MATRIARCHY IN AFRICA:

AN ANALYSIS OF CHEIKH ANTA DIOP’S AND IFI AMADIUME’S THOUGHT

Abstract

This work asks how the matriarchy was used in the work of Cheikh Anta Diop and Ifi Amadiume in a historical perspective. On the one hand, it discusses a historiographical production of the Senegalese, Cheikh Anta Diop, researching how matriarchy was thought as a cultural substrate for the African continent. In the sequence, it discusses the legacy of Diop, from the work of the Nigerian intellectual, Ifi Amadiume, who debates the work of Diop and updates the concept of matriarchy, from a different perspective. Above all, this paper aims to problematize a discourse that aims to explain the role that women occupy the structure of African societies.