About This Journal
Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies takes its name from Wagadu, the Soninke name for the ancient Ghana Empire, which flourished in West Africa and connected sub-Saharan Africa with North Africa and the wider Mediterranean world.
The Meaning of Wagadu
According to Soninke legend, the prosperity of Wagadu depended on the annual sacrifice of a young woman to a mythical python known as Biida. When Assia Yatabéré was chosen as the sacrifice, Mamadou Sérékhoté Fissourou intervened and killed the python. The act ended the cycle of sacrifice but was followed, according to the legend, by years of drought, hardship, and the eventual dispersal of the Soninke people.
The legend of Wagadu raises enduring questions about gender, sacrifice, power, resistance, and social transformation. For the journal, the name Wagadu symbolizes both the sacrifices women have historically been expected to make and their agency in challenging inequality and transforming families, communities, societies, and the wider world.
As expressed in a Soninke saying:
Duna taka siro no yagare npale.
The world does not go without women.
Founded as a space for critical and transnational scholarship, Wagadu carries this legacy forward by fostering dialogue on women’s lives, gender relations, systems of inequality, resistance, and social change across geographical, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries.
Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal indexed in Scopus.