Women Rewriting History: African Voices Decolonising the Archive

Across libraries, classrooms, and cultural institutions, African women historians are dismantling colonial myths and reframing the continent’s past on their own terms.

For generations, Africa’s past was written through someone else’s pen. Colonial historians framed the continent as “without history,” a place defined only by its encounter with Europe. Schoolbooks across the 20th century reinforced this distortion, presenting Africa as a backdrop to European expansion rather than a continent with its own intellectual, political, and cultural dynamism.

This Eurocentric lens did more than misrepresent events — it erased agency. Women’s roles in liberation struggles, governance, and cultural life were minimized or ignored. Oral traditions, which carried centuries of knowledge, were dismissed as unreliable. Even timelines were skewed, with Africa’s story often beginning at the point of European contact, as though nothing of consequence had come before.

South African scholar Prof. Pumla Dineo Gqola has written powerfully about these silences, noting how archives themselves are gendered and racialized spaces. What is preserved, what is excluded, and who is deemed worthy of record are all political choices. For African women historians, the task is not only to fill in the gaps but to expose the structures that created those gaps in the first place.

By challenging these inherited narratives, today’s African history authors are doing more than correcting the record. They are dismantling the very frameworks that once defined Africa as peripheral, reclaiming the continent’s central place in global history.

New Methodologies, New Histories

If colonial archives once dictated what counted as “history,” African women historians are now redefining the very tools of the craft. Their work insists that the continent’s past cannot be fully understood through European frameworks alone — it must be told through African epistemologies, languages, and lived experiences.

One of the most powerful interventions has been the reclamation of oral traditions. Where colonial scholars dismissed storytelling, praise poetry, and folklore as unreliable, today’s historians recognize them as rich repositories of memory. Oral accounts preserve nuance, emotion, and community perspectives that written records often erase. By elevating these voices, African women historians are restoring agency to those long excluded from the archive.

Nana Oforiatta Ayim, a Ghanaian writer and cultural historian, has pioneered the Cultural Encyclopaedia project — a decentralized, community‑driven archive that documents local histories, rituals, and knowledge systems. Her mobile museums bring history to rural communities, challenging the idea that knowledge must be housed in elite institutions. In doing so, she reframes history as a living, participatory process rather than a static record.

Meanwhile, Prof. Pumla Dineo Gqola applies a feminist lens to South African history, interrogating how gender and power shape both the archive and the narratives drawn from it. Her work highlights how women’s contributions to liberation struggles and cultural life were systematically minimized, and how reclaiming those stories changes our understanding of the nation itself.

These methodologies are not just academic exercises — they are acts of resistance. By blending oral traditions, feminist critique, and hybrid scholarship that crosses literature, art, and history, African women historians are creating multi‑layered accounts that feel truer to the continent’s complexity. They are not simply adding women into existing histories; they are rewriting the frameworks of history itself.

Global Reception & Challenges

The work of African women historians has begun to resonate far beyond the continent. International publishers are increasingly amplifying their voices, with authors like Nana Oforiatta Ayim securing global distribution for projects that once might have been considered too “niche.” Academic institutions in Europe and North America now cite African women historians in debates on decolonising history books, acknowledging that the field cannot move forward without their perspectives.

Cultural institutions are also taking notice. Ayim’s Cultural Encyclopaedia has been showcased at the Venice Biennale, while African women curators and historians are increasingly invited to shape exhibitions at the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and other global platforms. These appearances signal a shift: African history is no longer being told only about Africa, but increasingly by Africans themselves.

Yet, recognition abroad does not erase the challenges. Western gatekeeping in publishing and academia still determines which narratives gain visibility and which remain marginalized. Funding for African‑led research projects is often scarce, forcing scholars to rely on international grants that come with their own agendas. Language barriers also persist — much of the global academic conversation still privileges English and French, sidelining histories written in African languages.

Moreover, the reception of African women historians is not always free of tokenism. Too often, their work is celebrated as “diverse” or “alternative” rather than recognized as central to the discipline. As Prof. Pumla Dineo Gqola has argued, true decolonisation requires more than inclusion — it demands a restructuring of the frameworks that have long defined what counts as legitimate knowledge.

The global stage offers visibility, but it also highlights the unfinished struggle: ensuring that African women historians are not just invited into the conversation, but are shaping its terms.

Why It Matters Now

The work of African women historians is not confined to the past — it speaks directly to the present. Across the continent and the diaspora, movements for justice, sovereignty, and cultural reclamation are echoing the same questions these scholars have been raising for decades: Who gets to tell Africa’s story, and on whose terms?

Student‑led campaigns like #RhodesMustFall and #DecolonizeEducation have forced universities to confront the colonial legacies embedded in their curricula. These protests are not only about statues or syllabi; they are about the deeper issue of whose knowledge is valued. African women historians provide the intellectual backbone for these movements, showing that decolonisation is not symbolic but structural.

The global push for the repatriation of African artifacts adds another layer. As European museums debate returning looted treasures, African women historians are reframing the conversation: it is not just about objects, but about memory, dignity, and the right of communities to narrate their own heritage. Their scholarship strengthens the case for restitution by grounding it in lived histories rather than abstract legal claims.

At the same time, younger generations of African scholars are building on the foundations laid by pioneers like Pumla Dineo Gqola and Nana Oforiatta Ayim. Through mentorship networks, intergenerational collaborations, and digital platforms, they are ensuring that the project of rewriting history is not a solitary endeavor but a collective one.

In an era of contested truths and resurgent nationalism, the work of African women historians is more than academic. It is a political act, a cultural intervention, and a roadmap for building futures rooted in justice. By rewriting the past, they are also reshaping the possibilities of the present.

Conclusion

African women historians are not simply adding missing chapters to the record — they are rewriting the very grammar of history. By challenging colonial archives, reclaiming oral traditions, and centering feminist critique, they are dismantling the frameworks that once rendered Africa peripheral and voiceless.

Their work reminds us that history is never neutral. Every archive, every syllabus, every museum display is a choice about whose voices are amplified and whose are silenced. In reclaiming those silences, scholars like Pumla Dineo Gqola and Nana Oforiatta Ayim are showing that the past is not fixed — it is alive, contested, and deeply political.

The stakes could not be higher. In an era of resurgent nationalism, cultural erasure, and contested truths, the act of rewriting history is also an act of shaping the future. By insisting on histories that reflect Africa’s lived realities, these women are not only restoring dignity to the past but also laying the groundwork for more just and inclusive societies.

As readers, educators, and citizens, our task is clear: to read, cite, and support African history authors, to demand curricula that reflect the continent’s complexity, and to recognize that the struggle over history is, ultimately, a struggle over power.

Because when African women rewrite history, they are not just telling us where we’ve been — they are showing us where we might yet go.