Her presence and contribution remain forever marked in her story in text and in the recorded folk voice of the women of Vulindlela. The study identifies two potential locations for poor and marginalized women's survival theologies: the Mother Union (MU), an Anglican Women's Prayer Union that is part of the indigenous Manyano movement, and a contextual women's Bible study group from the area.
CHAPTER 1
Scope of the study
To this end, it is an ambitious project that examines the three disciplines of gender and development, feminist studies and women's theology. It is from this discussion that I attempt to show how both in the field of gender and development and in the women's theological project,.
Research process
There is also a strong focus on the involvement of the people researched in the research process. As previously suggested, issues of race and class in the research process raise representational issues that will be addressed in this study.
Structure of the study
In the context of South Africa, poverty alleviation and gender equality are the two main commitments of the post-apartheid government. In giving agency to poor and marginalized women, the role of the activist-intellectual is called into question.
Introduction
She acted as an interpreter and transcriber of the Zulu field notes, without which my work with the women would not have been possible. One of the frustrations of writing this study has been a sense of being unable to convey this deep lived reality that was mine as I.
History of the Anglican Churches in the Vulindlela area
The work of the Anglican Church in the Vulindlela area is centered on two congregations. 7 Winterskloof is now part of the Hilton Local Transitional Council serving the area that was.
My story
- Childhood and racial ambiguities
- Adulthood and African identity
Living and working in post-apartheid South Africa, I have decided to be shaped by "blackness" rather than "whiteness." This process led me to realize that given the complexity of my identity in the South African context, I had to make decisions both about how I constructed my identity in South Africa and where I fit into the fractured women's project.
Women of St Raphael’s Anglican Church
- Setting the scene
- Their stories
Josephinah Nene, unlike Sophia Ntombela, says little about her childhood, but emphasizes her life in the church at the beginning of her story. They reflect a tapestry that weaves together the threads of women's lives in the world and their lives in the church.
Women of Nxamalala
- Setting the scene
- Their stories
16 The stories of most of the women who visited the group regularly are included. Thandiwe Mdluli was not an active member of the congregation when she started attending group meetings.
Nonhlanhla Magubane’s story
Nevertheless, the overriding recognition that she was damaged by patriarchy led her to change her actions and reactions to events in daily life. In her reflections, Nonhlanhla recounts a number of incidents where she acted as a result of her heightened awareness of male dominance and resistance to it.
Conclusion
I argue that the women of Vulindlela, as representatives of "third world women", are not passive in their struggle for survival. In attempting this task, it is important to locate the women's struggle for survival.
CHAPTER 3
Introduction
Setting the scene
One Hundred Years in Winterskloof tells the story of the acquisition of land and the stories of those who acquired it. One such "pot biography" is the Schofield family - its significance will soon become apparent.
Africans and the city of Pietermaritzburg
With the passage of the Self-Governing Territories Constitution Act 1971, areas under traditional authorities were recognized as "Self-Governing Territories". In the rest of the study, I refer to the geographical location of the women I work with as those from the "Vulindlela area". Prior to 1994, the KwaZulu government passed a series of laws enshrining the rights of amakhosi and indunas [local headmen], a process that culminated in the introduction of the KwaZulu Amakhosi and Iziphakanyiswa Act of 1990.
This had serious implications for the socio-economic development of the area, as it is becoming.
The Vulindlela region
- Demography
- Housing and land
- Social infrastructure
The housing types in the area are an important indicator of the gap between urban and rural areas and the extent to which there is a cash income within the family. What communal land does exist appears to be under control and for the use of the local chief. It is recommended to prioritize the adequate maintenance of the two main east/west areas.
One of the clearest images of the nature of poverty [in South Africa] is the sight of a group of elderly women, each carrying a load of firewood weighing up to 50 kg home on her head, which passes under the high-voltage cables that wear. the energy between the towns (and farmsteads) of the Republic.
AIDS - the new crisis
At the end of this discussion, many of the group members expressed ambivalence about testing their daughters because it was perceived to be a process of controlling men in the community. However, the final death toll in the greater Edendale valley is expected to be significantly higher. 1987 was not only the year of the floods, but it was the beginning of political violence in the area that wreaked far worse havoc than the floods on the lives of the people of Sweetwaters and Nxamalala (among others).
We also ran out to hide in the wilderness, but they burned her house.
Conclusion
Engaging in the theoretical debate on gender and development, I argue that in the context of South Africa, issues of poverty reduction need to be linked to gender equality. In doing so, I critically discuss "Third World" women18 (which includes the women of Vulindlela) as apparently powerless victims and suggest the contribution of postmodernism to this debate. 18 This term was coined by women from developing countries as a positive self-affirmation based on their struggles against multiple oppressions of nation, gender, class and ethnicity (Sen and Grown 1987:97).
In using the term, I do not mean to suggest that "third world" women are an essentialist category created as "other" by first world women (see Mohanty 1988).
CHAPTER 4
Introduction
Moving to a global context, I outline the theoretical trajectories of the gender and development debate, which includes three approaches to development planning, namely Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD), and Gender and. Implicit in these theoretical positions are different approaches to poverty reduction and different emphases on gender issues. Woven into these theoretical debates is the voice of Third World women, most prominently represented in the debate through an organization known as Development Alternatives for a New Age (DAWN).
As a way forward in the discussion, I conclude the chapter with a section on the contribution of postmodernism to our theoretical reflection.
Development is a gender issue
- Development introduced
- Poverty and gender in South Africa
- Gender critique of the post-apartheid response to poverty
- Poverty, gender and religion
In the post-war period of the 1940s, the liberal approach flourished, emphasizing the achievement of development by adopting Western political and economic systems (Parpart and Marchand 1995:11). They called for independent development in the south or the periphery and emphasized the need to separate from the metropolis (or center) of the north. In fact, the role of women in the productivity of their communities has become invisible.
The Agenda Collective argued similarly (1995:40) and was deeply critical of the fact that women had not been involved in the drafting of the document.
Gender and development in the third world
- Gender analysis introduced into development planning
- Women in Development (WID)
- Critique of the WID approach
- Women and Development (WAD)
- Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
- Gender and Development (GAD)
These she called "gender interests" to differentiate them "from the false homogeneity imposed by the notion of women's interests" (Molyneux 1985:232). 15 I will argue in section 5.4 that this white liberal feminist emphasis on productive equality to the exclusion of the reproductive qualities of women's lives has been a source of division among women in the South African context. The question of who defines "women's interests" is related to a further critique of the WID approach.
Proponents of the GAD approach (Rathgeber 1990; Young 1993) argue that it is a holistic approach that does not focus exclusively on the productive and reproductive aspects of women's lives to the exclusion of the others.
Gender and development in South Africa
- Ensuring gender equity
- Critique of the GAD approach in South Africa
- Contribution of postmodernism to the debate
Suddenly, the weakening of women's organizations and the weakening of the women's movement comes as no surprise. Pandy et al (1997) resolve the dilemma by suggesting that the solution is an adoption of the WAD approach to gender and development. In this way, it becomes a critique of the claim of the "expert" to know and allows a recovery of poor women's voices and knowledge (Marchand and Parpart 1995:18).
This recovery of the voices and knowledge of poor and marginalized women, they assert, is no easy task (Marchand and Parpart 1995:18).
Conclusion
The first major school of development specialists to place gender on the development agenda was known as Women in Development (WID) and emerged in the 1970s. While the debate remained in the hands of first world women, third world women met during the mid-1980s and formed an organization known as Development Alternatives for a New Era (DAWN). As a way forward in the debate, I have shown the contribution of postmodernism and argued that it is essential that postmodern analytical tools be employed in critical engagement with the political feminist project.
It is this strategic engagement between postmodernism and feminism in the South African context that is the focus of the next chapter.
CHAPTER 5
Introduction
Through this discussion, the fractured nature of the women's project is highlighted, particularly as it pertains to the South African context. Race and class have been defining features in the South African women's liberation project, which in the past has been divided between "activists" who tended to be black women and "academics" who tended to be white women. The legacy of this division remains and race continues to be a contentious issue within the women's project in post-apartheid South Africa.
Motherhood has been a key rallying point for black women activists during the struggle for liberation, while white women have continued to argue against motherhood, seeing it as a conservative factor in women's politics.
Defining feminism(s)
- Race and class - absent indicators in feminist discourse
- Feminist scholarship as colonial discourse
- Cultural imperialism and African women
In the South African context, this suggestion is not so helpful since the "women's movement" has existed alongside the "feminist movement" as two racially separate movements. My preference in this study is to refer to our work together as the "women's project." Concern has been expressed that the influence of postmodernism will weaken the political dimension of the women's project.
Women's organizing against the 'colonizing discourse' was also a crucial concern for women in the developing world.
The South African women’s project
- Women’s resistance in South Africa
- Race and the post-apartheid women’s project
- Feminism and the “women’s movement” - naming ourselves
- Motherhood as contested terrain
In the early 1980s, women's organizations began to appear that were clearly committed to the non-racism of the 1950s. The refusal of white women to acknowledge their initial racism remains a stumbling block in the women's project. In the search for an "authentic" women's project, race continues to dominate the post-apartheid agenda.
I suggested earlier that Kadalie's (1995) argument for a preservation of feminist analysis was crucial to the women's project.
Postmodernism and feminism in critical dialogue
- Introducing postmodernism(s)
- Feminist reaction to postmodern ideas
Aspects of the work of leading French postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Michèl Foucault have been borrowed by some feminists. The process of deconstructing texts is important because it enables a greater focus on the way in which difference(s) embedded in this binary thinking are constructed and maintained (Parpart and Marchand 1995:3). However, as Flax (1992) shows, this presumption of the postmodern feminist project is more complex than Harstock suggests.
The need to change the social structures of the world lies at the heart of the feminist project, and it is the political implications of postmodern ideas that concern feminists like Alcoff.
