South Africa

Citation:

Evans, Laura. 2013. “Gender, Generation and the Experiences of Farm Dwellers Resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976.” Journal of Agrarian Change 13 (2): 213–33. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0366.2012.00369.x.

Author: Laura Evans

Abstract:

This paper examines the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in rural townships in the Ciskei Bantustan during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the oral testimonies of elderly residents of Sada and Ilinge townships, the paper shows how gendered and generational inequalities within households were crucial factors shaping individuals' experiences of resettlement from the farms. The paper engages with an older literature that regarded the abolition of labour tenancy and linked resettlement programmes as the final stage of farm tenants' proletarianization. It highlights the problems of this linear narrative, and argues that men and women experienced and understood this process in radically different ways. Male labour migration and the remnants of farm paternalism meant that while resettlement cemented the status of migrant men, for women and non-migrant men this process was characterized by contradiction: on the one hand, escape from the spatial hegemonies of farm paternalism and, on the other, heightened economic exposure.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women, Men, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2013

Citation:

Claassens, Aninka. 2013. “Recent Changes in Women’s Land Rights and Contested Customary Law in South Africa.” Journal of Agrarian Change 13 (1): 71–92. doi:10.1111/joac.12007.

Author: Aninka Claassens

Abstract:

This paper discusses the phenomenon of single women claiming, and acquiring, residential sites in the former homelands since the end of apartheid in 1994, against the backdrop of steadily declining marriage rates. It argues that the transition to democracy changed the balance of power within which ‘living customary law’ is negotiated at the local level, and emboldened women. The changes are put at risk by controversial traditional leadership laws enacted since 2003. These restore the power of definition to chiefs, and reassert constructs of customary law that obscure the dynamics of the changes under way. I suggest that the ‘changes’ may, in part, reflect the re-emergence of pre-existing repertoires that were suppressed by official customary law. The paper contrasts the Constitutional Court's inclusive approach to ‘living customary law’ and the legislative process, with the autocratic approach of the new laws, one of which has already been struck down by the Court.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2013

Citation:

Porter, Gina, Kate Hampshire, Albert Abane, Alister Munthali, Elsbeth Robson, Mac Mashiri, and Augustine Tanle. 2009. “Youth Transport, Mobility, and Security in Sub-Saharan Africa - The Gendered Journey to School.” In Women’s Issues in Transportation - Summary of the 4th International Conference. Vol. 2. Irvine, California: Transportation Research Board.

Authors: Gina Porter, Kate Hampshire, Albert Abane, Alister Munthali, Elsbeth Robson, Mac Mashiri, Augustine Tanle

Abstract:

This paper draws on empirical data from a three-country (Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa) study of young people’s mobility to explore the gendered nature of children’s journeys to school in sub-Saharan Africa. Gender differences in school enrollment and attendance in Africa are well established: education statistics in many countries indicate that girls’ participation in formal education is often substantially lower than boys’, especially at the secondary school level. Transport and mobility issues commonly form an important component of this story, though the precise patterning of the transportation and mobility constraints experienced by girls and the ways in which transport factors interact with other constraints vary from region to region. In some contexts, the journey to school represents a particularly hazardous enterprise for girls because they face a serious threat of rape. In other cases, girls’ journeys to school and school attendance are hampered by Africa’s transport gap and by cultural conventions that require females to be responsible for pedestrian head loading (transporting loads such as food crops or fuel on the head) and other work before leaving for, or instead of attending, school. evidence comes from a diverse range of sources, but the data used here are principally drawn from a survey questionnaire conducted with approximately 1,000 children ages 7 to 18 years across eight sites in each country. The aim of this study is to draw attention to the diversity of gendered travel experiences across geographical locations (paying attention to associated patterns of transport provision); to explore the implications of these findings for access to education; and to suggest areas in which policy intervention could be beneficial.

Topics: Age, Youth, Education, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender Roles, Infrastructure, Transportation Regions: Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana, Malawi, South Africa

Year: 2009

Citation:

Johnson, Rachel E. 2014. “Women as a Sign of the New? Appointments to South Africa’s Constitutional Court since 1994.” Politics & Gender 10 (04): 595–621. doi:10.1017/S1743923X14000439.

Author: Rachel E. Johnson

Abstract:

The aim of the article is to develop our understanding of the role bodies play in processes of institutional change. It does so through developing an approach to the politics of institutional newness that highlights the way in which raced and gendered bodies can become entangled with claims to, or judgements of, “being new.” These questions are explored through South Africa's Constitutional Court, newly established as part of South Africa's transition to democracy in the 1990s and at the center of the broader claims being made about the creation of a new democratic, nonracial, and non-sexist South Africa. Focusing on judicial appointments to the Constitutional Court since 1994, the article draws attention to the ways in which historically excluded bodies, women and black men, have been included into this new space within the judiciary. It is argued that exploring the ways in which institutions lay claim to “being new” through the bodies of historically excluded groups is important for our understanding of the dynamics of institutional change being constituted.

Topics: Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Constitutions, Elections, Post-Conflict Governance, Political Participation Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2014

Citation:

Ratelep, Kopano. 2008. “Ruling Masculinities in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” In Development with a Body: Sexuality, Human Rights and Development, ed. Sonia Corrêa, 121–35. Zed Books.

Author: Kopano Ratelep

Abstract:

Offers insights into contemporary challenges and transformative possibilities of the struggle for sexual rights. This book combines the conceptual with the political, and offering examples of practical interventions and campaigns that emphasize the positive dimensions of sexuality (WorldCat)

Annotation:

Development with a body: making the connections between sexuality, human rights, and development / Andrea Cornwall, Sonia Corrêa and Susie Jolly --

Development's encounter with sexuality: essentialism and beyond / Sonia Corrêa and Susan Jolly --

Sexual rights/human rights ---

Sexual rights are human rights / Kate Sheill --

Sex work, trafficking and HIV: how development is compromising sex workers' human rights / Melissa Ditmore --

The language of rights / Jaya Sharma --

Children's sexual rights in an era of HIV/AIDS / Deevia Bhana --

The rights of man / Alan Greig --

Human rights interrupted: an illustration from India / Sumit Baudh --

Gender and sex orders --

Discrimination against lesbians in the workplace / Alejandra Sardá --

Ruling masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa / Kopano Ratele --

Gender, identity and travesti rights in Peru / Giuseppe Campuzano --

Small powers, little choice: reproductive and sexual rights in slums in Bangladesh / Sabina Faiz Rashid --

Social and political inclusion of sex workers as preventive measure against trafficking: Serbian experiences / Jelena Djordjevic --

Confronting our prejudices: women's movement experiences in Bangladesh / Shireen Huq --

Sexuality education as a human right: lessons from Nigeria / Adenike O. Esiet --

Terms of contact and touching change: investigating pleasure in an HIV epidemic / Jill Lewis and Gill Gordon --

A democracy of sexuality: linkages and strategies for sexual rights, participation, and development / Henry Armas --

Integrating sexuality into gender and human rights frameworks: a case study from Turkey / Pinar Ilkkarancan and Karin Ronge.

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Masculinism, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2008

Citation:

Waylen, Georgina. 2014. “A Seat at the Table—Is It Enough? Gender, Multiparty Negotiations, and Institutional Design in South Africa and Northern Ireland.” Politics & Gender 10 (4): 495–523. 

Author: Georgina Waylen

Abstract:

Women actors and gender concerns have often been absent from the negotiated settlements that bring an end to violent conflicts and create new political institutions. And although scholars and activists argue that both women actors and gender concerns should be incorporated, there is less consensus about how this can happen effectively. Taking up Jane Mansbridge's (2014, 11) recent call for political scientists to analyze “negotiations to agreement” and the institutions that facilitate negotiations, this paper argues that analyzing not only the involvement of women and gender actors and their outcomes, but also the form and structure of the negotiations themselves, will give us a greater understanding of how these processes are gendered. Through a comparative analysis of two negotiated settlements—in South Africa and Northern Ireland—this paper examines how institutional design processes were gendered and the impact that gender actors (understood here as actors organizing around gender interests) had on these “new” institutions/structures. In each case, women, organized as women, attempted to influence from the inside the creation of new institutional frameworks intended to end long-standing conflicts. (Cambridge University Press) 
 

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Conflict, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Southern Africa, Europe, Western Europe Countries: Ireland, South Africa

Year: 2014

Citation:

Bonnin, Debby. 2014. “Gender, Age and the Politicisation of Space during the Time of Political Violence in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.” Gender, Place & Culture 21 (5): 550–66. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2013.802669.

Author: Debby Bonnin

Abstract:

Keywords: South Africa, political violence, gender, place, political identities

Topics: Gender, Political Participation, Rights, Land Rights, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2014

Citation:

Gunkel, Henriette. 2010. The Cultural Politics of Female Sexuality in South Africa. New York & Oxon: Routledge.

Author: Henriette Gunkel

Abstract:

Sexual identity has emerged into the national discourse of post-apartheid South Africa, bringing the subject of rights and the question of gender relations and cultural authenticity into the focus of the nation state's politics. This book is a fascinating reflection on the effects of these discourses on non-normative modes of sexuality and intimacy and on the country more generally. While in 1996, South Africa became the first country in the world that explicitly incorporated lesbian and gay rights within a Bill of Rights, much of the country has continued to see homosexuality as un-African. Henriette Gunkel examines how colonialism and apartheid have historically shaped constructions of gender and sexuality and how these concepts have not only been re-introduced and shaped by understandings of homosexuality as un-African but also by the post-apartheid constitution and continued discourse within the nation.

Topics: Gender, Women, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, LGBTQ, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2010

Citation:

Britton, Hannah E., and Laura A. Dean. 2014. “Policy Responses to Human Trafficking in Southern Africa: Domesticating International Norms.” Human Rights Review 15 (3): 305–28.

Authors: Hannah E. Britton, Laura A. Dean

Abstract:

Human trafficking is increasingly recognized as an outcome of economic insecurity, gender inequality, and conflict, all significant factors in the region of southern Africa. This paper examines policy responses to human trafficking in southern Africa and finds that there has been a diffusion of international norms to the regional and domestic levels. This paper finds that policy change is most notable in the strategies and approaches that differ at each level: international and regional agreements emphasize prevention measures and survivor assistance, but national policies emphasize prosecution measures. Leaders across the region have adapted these policy norms to fit regionally specific conditions, including HIV/AIDS, conflict, traditional leaders, and prostitution. Yet, national policies often fail to incorporate preventative solutions to address gender inequality, human rights, and economic development. Until appropriate funding and preventative measures are introduced, the underlying issues that foster human trafficking will continue.

Keywords: norms diffusion, human trafficking, Southern African development, community, prostitution, child trafficking

Topics: Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Trafficking, Human Trafficking Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2014

Citation:

Pieterse, Marius. 2014. “May Real Men Cry in Court? Masculinity, Equality and the South African Constitutional Court.” Journal of Southern African Studies 40 (2): 361–79. doi:10.1080/03057070.2014.901641.

Author: Marius Pieterse

Abstract:

This article takes issue with depictions of masculinity and male gender identity in the South African Constitutional Court's judgements on gender equality and sexuality. It argues that, while the Court rightly acknowledges that male gender identity is problematic and that societal norms and expectations relating to masculinity are core causes of the subordination of women, many of its judgements uphold and reinforce outdated, essentialist, hetero-normative and restrictive conceptions of masculinity. These notions appear to leave little room for men to transcend conventional gender stereotypes, to form and adapt their identities freely and to participate in the transformation of gendered norms.

Topics: Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2014