Finding colleagues, finding home, finding energy: rethinking African feminist engagements with international politics through a vernacular rights cultures approach – reflections from a study of pro-abortion activism and allyship

African feminist pro-choice abortion activism and political mobilization is shaped by colonial legacies in a multitude of ways. A key area where sustained colonial dynamics are visible is in the relationship between pro-choice abortion activists and organizations funded by and/or located in the Global North. How activists in the African space navigate these relationships and infrastructures has been a sustained site of critique within decolonial and postcolonial literature. However, accounts from pro-choice abortion activists and allies working on abortion access in Africa, particularly those working in and with communities, are limited. As a result, Afrofeminist experiences of and perspectives on navigating transnational pro-choice abortion activist infrastructures are invisibilized. This article centers these perspectives and interrogates the complex reasons why and the process through which African pro-choice abortion activists and allies navigate transnational collaborations. Through centering activists’ and allies’ contributions and Afrofeminist perspectives, we contend that African pro-choice activists strategically engage in international collaborations to challenge anti-abortion politics that have gained traction in the African postcolony where abortion has been positioned as “un-African.” The article highlights the need for conversations on relationships between the different actors in pro-choice abortion activism to center African feminist voices and work from Afrofeminist perspectives.