Ismahan Soukeyna Diop - African Mythology, Femininity, and Maternity

African people and their descendants from various regions of the Diaspora have endured a history of struggle that has been replete in violence and structural oppression. Offering apsychologyof Black people entails an understanding of these pervasive, sustaining structures and their intersection with culture, gender socialization, and the panoply of isms that shape people and contexts. What is needed as part of a knowledge base on Black psychology is an elaboration of the common themes that cut across global contexts and the conditions that characterize specific regions, all of which have bearing on individual, interpersonal, and societal functioning. More than ever, there is an urgent need for psychological scholarship that unapologetically centers race and the ever-changing role of context in understanding the history, struggles, and strengths of Black lives and communities around the globe. The series seeks to make a novel contribution to the broader area of critical & radical psychology by drawing on marginalized voices and perspectives and by engaging with the praxis agenda of improving the lives of African/Black peoples. It both seeks to critique oppression (more particularly, of the racialized, neo-colonial world) and provide prospective strategies (practices of liberation, of peace) to respond to such forms of oppression.

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Over the past several decades, there has been much scholarshipas well as a multitude of films, songs and literature sourcesfocusing on the importance of the emancipation of African people. It is our hope that this series will add to this base of knowledge and creativity and offer scholars and activists a solid, a one-stop resource for understanding the obstructions to emancipation and possible solutions for moving forward to construct new ways of being. This is book two of a books series focusing onPan-African Psychologieshighlighting the work of psychologists and other health and applied professionals whose work centers on unpacking the systemic issues that plague black communities throughout the globe and impacting our day-to-day deliberations. The series also seeks to highlight solutions to addressing these issues individually and systemically. Lastly, through this series, we seek to create a corpus of writings addressing the call for more liberated and freed Black individuals and communities who continue to be significantly affected by centuries of oppression.

Although each of the books in the series focuses on a distinct subject area, they are all linked through one main web: this collection is comprised of the writings of scholars in Black/African, liberation, radical, Fanonian, critical, cultural psychology or related fields and whose common focus is to shift the discourse on the structural damage of racism to finding antidotes for such a disease.

The first book by Chalmer Thompson provided the foundational context for developing, creating and disseminating a series of books onPan-African Psychologies. We encourage you to read this first book to, for an in depth and solid background, araison detre,for the development of the series.

Given the importance and significant role of women in our Black communities, it is fitting that the second book in the series would focus on women with a specific focus onAfrican Mythology, Femininity, and Maternity.The liberation of the individual must start from the cradle and mothers must play a significant role in this endeavor. The well-being of Black women is crucial as they prepare for such an impactful role.

In some cases, we transcend our regional spaces by addressing similarities across contexts within the Diaspora. This particular effort to engage transnationally is one we hope will inspire our readers to act, or continue to act, toward liberation and peace at the global level.

Ismahan Soukeyna Diops book is an extension of her thesis where she was already questioning the question of the femininity and the maternity after a mastectomy or a hysterectomy in Senegalese women.

In her book, this question is approached through African mythology in the light of cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis. It has the merit of detailing the myths, tales and legends to highlight the power of women in the matriarchy, being incompatible with the balance of the world, if not counterbalanced by that of men.

This matriarchy finds its origin in the founding myth, Amma, a woman, as creator of the world, but introduced in her symbolic order, the matrilineage, which must pass through a man, the maternal uncle. This family structure has led to a lively debate between psychoanalysis and American anthropology about the Oedipus that unfolds between four protagonists in this society and not three, as in the western world.