Episode 3 Weavers Forum. Intergenerational Roundtable & Collective Harvest

Day 1 Part 2

In this episode, I reflect on an intergenerational conversation at the Weavers Forum 2026 exploring African feminist memory, political economy and our collective futures. 

We gathered the threads of wisdom from generations before us while asking what we need to carry forward, what we need to challenge, and what new pathways we can create.

The conversation explored feminist memory, agency, inclusion, accountability, the politics of silence, the professionalisation of gender politics and the importance of documenting our movements and histories.

We also turned the feminist gaze inward, asking how we sometimes reproduce the very patriarchal behaviours we seek to dismantle.  through silence, exclusion, harmful narratives and the ways we treat one another.

At the heart of the conversation was a reminder that the personal is political, but so is how we hold one another's stories, how we critique each other's work and how we build collective knowledge.

We also explored economic sovereignty and why it must be central to feminist organising and our vision for the future.

This episode is ultimately a reflection on memory, accountability, intergenerational knowledge and the responsibility to weave differently.

We inherit the threads.

We add our own and then we pass the weaving on.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Thank you for listening. Welcome to day one, part two of the Weavers Forum twenty twenty-six. In this episode, I want to focus on the session that was titled and looked at an intergenerational roundtable and collective harvest, memory, political economy, and feminist futures. Part one of day one invited us to think about weaving through art. Part two asked us to consider another kind of weaving: the weaving together of generations, memory, experience, and of course, political knowledge. The intergenerational roundtable and collective harvest brought together feminist voices from different aspects of life, different ages, different nationalities to gather the threads of wisdom carried by those who came before us, while asking what we might need to carry forward and what we might need to leave behind. The conversation moved between African feminist memory, political economy, and of course our collective futures. It asked us to remind us where we came from and be proud of that. What shaped the agency of previous generations of women? What did they resist? What did they build? What did they know? What did they speak about? How did they navigate the political, economic, and social realities of their time? And more importantly, how have we adapted from that knowledge? Because we're not simply products of the generations before us, right? We inherit their struggles, their victories, their knowledge, and sometimes their limitations. We also then add our own experiences to that history and, of course, that her story. The conversation in this session became an opportunity to examine the threads that connected generations and to consider how those experiences might help us find political resolutions for the challenges that we face today. One of the questions that came up were who gets included in the conversation? This is one of the most strongest questions emerging from the round table. It's not enough to say that we're creating feminist spaces, but we also need to ask who exactly is at the table, whose knowledge is considered valuable, whose experiences are believed, who gets to speak, who wants to speak, who is listened to, who remains invisible, and who makes the decisions. This is particularly important when we speak about African feminist economic thought. If we're serious about intentionally including women's contributions, then we must value not only their outcomes, but also their labor, knowledge, and processes. We must recognize the woman whose work has often been overlooked because it did not fit neatly into professional, institutional, or academic frameworks. At the end of the day, there's knowledge in our movements, in our communities, in our history. There's knowledge in our lived experiences, and of course, in the stories passed from one generation of women to another. Feminism also requires us to look inwards, to look at ourselves, and at this part of the conversation, it became particularly uncomfortable, and therefore very, very important. Because this is where we need to examine our own complicity. We speak about patriarchy, and rightfully so, but feminists are not somehow immune from reproducing patriarchal behaviors. Sometimes it just happens so subtly because it has become a norm. It happens when we center patriarchy so deeply within feminist spaces that we fail to recognize how we ourselves may be participating in its reproduction. It happens when we remain silent while other women are being disrespected. It happens when we contribute to false narratives about other women in the presence of men and in the presence of other women. It happens when we use another woman's vulnerability as a political tool. And it happens when feminism becomes something we wear selectively, a badge we claim when it serves us, while being willing to bow down to patriarchal power when there is something to gain. Of course, the conversations around the Pygney Sisters was particularly revealing. The woman who claims the feminist badge when it's useful, but becomes willing to accommodate the patriarchy when doing so provides access, approval, protection, or advantage. This is very uncomfortable to confront because feminism requires us to hold ourselves accountable to. We can't demand that patriarchal systems change whilst reproducing the same behaviors amongst ourselves. Our politics must be reflected in how we treat each other. The politics of silence was another subject. And another important thread was this unwritten rule around silence. You see, there's a difference between confidentiality and complicity. There are some conversations that belong in private spaces. There are things shared in confidence that should not be taken into the public arenas, particularly when doing so could harm another woman's well-being or career or dignity or agency. But silence can also be used as a weapon. We need to know when discretion protects women and when silence protects harmful systems. At the end of the day, we live knowing that the personal is political. Our choices, relationships, bodies, work, and our experiences exist within broader structures of power. And so we have a responsibility to continue speaking our truths while we're also understanding the ethics of how we carry the stories entrusted to us. Because the era of casually sharing information about other women, particularly information that can be used to damage them, needs to come to an end. Feminist politics must include integrity, discernment, and care. Remembering what we once had was also a topic of discussion. One of the most interesting reflections during this conversation was around how some of the women shared about remembering growing up in very cosmopolitan spaces where there were different religions and cultures and traditions and people existed alongside one another. It was a time where there was a sense of mutual recognition. People knew that they were different, but difference did not necessarily mean separation. And then came deliberate processes of erasure, segregation, and structural separation. This caused environments to change. It changed the social fabric of the communities. And of course, structural changes have consequences because they affect how we relate to one another, they affect our understanding of difference, they affect our communities, and they affect our ability to imagine collective futures. Capitalism has also played its part in shaping how we understand our lives, particularly through the normalization of suffering. We've been conditioned to believe that exhaustion is inevitable, that struggle is a measure of worth, that constant productivity is necessary, that suffering in service of economic survival is simply the price we must pay. But feminist economics asks us to question that assumption. Who benefits from our exhaustion? And what would happen if we stopped treating suffering as an economic necessity? The discussion also turned towards the professionalism of gender politics. What happens when movements become institutions? What happens when activism becomes a profession? What might we lose when the language of transformation becomes absorbed into organizational structures, programs, funding cycles, and professional careers? These are not arguments against institutions or professional expertise. These are invitations to remain vigilant, to remember the movements and struggles that came before us, to learn from the lessons of previous generations, to resist becoming so focused on professional legitimacy that we lose the political urgency that brought us here in the first place. And this is precisely why documentation matters. This is also why my presence at the Weavers Forum was feeled and is particularly important. I created a pop-up studio for speaking through my world within the broader feminist frontlines initiatives because I believe documentation is political. If we do not document our conversations, our movements, struggles, our ideas, and our victories, we leave future generations to reconstruct our history and her stories from simple fragments. Documentation gives us reference points. It allows future feminists to ask, what were they thinking? What did they learn? How did they feel? What mistakes did they make? What did they get right? How did they celebrate? What did they imagine? And what did they leave unfinished for us? But documentation is not only about recording others. It's also about creating a culture of reading and listening to one another. We need to read each other's work, we need to engage with one another's ideas. We also need to critique without destroying, and we need to challenge without humiliating. We need to be able to disagree whilst remaining committed to one another's humanity. Our criticism must be rigorous, but it should also be generous. Because if we're building collective knowledge, then we need spaces where we can learn from one another without being afraid of making mistakes. Economic sovereignty is feminist sovereignty. And of course, the conversation turned to economics. If we really are serious about feminist futures, then economic sovereignty cannot sit on the margins of our politics. It must be central. We need to be intentional about including economic justice and economic power in everything we do. Because political freedom without economic power remains fragile. A woman may have the right to speak, but what happens if she cannot leave an unsafe situation? A movement may have powerful ideas, but what happens when it cannot sustain itself? A community may have a vision, but what happens when its resources remain controlled by others? Economic sovereignty is therefore not simply an economic question. It's a question of agency. It's a question of freedom. It's a question of power. And if we are imagining feminist futures, then we must imagine futures where women and communities have greater control over the resources, labor, and economic decisions that shape their lives. I left this conversation thinking about what it really means to weave. Weaving is not about pretending that every thread is the same. It's about recognizing differences whilst understanding connection. Our generations will not always agree. Our politics strategies will always differ. Our experiences are not the same. Our languages will differ. But there are lessons that can travel across generations. These are stories worth preserving. There are mistakes worth learning from. There are struggles worth continuing, and there are futures that we have not yet imagined. The responsibility is ours to gather the threads carefully, to honor what came before us without romanticizing it, to challenge what needs to be challenged, to learn from one another, to speak truth with integrity, to protect one another without protecting harmful behavior, to read, document, listen, and continue weaving. Because the feminist future will not be built on one generation alone. We inherit the threads. We add our own and then we pass the weaving on.