Feminist Publishing Practices in Tanzania (1980s to 2020s): Creating Reading Publics and Inclusive Knowledge Bases

Abstract

This thesis investigates the knowledge production and dissemination of three post-independence publishing companies in Tanzania: Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA), Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd (MNN) and E&D Vision Publishers Ltd, as well as the work of interlinked literary initiatives between the 1980s and 2020s. While the number of women writers, self-publishers and editors has risen progressively over this time period, significant structural inequalities still remain in the Tanzanian publishing industry, with very few female-owned and female-led publishing companies. The ongoing lack of representation of women in decision-making positions and processes around which books are commissioned, designed, and circulated poses fundamental, urgent, and wide-ranging questions about inclusive knowledge production in the country. And yet, there have been on-going efforts by Tanzanian publishers aimed at bringing positive social changes made possible through publishing networks, collaborations, and women-to-women relationships. Additionally, the role played by male allies and professionals has critically influenced how feminist publishing practices contribute to the ways reading communities are built and sustained over time. This is ground-breaking multidisciplinary research which builds on publishing, literary and gender studies of the 20th and 21st Century which aims to shift understandings of feminist publishing practices from an African point of view. The study is located within a broader critical framework around African feminism, engaging with works of various scholars to question and show how feminist publishing in Tanzania has been communicating an African feminist agenda. It is informed by carefully constructed empirical data including gathering and reconstructing bibliographic information of the three publishing companies and 56 interviews, alongside close readings of female-authored texts and Sauti ya Siti magazine, archival research and social media analysis. Drawing on these methods, this thesis examines how various editorial, production and marketing strategies have significantly influenced the ways in which feminist texts have been produced and distributed from the 1980s to the 2020s. The first three chapters of this thesis explore how Tanzania-based publishing companies and literary initiatives owned by both women and men have been engaging in voicing a feminist agenda for the past four decades in print and digital forms. Extending my research to think more widely about forms of knowledge production by women, the last chapter questions how women have been involved in the transmission of knowledge to children as an intergenerational societal responsibility through book clubs and oral literature in various media forms.