to not only assisting its members in time of need such as funerals, births and weddings, but also to the welfare of the Ghanaian Methodist Ministers in London as well as the general care and maintenance of the Methodist Church buildings. These activities are conceptualised in gendered terms through metaphors of motherly and uxorial care and nurture and appeal to an ideal model of womanhood as good mother and wife. This model is based both on Ghanaian gendered discourses, but also on Methodist conceptualisations of womanhood in which exemplary religious and historical figures come to the fore as ideal. The making of gendered identities in the Diaspora for these Ghanaian women is negotiated through a conscious reflection on the life and deeds of certain exemplary figures, above all of Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley the founder of Methodism, on whose legacy these women build their activities. In this paper I will show how members of SUWMA construct their gendered identities as they negotiate their way to public recognition and distinction in the Ghanaian Diaspora public sphere. |
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