UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM
DIRECTORATE OF INTERNATIONALIZATION, CONVOCATION & ADVANCEMENT (DICA)

Patricia McFADDEN (eSwatini)

YEAR OF MATRICULATION: 1967
EDUCATION:
B.A. (Political Science, University of Botswana and Swaziland): 1966
M.A in Sociology : 1969
PhD (University of Warwick, UK): 1987

Radical African feminist, sociologist, educator and writer, Patricia McFadden is an alumna of the University of Dar es Salaam, hailing from the Kingdom of eSwatini (before April 2018 known originally as Swaziland). She attended both primary and secondary schools in Swaziland where she also had her bachelor degree at the University of Botswana and Swaziland (UBS). This was in the early 1960s. In 1967, she gained admission at the University of Dar es Salaam for a master’s degree in Sociology. This was a time in Tanzania of growing internationalist ideas, profuse campus and student politics, and of new post-independence expectations of a new social order - workers’ education, socialism and ‘ujamaa’ workers. Other equally vibrant issues concerned pan-Africanism and, not least, gender equality. Dar es Salaam was, at this time, home to international scholars and a scene of constructive yet polemical teach-ins that did shape strongly grounded theoretical perspectives and political debates. Patricia, like many other scholars from various corners of the continent and beyond, had a true share and a benefit of the intellectualcum-social-change process. Within campus at the University, Patricia found herself in close association with students and staff, irrespective of their sex, class or discipline, all who closely bent on “macro” revolutionary discussion – more frequently than not touching on hot issues including apartheid, male chauvinism, gender inequality, hurdles to women’s education, imbalances in access to socio-economic opportunities. Patricia began teaching at university level since 1976.

After Tanzania, the third stage of Patricia’s academic-cum-professional life was in the UK, at Warwick University, where she undertook her PhD study journey that was pleasantly completed in 1987. Attainment of this award was to open up greater chances of academic and professional mobility, with research-based engagement and wider interaction at personal and institutional levels. In 1993, she was engaged at the Southern African Regional Institute for Policy Studies (SARIPS) in Zimbabwe as a programme officer for twelve years up to 2005, teaching in the Masters course programme in Social Policy at SARIPS for seven years. She served as editor of the Southern African Feminist Review from 1995 to 2000, later continuing as editor of African Feminist Perspectives. From 1998, she had an appointment as dean at the International Women’s University (IFU) in Hanover, Germany, for a period of two years up to 2000. When Syracuse University (in New York, USA) launched the ‘Study Abroad’ programme in Harare, Zimbabwe, Dr. Patricia McFadden was appointed an adjunct professor there, from where she later moved to the ‘headquarters’ in Syracuse, New York, as a faculty member in the Department of African American Studies. Patricia has remained a steadfast member of the Development Alternatives for Women in the New Era (DAWN) research network and in another known as ‘Akina Mama wa Afrika’ [a Swahili-language adopted branding of the ‘African Women’ research network].

Professor McFadden has written widely on a number of inter-related subjects. They include: “Challenging HIV and AIDS: Resistance and advocacy in the lives of black women in Southern Africa; “War through feminist lens”; “Between a rock and a hard place: Positioning feminism in the ‘Africa Debate’,

“Patriarchy”; and “Sexuality and globalization”. Published articles include “Women and national liberation movements” (with Muriel Tillinghast, 1991) published in Yale Journal of Law and Liberation 2(1) pp.1–7; “Nationalism and gender issues in South Africa (1992)” in Journal of Gender Studies, 1 (4), pp.510–520; and “Geschlecht, sexualität und AIDS in Afrika” (1995) in Peripherie 15 (57/58), pp.86–111; and “Becoming postcolonial: African women changing the meaning of citizenship” (2005).

Published books include Gender in Southern Africa: A Gendered Perspective (SAPES Books, 1998); Reflections on gender issues in Africa (SAPES Books, 1999; Reconceptualising the family in a changing Southern African environment (with Sara C. Mvududu, Africa Institute of South Africa, 2001); and Women’s freedoms are the heartbeat of Africa’s future: A Sankarian imperative (2018).

A member of the Vegan Society, Patricia produces most of her own organic food on the uKhahlamba mountain, part of the Drakensberg range of mountains in the eastern border with South Africa. Veganism is a philosophy and a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of ‘exploitation’ and ‘cruelty’ to animals for purposes of food, clothing or any other use. By extension, it seeks to promote the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals themselves, human beings and the environment.