"There Were Some Things That Did Not Change": Postcolonial Reckonings with Gender in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series

Abstract:

Though seemingly romanticized, Alexander McCall Smith’s popular No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series reckons with the gendered realities of postcolonial Botswana by creating a paradox that resists a simple reading of gender and feminism in the locale it inhabits. The series’ heroine, though traditional, defies gender roles, practicing a situated and culturally specific version of women’s empowerment. Indeed, when discussing gender in postcolonial Africa, we should not apply Western notions of feminism. Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, which recognizes locality, fluidity, and mutual influence in the construction of postcolonial identity, is a useful lens through which to understand the series’ paradoxes.