JESUS AND THE POOR: Reading Stories of Poverty in the Context of Poverty Among Widows in Upper Eastern Ghana

Abstract

While there has never been a fixed view on gender oppression, a unified vision of women’s liberation, or a common approach to knowledge production, different approaches to feminist research share a concern for the myriad of ways that gender impacts women’s lives. Despite a commitment to action-oriented research, feminist researchers have been slower to articulate specific strategies that can contribute to such agendas. Possibly, those who are most marginalised have questioned the relevance and utility of the Western feminist movement and feminist theory and have identified with other social movements that are more directly action-oriented. Consequently, feminists agree that there is the need to develop a range of research methods that address diversity as well as commonalities in women’s lives, and experimentation with novel data collection techniques is important. Exploring different methods of representation can help cut across difference to understand the contextualities of women’s experiences of discrimination, prejudice, cultural bias and disadvantage and how they are located in their particular social, economic, political, and cultural contexts. The primary aim of this thesis is to articulate a variant of feminist action research grounded in feminist theological thought. The work takes a look at the impact of biblical interpretation on the lives of African women. Also, the works examines the interaction between Christianity and African culture and how this also impacts on the lives of African women.