| Open Access
Alma Mater – Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Kulturforschungen 2026, Bd. 3(2) 191-210
Deconstructing the Paradigm of Female Subjugation: Dialectal Exploration of Resistance, Agency, and Embodied Experience in the Poetic Discourse of Koleka Putuma and Titilope Sonuga
S. 191 - 210 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.29329/almamater.2026.1417.14
Veröffentlichungsdatum: September 04, 2026 | Einzeln/Gesamtansichten: 0/0 | Einzeln/Gesamtdownloads: 0/0
Zusammenfassung
This study engages with the pressing issue of gendered violence through a postcolonial feminist analysis of Koleka Putuma and Titilope Sonuga's poetry. By examining the poets' representations of embodied experience, resistance, and agency, the paper sheds light on the complex dynamics of power and oppression that underpin patriarchal and colonial contexts. Through their work, Putuma and Sonuga challenge dominant narratives that normalize gender-based violence, instead centering the voices and experiences of marginalized women. Their poetry serves as a powerful form of dissent, employing vivid imagery and symbolism to evoke emotional responses and challenge oppressive norms. By making visible the trauma, physical and psychological damage, and enforced silence experienced by victims, the poets underscore the need for accountability and transformative change. Ultimately, the study highlights poetry's capacity to serve as a vital tool for resistance, empowerment, and social justice. By reclaiming their voices and narratives, women can challenge systemic injustices and forge new paths towards healing, freedom, and self-determination. This research contributes to ongoing conversations about the intersections of gender, power, and violence, emphasizing the importance of centering marginalized voices and perspectives in our pursuit of a more just and equitable world. Through its nuanced analysis of poetry and resistance, the study offers insights into the complex nature of gendered violence.
Schlüsselwörter: Gendered Violence, Postcolonial Feminism, Resistance, Empowerment
APA 7. Auflage
Adzokpa, S.A., & Daniels, J. (2026). Deconstructing the Paradigm of Female Subjugation: Dialectal Exploration of Resistance, Agency, and Embodied Experience in the Poetic Discourse of Koleka Putuma and Titilope Sonuga. Alma Mater – Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Kulturforschungen, 3(2), 191-210. https://doi.org/10.29329/almamater.2026.1417.14
Harvard
Adzokpa, S. and Daniels, J. (2026). Deconstructing the Paradigm of Female Subjugation: Dialectal Exploration of Resistance, Agency, and Embodied Experience in the Poetic Discourse of Koleka Putuma and Titilope Sonuga. Alma Mater – Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Kulturforschungen, 3(2), pp. 191-210.
Chicago 16. Auflage
Adzokpa, Seraphine Akou and Juliana Daniels (2026). "Deconstructing the Paradigm of Female Subjugation: Dialectal Exploration of Resistance, Agency, and Embodied Experience in the Poetic Discourse of Koleka Putuma and Titilope Sonuga". Alma Mater – Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Kulturforschungen 3 (2):191-210. https://doi.org/10.29329/almamater.2026.1417.14
Adetuyi, C. A. & Adeniran, A. A. (2018). African poetry as an expression of agony. World Journal of English Language. Sciedu Press. https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v8n1p21
Agara, T. (2024). Gender Dimensions of Kidnapping in Nigeria. In The Political Economy of Kidnapping and Insecurity inahmed Nigeria: Beyond News and Rumours (pp. 205-225). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
AL-Wazedi, U. (2021). Postcolonial feminism. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Albanie, Z. (2024). The unrapeable black woman: Understanding the plight of the black rape complainant in contemporary South Africa. https://open.uct.ac.za/items/c3fc38f0-63d1-43c8-b339-47720524b45b
Attoh, N. (2014). The right of the Chibok girls to privacy in international and municipal law. Available at SSRN 2462277. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2462277
Bamgbose, G. S. (2012). Modern African poetry and the issues of gender: the Nigerian literary scene. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, [Page 135]. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234673356.pdf.
Baral, S. (2024). Silencing the Past: The Politics of Voice and Representation in Trauma Literature by Women. Journal of Informatics Education and Research, 4(1). https://www.jier.org/index.php/journal/article/view/667/583
Bashir, M. U., Geidam, A. I., & Mu’azu, I. (2019). Boko haram insurgency and violence against women in North Eastern Nigeria. International Journal, 2(10), 57-66.
Bloom, M. & Matfess, H. (2016). Women as Symbols and Swords in Boko Haram’s Terror. Inclusive Security, Prism 6 No. 1. https://www.inclusivesecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Women-as-Symbols-and-Swords.pdf
Boswell, B. (2016). Conjuring up her wholeness: Post-transitional black South African women’s poetry and its restorative ethic. UNISA Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2016.1192675
Bryan, C. W. (2023). Ecopoetry: giving power to the planet. https://poetryispretentious.com/ecopoetry/
Byrne, D. (2014). New myths, new scripts: revisionist mythopoesis in contemporary South African women’s poetry. UNISA Press. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC167630
Choudhury, S. Kumar, S. (2021). Gender discrimination and marginalization of women in North-East India. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2625
Dlakavu, S. (2022). The Road to the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide in South Africa. Feminist Institutionalism in South Africa: Designing for Gender Equality, 247.
Edoro, A. (2017). The Girl Comes Back with Fire in Her Chest: 3 Poems by Titilope Sonuga. Brittle Paper. https://brittlepaper.com/2017/04/girl-fire-chest-3-poems-titilope-sonuga/
Esmaeel, A. O., & Saeed, Z. F. (2024). An Intersectional Feminist Analysis of Women’s Oppression in Evie Shockley’s Selected Poems. Academic Journal of Nawroz University, 13(1), 465-475. https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v13n1a1808
Finnegan, R. (1977). Oral poetry: Its nature, significance, and social context. Indiana University Press.
Finnegan, R. (2012). Oral Literature in Africa. Open Book Publishers. [pg. 54].
Gibson, N.C. (2008). Black Consciousness after Biko: The Dialectics of Liberation in South Africa, 1977–1987. In: Mngxitama, A., Alexander, A., Gibson, N.C. (eds) Biko Lives!. Contemporary Black History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230613379_8
Govender, D. (2015). Is domestic violence being policed in South Africa?. Acta Criminological: African Journal of Criminology & Victimology, 28(2), 32-46. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC185959
Habibi, A. (2014). Steve Biko: The Intellectual Roots of South African Black Consciousness. https://libjournals.unca.edu/ncur/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1010-Habibi.pdf
Harris, T. (2021). The case of Uyinene Mrwetyana: A restorative justice approach to gender-based violence (Doctoral dissertation, page 9). Deep Blue Library https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/169386/tnha.
Ibrahim, P., & Hoffmann, A. C. (2017). A gift from darkness: How I escaped with my daughter from Boko Haram. Little Brown.
Jacobin. (2021). Frantz Fanon: Revolution, racism, and anti-colonialism. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2021/09/frantz-fanon-revolution-racism-anti-colonialism-imperialism-algeria-caribbean-africa
Johnson, A. G. (2004). Patriarchy, the system. Women’s lives: Multicultural perspectives, 3(2204), 25-32. https://womrel.sitehost.iu.edu/Rel%20101_Religion&Culture/Johnson_Patriarchy.pdf
Jolly, R. J. (2010). Cultured violence: Narrative, social suffering, and engendering human rights in contemporary South Africa (Vol. 7). Liverpool University Press.
Karjane, H. M. (2002). The communication of trauma in media culture: A poststructural analysis of women’s experience of gender-based violence and healing. ProQuest LLC. https://www.proquest.com/openview/a8041b789377232a2701a7fc5b089d11/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
Lips, H. M. (2016). A new psychology of women: Gender, culture, and ethnicity. Waveland Press.
Lubisi-Nkosinkulu, N., Namumba, L., & Smith, T. (2022). The marginalization of women’s voices in news stories: Thoughts on a way forward. In Women Journalists in South Africa: Democracy in the Age of Social Media (pp. 127-142). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-12696-3_9
Maiangwa, B., & Agbiboa, D. (2014). Why Boko Haram kidnaps women and young girls in north-eastern Nigeria. conflict trends, 2014(3), 51-56. https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.10520/EJC159674
Maistry, S. M. (2023). Colonisation and the Genesis and Perpetuation of Anti-Blackness Violence in South Africa. Genealogy, 7(4), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy7040072
Mbaku, J. M. (2019). The rule of law and the exploitation of children in Africa. Hastings Int’l & Comp. L. Rev., 42, 287. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hasint42&div=
Montei, A. (2023). Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control. Beacon Press.
Mpunzana, T., & Mofokeng, N. R. (2023). The Impact of the Patriarchal System in South Africa: Exploring the Challenges of Women in Poverty Reduction. Gender and Behaviour, 21(2), 21689-21695. Sabinet. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-genbeh_v21_n2_a18
Mwetulundila, R. (2019). Women and subjugation: An evaluation of feminist rhetoric in selected novels by Mary Karooro Okurut, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Unity Dow, Elieshi Lema and Kaleni Hiyalwa (Doctoral dissertation). University of Namibia.
Narismulu, P. (2010). Examining the undisclosed margins: postcolonial intellectuals and subaltern voices. Cultural Studies 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/0950238032000050832
Nwaubani, A. T., & Mazza, V. (2018). Buried beneath the Baobab Tree. Katherine Tegen Books.
Ogunyemi, C. B. (2007). Various voices in African poetry: analysis of poems of black Africa. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:518216/fulltext01
Ogunyemi, C. B. & Kolawole, J. (2015). Salient themes in African poetry: a re-appraisal of library and information utilization process for new media. Journal of Philosophy, Culture and Religion. Vol. 3. IISTE.
Onah, C. K., (2024). Bring Back Our Girls: Transnational Activism and the Remediation of the 2014 Chibok Girls’ Kidnapping in Nigeria. Cambridge University Press.
Oparinde, K., Matsha, R. M., & Gunnarsdóttir Champion, M. (2021). Powerful Discourse: Gender-Based Violence and Counter-Discourses in South Africa. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2021.1911035
Oriola, T. B. (2023). The exploitation of Nigeria’s Chibok girls and the creation of a social problem industry. African Affairs, 122(486), 1-32. https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/122/486/1/7007069
Oyewole, S. (2016). Rescuing Boko Haram’s schoolgirl victims. New Zealand International Review, 41(1), 25-28. https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/INFORMIT.848232880537108
Peters, M. A. (2014). Western education is sinful: Boko Haram and the abduction of Chibok schoolgirls. Policy Futures in Education, 12(2), 186-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2014.12.2.186
Putuma, K. (2017). Collective Amnesia. uHlanga.
Putuma, K. (n.d). Koleka Putuma. https://www.kolekaputuma.com/about
Richie, B. (2018). Compelled to crime: The gender entrapment of battered, black women. Routledge.
Rustin, C., & Florence, M. (2021). Gender equality and women’s happiness in post-apartheid South Africa. Agenda, 35(2), 146–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2021.1917298
Sarikaya, D. B. (2024). Resistance against Gender-Based Violence and Discrimination in the Poetry of Sindiwe Magona. Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 18(1), 124-136. https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1429525
Shekwolo, D. M., Monday, A., Sule, O. S., Temidayo, O. F., & AsheaziAugustine, D. (2017). Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among women and children affected by Boko Haram insurgency in North-east Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Psychological Research, 13. https://njpsyresearch.com/ojs3/index.php/njopr/article/view/56/53
Sonuga, T. (1981). Mother tongue. Lyrik-Line. https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/place-12592
Sonuga, T. (2019). This is how we disappear. Write Bloody North.
Sonuga, T. (n.d.). Titilope Sonuga. https://titilope.ca/biography
Soyinka, W. (1999). Poems of Black Africa. London: Heinemann.
Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271-313). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Spivak, G. C. (1999). Can the subaltern speak? In A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present (pp. 271-313). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Umezurike, U. P. (2020). Negotiating spoken word poetry in Nigeria: An interview with Titilope Sonuga, Efe Paul Azino, and Wana Udobang. Brittle Paper. https://brittlepaper.com/2020/09/negotiating-spoken-word-poetry-in-nigeria-an-interview-with-titilope-sonuga-efe-paul-azino-and-wana-udobang/
Unuafe, M. (2022). Language as resistance: A review of the English language in African literature. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360355308_Language_as_Resistance_A_Review_of_the_English_Language_in_African_Literature
