Wagadu Volume 5

Book excerpt: This volume of Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Womens and Gender Studies launches its third printed edition. Wagaduthe Soninke name of the Ghana Empirecontrolled the present-day Mali, Mauritania and Senegal and was famous for its prosperity and power from approximately 300-1076 CE. It constituted the bridge between North Africa, the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds and Sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana gave birth to the two most powerful West African Empires: Mali and Songhay. The modern country of Ghana (former British Gold Coast) derives its name from the Ghana Empire. Why Wagadu? Wagadu has come to be the symbol of the sacrifice women continue to make for a better world. Wagadu has become the metaphor for the role of women in the family, community, country, and planet. In this volume the authors grapple with the intersecting discourses on anti-trafficking, human rights, and social justice, edited by Tiantian Zheng, associate professor of anthropology at SUNY Cortland. Duna taka siro no yagare npale The world does not go without women. Tiantian Zheng is associate professor of Anthropology at SUNY Cortland and author of the forthcoming book _Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China_, by University of Minnesota Press, in 2009.