Breaking Borders: Women's Cultural Diplomacy in the Global South during the Cold War

Between 1956 and 1959, female writers and poets hailing from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia received widespread acclaim through the Ghanaian press. This period marked a significant moment for women across the so-called Global South, as their voices and perspectives were given a platform on the global stage. Engaging digital humanities tools and methodology to create a digital archive of the relevant issues from "The Daily Graphic" and "The Ghanaian Times," my project shows how these publications gave women from all backgrounds space to voice their opinions on world affairs. Drawing from late nineteenth-century Middle Eastern paradigms of feminist scholarship and revolutionary movements and attempting to redefine "womanhood" in the postcolonial world order, their scholarship paved the way for Ghana's exciting sociopolitical experimentation during its early years of independence from British colonial rule. As part of my research project, I am also mapping the movement of these women writers and the production and circulation of their work. My poster presentation will showcase how Ghanaian and immigrant women writers connected the global conversation about racism to discussions on gender. It will trace the mobility of these writers and the flow of their ideas beyond Ghanaian borders. The aim is to illustrate how, with their previously neglected publications in the early years of the Cold War, these writers influenced the direction and scope of global movements traditionally thought to have been shaped only by men, such as the global non-alignment movement.