Anansesem

Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies

Anansesem: Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies is a composite story on African-Canadian mothers’ experiences of teaching and learning while mothering. It seeks to celebrate the African mother’s everyday experiences and honour her embodied and cultural knowledges as important sites of meaning making and discovery for the African child. Through the Afro-indigenous art of Anancy storytelling, memoir, creative non-fiction and illustrations, the author takes you on an evocative narrative journey that focuses on how African descended women draw upon and are central to African childrens’ cultural, social and identity development. In entering these stories, readers access their joys, sadness, strengths and weaknesses as they mother in the midst of marginalization. The book is a testament to the power of counter-storytelling for inspiring internal and external transformation.