Womandla! Feminism and Social Movements in the Global South, a new Special Issue in Third World Quarterly (TWQ) originates from the Womandla! Feminism and Social Movements in the Global South online seminar series held between April and July 2021. This series was convened by scholars affiliated with the International Studies Group, University of the Free State, South Africa.
The twelve articles in the Special Issue collection showcase a diverse array of research in feminist, gender, and women’s history, specifically focusing on colonialism, transnational activism, and theories both rooted in and emerging from the Global South.
Most of this Special Issue (Womandla! Feminism and Social Movements in the Global South. Guest Editors: Ana Stevenson, Kate Law and Kundai Manamere) is published as open access. To mark International Women’s Day on the 8 March 2026, the entire issue will be temporarily free to access until the end of April 2026. This year’s theme comes at a time when justice systems are under strain. The themes explored in this collection from feminist resistance to transnational organising and decolonial praxis resonate with particular urgency and feels especially timely.
Womanpower and the Politics of Solidarity
The portmanteau ‘Womandla’ has distinct foundations in South African history and social movements, having been inspired by the isiZulu and isiXhosa word Amandla (power). By blending “woman” with Amandla, the term evokes “woman power” embodying activism and resistance to oppression derived from both gender and race. As the introduction describes (Reworlding feminism and social movements from the Global South), this accompanying cartoon underscores the inextricability of racial and gender justice in activist practice.
Source: Black Sash Collection. BC 668:F. Manuscripts & Archives Department, University of Cape Town Libraries.
Centring Women’s Histories in and from the Global South
International Women’s Day provides a meaningful moment to spotlight this collection, as it continues the feminist project of recovering and making visible women’s histories in all their diversity.
The three Special Issue Guest Editors, Ana, Kundai, and Kate, reflect on why this collection feels especially timely and why its themes demand attention right now.
“As we write in our Editorial, “our special issue focuses on women’s histories in the Global South to enact the practice of writing feminist and gender histories that actively embody the heterogeneity of women’s historical and contemporary experiences.” Authors across the career spectrum recuperate the perspectives of women in the Global South through the lens of African, Latin American, South Asian, Irish, and global feminisms.”
Ana Stevenson, University of the Free State, South Africa
“Women are unique individuals with various multifaceted experiences of the world. This Special Issue is our tribute of sorts as we celebrate women’s smiles, tears, sweat, struggles, victories and humanity on International Women’s Day. Drawing case studies from across the World, our special issue highlights the heterogeneity, power, agency and resilience of women in various spheres.”
Kundai Manamere, University of the Free State, South Africa
“Themed around ‘Bodies’ and ‘institutions’, this special issue explores global feminist struggles regarding bodily autonomy and institutional power. In doing so, the authors reflect on past achievements while mapping the significant challenges that remain ahead.”
Kate Law, University of Nottingham, UK
Full list of articles in the Womandla! Special Issue
- Intro: Reworlding feminism and social movements from the Global South – Kate Law, Kundai Manamere & Ana Stevenson
- Sex work and the beerhall: an autoethnography from Chiredzi, Zimbabwe – Kundai Manamere
- A history of ananyamukuta – Shona midwives: identity, roles and development in Zimbabwe, 1880s to 1970s -Priscillah Machinga
- The return of husbands: of male labour returnees and women in Botswana, c.1970–2023 – Unaludo Sechele
- Buy clandestine misoprostol, get feminist advice for free: powerful narratives in women’s digital counterpublics on reproductive rights in South America -Luciane Leopoldo Belin & Carla Cândida Rizzotto
- Al Glitter de Guerra: cyborg movidas, Instagram and feminist protest in Mexico -Laura Loyola-Hernández
- From ‘white slavery’ to ‘female sexual slavery’: the UN and global radical feminism against sex work – Rosa Campbell & Ana Stevenson
- Third World feminism, transnationalism, and international solidarity: the Indian Women’s Charter of Rights and Duties (1945) and the Federation of South African Women’s Charter (1954) – Annie Devenish
- Resisting population control: global women’s health activism and contraceptive controversies, 1980s–1990s – Carolina Topini
- In exile: the office of the African National Congress of South Africa in Sweden – Emma Elinor Lundin
- Solidarity and colonial analogies in Irish republican feminists’ discursive practices, 1890s–1980s – Sharon Crozier-De Rosa
About the Special Issue Guest Editors
Kate Law is an Africanist and feminist historian who specialises in modern South African and Zimbabwean history. She is Assistant Professor of history at the University of Nottingham, UK, and research fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her monograph, Gendering the Settler State: White Women, Race, Liberalism and Empire in Rhodesia c.1950-1980 (Routledge, 2016), began the long overdue task of ‘gendering’ the history of British decolonisation. She is currently writing her second book, Fighting Fertility: Race, Rights, and Reproduction during Apartheid.
Kundai Manamere is a research fellow at the University of the Free State’s International Studies Group. Her research interests include global public health, migration, women’s histories, and the history of science and technology. She is the author of the book Malaria on the Move: Rural Communities and Public Health in Zimbabwe, 1890–2015 (Ohio University Press, 2025).
Ana Stevenson is Research Fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her first book, The Woman as Slave in Nineteenth-Century American Social Movements (2019), appeared in the ‘Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements’ series. With Kristin Allukian, she convenes ‘The Suffrage Postcard Project’, a digital humanities initiative and digital archive featuring more than 1,100 transatlantic postcards.
