Africana Womanism and African Proverbs: Theoretical Grounding of Mothering/Motherhood in Shona and Ndebele Cultural Discourse (Critical Essay‪)‬

Abstract This article sets out to validate the Africana Womanist literary theory as an intellectual paradigm grounded in knowledge and values derived from the African people's cultural experiences. It achieves this by analyzing cultural discourse from the continent, drawing particular attention to Shona and Ndebele proverbs and sayings. The Shona and Ndebele proverbs and sayings analyzed in the article candidly express perspectives on mothering/motherhood, which is one of the 18 descriptors advanced by Hudson-Weems in her explication of Africana Womanism (1993 and 2004). Against this background, the article contends that Africana Womanism is built around and informed by African survival technologies evolved over many centuries by Africanans themselves. The article's argument, then, is articulated within the confines of the realization that theories are expressions of culturally derived knowledge.