'Like Surah, Like Song': The Poetics of Faith, Femininity and Orality across the East African Diaspora

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My thesis concentrates on contemporary African orality, exploring the interconnection of faith, femininityand voice in diasporic East African poetry. As a region unique for its blend of African, Arab and Islamicinfluences, East Africa's orature is steeped in spiritual lyricism, comprising elements of song, storytellingand Quranic verse. East African poets living in Black British and African American community revive thisliterary merging in the modern age, employing a combination of western, Islamic and East African oralheritages to amplify Black female voice (Henderson 2014). Drawing on Hall's (1990) assertion that musicand spirituality are unifying genres across the African diaspora, the project will establish comparisonsbetween Sudanese and Somali poetry in form, rhythm and content. Exploring themes of sanctuary,religion, female rebellion and motherhood, I will conduct a close analysis of poetry by severalcontemporary authors: Safia Elhillo, Emtithal Mahmoud, Momtaza Mehri, Amina Jama, Ladan Osman andWarsan Shire. My primary research questions are:How does orature encourage women to reclaim spaces of oppression, granting a voice to speak againstpatriarchy and the systemic inequality of their surroundings?How does the mother motif compare across Black feminist and diasporic African literature?How is poetic testimony used to dismantle religious oppression?To what extent is the label of 'black orature' reductive; how can an awareness of both Black diasporicand East African poetic traditions form a more nuanced reading of poets' works?The thesis will be conducted through an intersectional and decolonial feminist gaze, adopting amethodology that reflects the authors' amalgamation of form, theory and identity. Engaging with whatAnzaldúa (2012) refers to as a 'synergy of two cultures', I will explore how the poets hybridize Black7 / 23spoken word and East African poetic verse to form a uniquely diasporic orality. Additionally, I will discussthe amalgamation of Islamic doctrine and indigenous superstition depicted within the poems i.e. evil eye,jinn, and black magic (Khalifa et al. 2011), creating a culture of superstition towards women (Federici2018) that the authors wilfully reclaim.Moving beyond male scholarship (Bhabha 1994, Fanon 2008), I will highlight poetic depictions of abuseand sexuality, contesting cultural folktales based on feminine defamation (Courlander 1975,Andrzejewski 1964). Colonial gender systems will be interrogated as racialised, trans-exclusionaryconstructs (hooks 1981, Lugones 2007), prompting a reinvigorated discussion of womanhood. Hybridityand third spaces (reclaimed as female sanctuaries) will be explored through social reproduction theory(Bhattacharya 2017); interweaving contemporary global scholarship on decolonial feminism (Vergès2021, Lugones 2010), filial angst (Williams 2016, Jenkins 2002) and gendered Islamophobia (Olufemi2020), the project establishes a multifaceted discussion of East African Muslim womanhood.With African literary studies largely dominated by West and North African literature, my projectcontributes to research on East African orature via an innovative and intersectional approach, connectingSudanese and Somali poetry through their shared spiritual lyricism, narratives of displacement anddiasporic experiences. The project's proposed BAME podcast, student poetry exhibition at BoningtonGallery and placement with New Art Exchange's All Black Connect Showcase offers representation forintersectional voices.