Beyond Neoliberalism Series: Imagining a feminist future with Sanyu Awori

There is a wealth of African feminist academic and activist research and knowledge on neoliberalism and its impacts in the majority world. Yet, this knowledge has, for the most part, been removed from conversations on neoliberalism and its ideological and policy tenets and generally disregarded which is a function and consequence of neoliberalism itself.

Recognizing this ActionAid International, Akina Mama wa Afrika and The Nawi Collective  co-convened a series of conversations among African feminists challenging neoliberalism and proposing alternatives towards a collective vision for the African continent and its people. The first of these conversations was held in Nairobi in February 2025

This podcast series: Beyond Neoliberalism ( Weaving a feminist future together) is a series of conversations borne out of the convening held in February 2025, that will interrogate, propose, shape and document pan-African feminist narratives beyond neoliberalism.  This is done in recognition that we are building on decades worth of work. Our intention is to contribute to reinvigorating, documenting and amplifying. connecting key movements, thinkers, creatives and activists.

In today’s episode we will delve into an overview of what a feminist economy looks like, exploring the different elements of the feminist economy through thematic sectors such as decent work, agriculture etc with our guest Sanyu Awori (AWID)

The Beyond Neoliberalism Series is produced with the financial support of Action Aid International.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the JALLI Podcast, a podcast from the Naui Collective creating a space for oral documentation between and about African women working to tackle macroeconomic inequalities using a Pan-African feminist lens. I am your host, Elizabeth Meyner. Hi everyone. Welcome to today's episode of Beyond Neoliberalism, Weaving a Feminist Future Together. I'm so pleased to have Sanyu Awori as our guest today. Sanyu and I will delve into an overview of what a feminist economy looks like so that we can reimagine what a feminist future would look like, exploring the different elements of this feminist economy through thematic sectors such as decent work, agriculture, and labor. Sanyu, I'm so pleased to have you with us today. Could you please introduce yourself alongside the three Ps, your personal, professional, and political?

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Thank you so much, Elizabeth, and what an honor it is to be here. So the three Ps. I am a reader. I love stories, especially fiction. I'm a thinker and feeler, something to do with my Pisces horoscope. And I'm an advocate for gender and economic justice. I work for a global organization where I'm lucky enough to co-conspire with other feminists on what economic justice policies and practices could look like. I'm also the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter. And all that comes with. I root myself in the legacies and labor of those that have come before me. Yes, because you know those layers.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

That's layers upon layers. You also forgot to tell the people that you're one of the most stylish people anyone knows. Like when Sunny walks into a room, you're like, I have to do better.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

What a massive compliment coming from you, Elizabeth.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Listen, listen, every day. I mean, you you changed some things for me, and I love it. So let's dive into our episode today. My first uh thing for you to ruinate as a thinker is that um we attended this convening in February 2025 that was held by Akinamama, Nawi and Action Aid, and out of that came what we are calling the Jakaranda paper. This paper really emphasizes the need for strategic world building by African feminists. And this is seen as critical to moving beyond neoliberalism. What do you think are some of the core principles, values, and defining characteristics that should underpin this framework for this new model, this new world that we are thinking about? And how do they diverge from the growth and profit-driven ways of neoliberal capitalism?

SPEAKER_02 3:11

And I just have to say that that convening gave me such life because there's something so magical when African feminists come together and think together. And so that Jacaranda paper is juicy. Um, and when I think about what are some of the things that should underpin this world building, let's start with a communality, like an understanding of kinship and that we are relational beings because neoliberalism came and said the paradigms are your household and this nuclear family, and that is it, right? But as Africans, we know that it's the auntie, there's a cousin, there's a grandmother. Um and these ties and the ways we relate to each other are so important. Um, and one of the things that came up in in February was this idea of critical aunthood studies. So I'm an auntie, and the ways I show up challenge um the very smallness of um neoliberalism. Um, and I think the other thing has to be about plurality, because we know that uh the realities on the African continent are complex and multi-layered. And right now there's this like single hegemony view of there's one way to do things, there's one way you must think. Um you must conform and subscribe to the singular view of capitalism. And what would it be to turn all of that on its head and say, actually, we embrace our multitudes, we embrace the multiple knowledge systems in the region, we embrace um plurality. Um and then I always have to throw queer in there because we have to queer everything up. Um, and queer not just as Balhook says, who you're having sex with, but how you're related to um each other and how you're being disobedient to the status quo.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I completely agree with you because then queer also as in like community focused, collective action focused, and collective action that also allows for this plurality to exist in its fullness, because this is a thing that we're missing. I agree with you about like the single issue and also the flattening of who we've become um over the years due to capitalism. Like there's a deliberate erasure of how we have always gathered, how we've always found solutions, how we've always like imagined ourselves. Um, everyone wants to be a king and no one wants to think about like you know, the farmers and um the teachers and like all these things that take to build like our community. We're all driven towards one thing, and that's terrible. Um, I think one of the things that you raised actually was the idea of like the commodification of everything and like the idea, like the nature of extractivism. And this is also like a key, I feel like it's always a key tenet of capitalism. It's it's the first question is it asks is what can we get to from you and not how can we build together? So thinking about like extractives, thinking about climate change, it's currently incredibly hot where I am and hotter than normal. As and it was incredibly cold in Nairobi, colder than normal, uh colder earlier than normal, so we can see what the effects of climate change are doing. How do you think our feminist economic future reimagines like our role in Africa in the global climate agenda, considering that um when you think just about pollution, we we are not, we don't produce as much pollution as the rest, yet they're using like our land to offset their like their heavy contribution to like the erosion of climate. And what does this what does this mean like from a power perspective? Um, could you please do some reflections around that?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

It's clear and we're in the depths of winter season right now in Nairobi, and it feels disproportionately cold and it's going to be longer, and it's like this is what life is about now. Um and there's so many layers to how Africa is featuring in the global climate agenda now. Um, after our meeting, I was doing research about the minerals in the DRC. So, for example, um, cobalt. Um the DRC has the largest reserves of cobalt. Where is what is cobalt used in? Batteries. Um, the DRC is also home to minerals that my tongue will struggle to pronounce, but I feel like it's important to name the things, um, like tin that's used in food packaging, um tungsten that's used um in light bulbs, um, tantaloom. Um, and I know the scientists out there are cringing, but yes, pronunciations aside, um tantaloom is used in cell phones and computers. And I'm reading all of this and I'm thinking how the DRC is literally powering the world, powering the world now, powering the world in the way the West is conceptualizing a just transition, quote unquotes. Um, and yet it is home to conflict and greed and extractivism. Um, like it is the embodiment of all that is ugly, um all of ugly tentacles of capitalism, right? Um and so then to reimagine means we have to stop the extraction. Like, how can it be? Um, and that's why it's even we push back on certain words because it's like I we cannot call the DRC poor at all, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, because it's powering the world. Um and you see how corporations um take advantage and are literally leading the conflict because it means these minerals can be obtained at certain prices. There's little accountability in which they're obtained. Um, and the profits are ridiculous. In fact, the DRC government um has sued Apple um last year, um saying that they are a complicit in um in the conflict, in this conflict supply chain. Um, and they want reparations. And so to reimagine the global climate agenda means to reimagine and stop the extraction. Like it's not that continue the extraction, but now it's going to solar energy. Um, it's like stop it. Um, and there needs to be reparation for the kind of harm that has been inflicted. Um, and we even see in Kenya how because everything is being commodified, land, so you have other governments and other corporations buying what they're calling carbon credits and displacing indigenous communities off their land so that now this land can now grow a monocrop and also destroy the ecosystem, but all in the name of uh climate justice. And these are the false solutions that movements are pushing back against. And so one of the things we have to push back against is okay, they have been, and even when you look at food, um they have been our food systems are under attack in terms of we our food systems have been so multi-laid. Um, when you think about how your grandmothers used to eat and the kind of diet they had and what's available now and how that's changed, whether that's because of pesticides or GMOs or laws that criminalize seed exchanges, um, our diets have changed, our food systems have changed. And so reimagining means how do we claim back our indigenous food systems, our ancestral ways of being around food? How do we push back against private ownership of land? Um, and whether it's a corporation or a wealthy individual, we don't want acres of land being owed by a singular entity. Um, so how do we claim back land as the commons and a more collective way of us in fact being stewards? This is what came up in February, like seeing ourselves as stewards of the land. Um and so that's that's some of the things. And I'm sorry, that was No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

No, no, that's perfectly perfect because I'm like, it's true, we are stewards of the land. We do not own it. Like we coexist. Um, it gives us some, it's it's a symbiotic relationship and not a parasitic one. And this is the thing that we really have to push back against and also hold our uh governments accountable for the actions that they are doing to the detriment of the people. Because how do you owe an allegiance to a private corporation to the extent of passing laws against seed exchange, things that have been happening for millennia in exchange? Like, what is what what is the what is the like rate exchange there? Because you mean that it's easier for you to have like a sick population because the shift in food systems has also meant like there's a prevalence of diseases like diabetes that were not there before, or um, kids having stunted growth because they don't have the availability for all the nutrients, you know, from the beginning of life because of the way like the interaction of people and the land has changed. Um I find it hypocritical in this case for the DRC to be holding Apple accountable, yet they're not, you know, stepping up for their people. Um, as complex as the politics of the region is um, that it's it's easier for them to be like, look at those guys and not let's let's try and fix this. I I really want to be honest about that comment, but we might get into trouble, Sanyu and I know, I know.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

I thought about it, I thought about it. And you know, that actually brings me to the point that we can't say it out loud because of power and how and we have to talk about corporate capture, right? Because it's this thing of acknowledging that there are entities that have way more power than some of our governments combined, right? That are out here wanting to suppress any kind of critique about how they're moving. Um and will sue us, you know, if we even say the thing out loud.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And you're like, will they sue us or will there be other dire consequences? Because a lawsuit, I'm like, we can work around it.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yes, yes, yes, we can work around it. No, you're absolutely right, because like right now, even what's happening in Kenya is yeah, in fact, the lawsuit is the best outcome.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

That's the best outcome. At least that's one guarantees that you either come out alive or you know without any uh like like lifelong injuries and trauma.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yes, no, absolutely. And actually, it's globally we're seeing like environmental defenders, so human rights defenders, communities that are defending their land, defending the commons, they are showing up murdered. Um, and those numbers are increasing. And so it's these contestations, right? Over land power between companies, between communities. Um and ultimately it's about like the right to self-like self-determination. Yeah um and whose voice matters, whose dignity matters. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah. Speaking of voices and dignity matter, I think we have to we always have to address the issue of labor and unpaid, you know, the gendered nature of it and the unpaid labor work that women um involuntarily contributes to the economy to keep it running, keep it going, as they are unheard and unseen and their needs are not taken care of. Um, could you please reflect on how our African feminist world making can reframe and reimagine the idea of labor, um, introducing things like care and communion and ensuring decent and dignified work. I know you've really thought about this in your work uh with the organization and you know, as in your contribution to the to the larger community, and I'd really love to hear your thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Thank you for centering us to, I feel like it's one of the central feminist questions of our time, right? Um labor, how do we not just acknowledge it, but recognize it? Um, and how do we redistribute it? So one of the one of my starting points um is Silva Federici, who always says that, you know, capitalism had to convince us that it's natural and almost unavoidable and fulfilling to accept um this unwaged work. And Proflyn Aussom has done so much work unpacking how it's important we look expansively as African feminists to care and to what that looks like in terms of how we're even relating to land. So even just beyond the house rates. Um and ultimately we need to call for a redistribution because of whose shoulder this labor stands on, because right now it's disproportionately being held by women and girls. Um and it needs to actually be seen as a state responsibility. So even when you look at our budgets and pick a year in the last 10 years, um it's probably even longer. And you'll see that what governments are allocating to systems of care, whether it's health, whether it's public child care, is dwindling. Um and then you're contrasting this against the money that's being spent on defense and military spending, and it's such a farce. Um, and that's because their systems have always been reliant on women taking on this labor, right? And the pushback and the resistance comes when we say, no, this labor needs to be shared. Um, it needs to be shared with the state, it needs to be shared across genders. Um and that's how you confer dignity. You need to recognize this as work. Um and because then there's been a whole, whether it's the stereotypes, the imagination, the roles that are expected of women, um, everything has been manufactured, right? To make sure that we don't insist on this being shared. Um, we don't insist on this being um dignified. Um, and feminists are like, nope. And how do we have practices and policies that breathe life into that? So that those are some of the things that we've been thinking about. And even when you look at, so for example, one of um Kenya's how do I uh policies um is pushing um women into domestic work in um countries like the Lebanon, in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, um, where your visa status ties you to your employer and they um under the kafala system, they can even keep your passport. Um and when there's pushback against why is this government policy, um, our government says, well, let's just have cultural awareness programs here so that you know what to expect there. But don't ask questions about dignity. Don't ask questions about um and so it's about pushing back on that. Um and I know I've taken us.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

No, no, no. I I actually I completely agree because I find it uh I found it like that the and it was the minister of labor who actually like you know proudly showcased a home and he was like when you and I was like, excuse me, the right to dignified work also means the I I need a guarantee that when I go and work I will come back alive, right? That I will be treated like a human being. Don't tell me that the reason I'm being mistreated is because of a is is because of a lack of a cultural awareness. Exactly. That's not the truth.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

I'm like, that's not the truth. So it doesn't matter if I learned Arabic, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Or and all the cultural practices of this place that I'm going to, I will still be mistreated because I am unseen. So the solution is for you to make it easier for me to stay at home and have my dignified work. Let it be a choice for me to export my labor and not government policy.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Absolutely. And when it is my choice, let it be under dignified conditions, right? Yeah. Um is always the thing. And then everything is interconnected because then when you have conflict erupting in Lebanon and domestic workers are saying, hey, we're stuck, and only until pushed did the government say, Okay, um, how do we organize an evacuation? But they were not going to.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

They were hurried to, yeah. But they were very quick to send them out. But coming back in, no, no, no, no, no. Why are you asking for that? Like, and yet if someone, if something, if something similar was to happen in God forbid, like the UK, you know, they'd have to mobilize every resource possible so that they can make sure that the person whose income bracket could easily buy them a ticket is expatriated quickly. And I'm like, guys, we cannot continue to operate in this way. Anyway, let's let's let's look forward. Let's let's let's you know, let's dream a little, Sanyu. So um how do we then make this ideas, this theory into tangible realities? Like, do you have any ideas at a national, region, regional, or continental level of like tangible practices or how we can organize to make sure that these frameworks we're talking about, this reimagining we're talking about comes to pass?

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Okay, we're dreaming, we're dreaming. And I think one of yeah, and one of the things that came up in February is to dream. We because we spend so much of our time and on our labor in survival mode, um we need space and rest to be to enable us to dream, first of all, right? Um, and then as we're dreaming, so I am so inspired by the young people of Kenya. I need to always just like uplift the kind of organizing they did last year because they were asking us to reimagine what public accountability um and ultimately economic justice would look like, right? But they did not use any jargon, they did not even use the terms tax justice. They were like, call a thing what it is. And it's this thing of okay, if we are wanting to dream, let's ask ourselves how do we want it to feel in our utopias? How do we want it to look like? What do we want it to smell like? What do we want to be eating? Um, I always come back to this like prompt of Elizabeth, if it's me and you and it's like, what does our feminist utopia look like? Please give me a green space in the grass eating juicy mangoes.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Listen, like it's that simple. It's that simple. It's that simple. And looking at clean at clean water.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Clean water that you have to go buy. Um and there's water that you're drinking, there's even water you're looking at. Let's even add that in the dream, right? And so that already tells me, okay, how what about public space and green public space, the availability of mangoes that have not been tainted by pesticides, um, and it's not a GMO mango. Um like that, and so it's whenever we're dreaming, it's what do we want, how do we want it to feel, what we want to look like, how do we feed that imagination? Um, and ultimately we need to get into the rooms where decisions are made now and flip the table. Um flip the table and just say enough is enough. Um because there needs to be a disruption of the current paradigm. Um, and ultimately the thing is African feminists have been doing the work for decades, showing us, showing us decades, the work is there. And the question is when is the world ready to believe us? When is the world ready to trust us and where we want to lead them? Um but I think it's the we have to translate the theory, we have to use song, dance, poetry, we have to engage our different faculties as humans to build the masses and take them on this journey. Um the PDF is great, but um that that PDF is alone is not going to be how we get the worlds we know we deserve, you know?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, that's true. Um I'm always I'm always taken aback by how simple like our idea of utopia is. It's you know, it's freedom, it's being able to walk, um, it's being able to, you know, breathe fresh air, it's being able to eat juicy mangoes. Like it's so simple. I'm like, guys, why don't you get it? No one is asking for this like monstrosity. No one wants a you know a car that flies.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

No. And another mall and another apartment block. It's like no, that's not what the people want.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Stop with a construction and just allow us to like you know, breathe fresh air. Simple things, guys.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Right. And that's why when you see like when their protests, whether it was in Mozambique last year or even in Kenya, one of the first things people do is reclaim public space and they're like skipping in the street, or they're um, you know, and because it's that, it's play, it's our bodies free and our nervous systems not being held hostage. Because actually, living through neoliberalism is that exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah, you you constantly feel like you can't breathe or you can't move. Um, um actually speaking of like gathering and moving, um, I saw like a clip for like last night there was, you know, um some people held um you know prayer, like public prayers. And this is not about like believing in like the Christian God or whatever, but just the idea of like they collectively gathered, they sang their songs, and then you know, to give them strength for today. And that's an amazing, that's an amazing thing, right? Like just being able to gather in peace, go home, and be guaranteed that you will get home. It's not always, it's not always guaranteed in these times that we're living in.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Do you know what I also saw um last night was also a mass meditation? Yes, similar to the bread was like, okay, let's it was led by the healers, yeah, and they were like, let's just meditate together, let's exhale, let's prepare ourselves for the battle for today. Exactly. And then right before that was also a space on police abolition. So I'm like, I love it. It's like, let's read, let's learn, let's breathe, let's pray, um, let's show up.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, let's get organized. And this is the thing about bringing bringing us back to the idea of containing multitudes. This is what we mean. Like we are like we are able to hold several multiple truths at once and move with flow through all these things. So as we move with flow, and as I leave you to, you know, carry carry on your day. Um, first of all, you want to send out all the love to the people of Kenya. We hope that on the other side of this podcast recording, we will be it will be a victory. And victory, whatever, whatever form that victory takes, may it be for the people of Kenya. That is my my deep thought um for the people today. Uh, Sanyu, please share your thoughts on the same and also tell us how you're contributing to the collective vision of a free a free a free people of Africa.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Snapping my fingers, amen. And just to say that yes to the courageous Kenyans who are showing up today to say that we see you. Um, we are attentive to the labor you've been putting in and the courage you're showing in the face of this systemic violence. Um, and you're reminding us that hope is a discipline. Um, hope is a discipline, and it is in community with each other that we will win. Um in terms of my contribution, oof, you know, it's to persist, it's to persist and to continue to be disobedient to the status quo. Um to I think a prayer I always have for myself is to make sure that I'm using my voice and my platform to uplift uh African feminisms in all its multitudes. Um and also to connect how economic justice is central to our liberation, to be able to get those juicy mangoes. Um how do we enable that? How do we facilitate that?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

I love it. The horrors may persist, but so do we. Thank you so much, Sanyu, for your time, for your thoughts, um, for your joy. Um I'm wishing you a wonderful, wonderful day. And I cannot wait to see you again so that I can steal more style tips from you.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Same, same, same. Thank you for holding the space. Thank you for inviting me over. And yeah, I look forward to seeing you again, Elizabeth. There are juicy convos to be had.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Juicy, juicy. All right, thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Stay connected with us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on all your favorite platforms to stay up to date on all things jali. Until next time, remember to keep amplifying the voices and perspectives of African women in your own circles. See you!