LAUSR

ABSTRACT Southern feminist theorists make a pertinent call for the democratisation of knowledge between the North and the South. In this article, we embrace a southern perspective in feminist theory while embarking on a genealogical analysis of gender constructs in research about Igbo women in South-Eastern Nigeria. In that sense, the study of gender constructs within feminist scholarship is itself a major source of inspiration. We therefore throw light on how the social position of Igbo women has been theorised by Western anthropologists and historians and discuss the different strands in African and Nigerian scholarship that are concerned with reappropriating and theorising the social position of Igbo women. Our wide-ranging analysis shows, surprisingly, that both Northern and Southern feminist theorists ironically tend to reproduce and reinforce the colonial perspective. We therefore argue that historically, geographically, contextually and culturally grounded forms of knowledge should be produced, exchanged and imagined.