Abstract:
This research study explores Post- Secular Feminism as found in diaspora poetry. It illustrates that worldviews are shaped through intersectionality as presented in post-secular feminism under a thematic analysis of: Religion, Home and Exile, Hurt and Healing, Mother, and Self-love. The five themes intersect one another and make post-secular feminism clear. The aim of the study was to explore how identity is shaped in nine anthologies of six select diaspora poets: Upile Chisala, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Rupi Kaur, Warsan Shire, Nayyirah Waheed and Ijeoma Umebinyuo. It subsequently looked at the influence of social media and how the poets’ popularity is exposed and relates to their worldviews.
The study was carried out using the post-secular feminist framework. Post-secular feminism places emphasis on the oppression of women within their religious spaces. To a large extent this oppression is as a result of intersectionality. Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Thus, the select poets are oppressed in more than their religious spaces and poetry is their escape from this oppression. In the poetry studied for this research, post-secular feminism shapes worldviews. There is a clear link between post-secular feminism and the shaping of worldviews which the poetry reveals. This then illustrates that identities are shaped through intersectionality. Through close reading and analysis of the poetry, exploration of identities and worldviews transcend the rigid classification of identities, while attempting to forge a new space for social transformation and post-secular feminism to exist.
