Exploring Gender Roles and Identities in African Rituals and Culture

Dear Colleagues,

The intricate and dynamic ways that African rituals and cultural practices influence, negotiate and change gender roles and identities over time and geography are examined in this Special Issue. It presents gender as a dynamic, context-dependent construct that is constantly created and reproduced through lived experiences, ritual acts and cultural institutions rather than as a fixed or universally defined concept. The topic challenges prevailing Eurocentric frameworks that frequently enforce rigid gender binaries and ignore the diversity and fluidity present in African communities by emphasizing African epistemologies. This book explores how rituals serve as crucial locations for the development of identity, authority, belonging and social continuity by drawing on multidisciplinary viewpoints from fields such as gender studies, anthropology, religion, sociology and genealogy. In addition to being contested, reinterpreted and changed in response to historical changes like colonialism, postcolonial restructuring, migration and urbanization, it emphasizes how gendered roles are passed down through generations through ceremonial practices, kinship systems and symbolic performances. The issue also highlights the significance of genealogical methods in tracking the historical production, maintenance and disruption of gender identities. African rituals are portrayed as flexible and sensitive, expressing continuous negotiations between continuity and change, rather than as static. The ways that modern African contexts—such as higher education, religion and sociopolitical institutions—continue to modify conceptions of gender, sexuality and power are given particular focus.

Finally, by emphasizing African knowledge systems and lived experiences, this Special Issue advances the decolonization of gender and genealogy studies. It provides a more complex and culturally grounded explanation of identity development in African communities by critically examining how cultural traditions concurrently uphold, question and alter gender norms.

We are pleased to offer this Call for Papers for the forthcoming Special Issue of Genealogy, “Exploring Gender Roles and Identities in African Rituals and Culture”. The active construction, transmission, negotiation and transformation of gender roles and identities by African ritual and cultural institutions is examined in this Special Issue. It presents ritual as a dynamic and lived space where genealogies of identity, authority, belonging and social reproduction are continuously created and reconfigured rather than as a static cultural remnant.

Overall Focus, Scope, and Purpose

Focus

The ways that African ritual and cultural institutions actively construct, transmit, negotiate and challenge gender norms and identities in a variety of contexts are examined in this Special Issue. It presents gender as a socially integrated and constantly changing concept shaped by cultural practices, symbolic performances and communal life rather than as a fixed or static category. Understanding ritual as a dynamic and lived framework that both constitutes and transforms genealogies of identity, authority, belonging and social reproduction is fundamental to this approach. Ritual practices are viewed as dynamic locations of meaning-making where gendered identities and hierarchies are replicated, challenged and remade rather than as only cultural relics of the past. In this sense, rituals serve as both areas of contestation and mechanisms of continuity, allowing for the formation of alternate forms of gender expression and authority as well as the upkeep of existing social orders. The significance of analyzing these processes within African epistemological frameworks is emphasized by recent research, which show how ritual life reflects intricate negotiations of power, identity and social belonging (Khosa Nkatini 2023; Oyěwùmí 1997).

In addition to challenging reductive and Eurocentric interpretations of gender and social organization, this Special Issue aims to advance scholarly understanding of how African societies articulate and transform gendered realities across generations by emphasizing the interaction between ritual, culture and gender.

Scope

This Special Issue takes a very interdisciplinary approach, drawing on a wide range of fields, including anthropology, religious studies, history, sociology, gender studies, theology, psychology, cultural studies and African studies. It aims to promote rich, interdisciplinary discussions that enhance comprehension of the intricate relationships between gender, culture and ritual in African cultures.

Diverse methodological and theoretical viewpoints are welcome to contribute, with a focus on both historical and modern studies. Studies based on a range of African societies, as well as those that investigate the transnational aspects and diasporic expansions of African cultural practices, are welcomed in this issue. The Special Issue seeks to convey the diversity, dynamism and contextual specificity of gendered experiences across various African and diasporic settings by embracing this breadth.

Key Themes (including, but not limited to):

• Gendered constructions of ceremonial and ritual authority
• Systems of marriage, kinship and sexuality within African contexts
• African conceptualizations of masculinities and femininities
• Gender fluidity, embodiment and spirit possession in ritual spaces
• Disruptions of ritual gender structures resulting from colonial encounters
• Urban reinterpretations of ritual practices and postcolonial transformations
• African ritual epistemologies examined through decolonial perspectives
• Cultural constructions and enduring expressions of womanhood

Purpose

(1) Examining African Rituals and Culture’s Gender Roles and Identities

This issue tackles more recent works that highlight the fluidity, contextuality and contested nature of gender in African settings (Tamale, 2020; Matebeni et al., 2018; West, 2025), building on fundamental work in African gender studies (Oyěwùmí, 1997; Amadiume, 1987). More recent research emphasizes how gender identities are formed in modern African institutional, sociopolitical and cultural contexts (Lynch et al., 2024; Rossouw, 2025).  However, research on African religion and ritual show that ritual practices are still changing in response to postcolonial changes, migration and urbanization (Bompani & Frahm-Arp, 2010; Kangwa, 2016). Further challenging universalist and Eurocentric presumptions on gender and knowledge production are decolonial approaches (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013; Lugones, 2007).

This Special Issue is innovative because it examines how gender identities are reproduced, challenged and modified throughout generations within shifting socio-historical contexts by integrating ritual studies, African gender scholarship and genealogy analysis. This issue conceptualizes gender and ritual as mutually constitutive and historically dynamic, as opposed to seeing them as distinct analytical realms. 

(2) Contribution to Existing Literature

Ritual studies and gender studies in Africa have both advanced greatly, but they have frequently done so together. As a result, important regions are still understudied, especially the following: 

• How gender norms are transmitted and reshaped through ritual behaviors as intergenerational mechanisms;
• The connection between kinship structures and gendered ritual authority;
• The flexible, pluralistic, and contested nature of gender identities in African contexts (Tamale, 2020; Matebeni et al., 2018; West, 2025);
• How ritualized gender formations are affected by colonial and postcolonial changes (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013; Lugones, 2007). 

According to recent studies, gender norms are changing in modern institutional and sociocultural contexts (Lynch et al., 2024; Rossouw, 2025). This emphasizes the necessity for integrated approaches that look at gender through lived experience, ritual and ancestry. In order to fill in these gaps, this Special Issue presents a genealogical viewpoint that tracks the creation, maintenance and reconfiguration of gendered identities over time. It emphasizes processes of continuity, disruption and alteration rather than static depictions of “traditional roles.” 

Range

Drawing from anthropology, religious studies, history, sociology, gender studies, theology, psychology, cultural studies and African studies, this Special Issue takes an interdisciplinary approach. We seek contributions that highlight various African contexts and diasporic extensions in both historical and modern times. 

Important subjects consist of, but are not restricted to, the following:

• Ritual and ceremonial authority structures that are gendered; 
• In ceremonial contexts, marriage, kinship and sexuality; 
• African conceptions of femininity and masculinity; 
• Spirit possession, embodiment and gender fluidity; 
• Ritual gender patterns disrupted by colonialism and missionaries;
• Urban reinterpretations of ritual practices and postcolonial changes; 
• Decolonial perspectives on African ritual epistemologies; 
• The persistence of women and cultural constructions.

Goals 

There are four main goals for this Special Issue:

1. To critically analyze how gendered identity genealogies are shaped and maintained by ritual activities throughout generations.
2. To investigate how African cultural systems use ritual performance to construct personhood, authority and belonging. 
3. To challenge prevailing Western gender paradigms by emphasizing African epistemologies and lived realities (Oyěwùmí, 1997; Lugones, 2007). 
4. To examine how cultural traditions continue to influence, question and change gender norms in modern settings.
This Special Issue strongly relates to Genealogy's emphasis on descent, lineage, memory and social formation by placing gender within genealogical and ritual frameworks.

(3) Required Submission Paragraph

This Special Issue advances the continuing decolonization of gender studies by emphasizing African epistemic frameworks rather than imposing Western gender binaries. Additionally, it extends genealogy research beyond Eurocentric paradigms, providing fresh theoretical and empirical perspectives on the historical production and cultural embedding of identities.

Details of Submission

Prospective authors are encouraged to submit a 200-word abstract describing their intended contribution along with a suggested title. Abstracts should be submitted to either the guest editors at Hundzukani.khosa@nwu.ac.za or the Genealogy editorial office at genealogy@mdpi.com.

Every abstract that is submitted will be examined to ensure it fits within the parameters of the Special Issue. A double-blind peer review procedure will be applied to complete articles.

References

Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books.

Bompani, B., & Frahm-Arp, M. (2010). Development and Politics from Below: Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kangwa, J. (2016). African cultural practices and health: Implications for modern healthcare. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 72(4).

Khosa Nkatini, H. P. (2023). Ubuntu and mourning practices in the Tsonga culture: Rite of passage. Verbum et Ecclesia, 44(1).

Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–209.

Lynch, I., Middleton, L. E., Fluks, L., Isaacs, N., Essop, R., & van Rooyen, H. (2024). Catalysing gender transformation in research through engaging African science granting councils. South African Journal of Science, 120(7/8).

Matebeni, Z., Monro, S., & Reddy, V. (2018). Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship, and Activism. London: Routledge.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2013). Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.

Oyěwùmí, O. (1997). The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Rossouw, J. (2025). Transforming gender and sexuality education in South African higher education. Social Sciences, 14(10).

Tamale, S. (2020). Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Ottawa: Daraja Press.

West, T. (2025). Masculinities and gender norms in African society. Journal of African Development.

Prof. Hundzukani Portia Khosa
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• rituals
• culture
• identities
• gender
• integration