"We are not 100% free": narratives of continuity and change amongst women on the margins of post-apartheid South Africa
type: CreativeWork
description: A wide range of auto/biographies and life stories has narrated South Africa's transition from apartheid to non-racial liberal democracy. However, the vast majority of these works has viewed the transformation process through the eyes of men and women who have lived extraordinary and spectacular lives. Following Ndebele's (1994) recognition of the radical potential of attending to the lives of ordinary South Africans, this thesis shifts the focus from the extraordinary and spectacular to the ordinary and examines the personal life stories of two female rural-to-urban migrants who have lived their entire lives on the margins of society. Viewing 'the margins' and 'the ordinary' as powerful sites for the production of counterhegemonic discourses (ibid; hooks, 1990:145) the thesis also reflects on what the women's life stories can teach us about South Africa's transformation process and post-apartheid freedom twenty-two years on. The thesis documents a halting and ambiguous transformation process and its impact on two black women who have spent their entire lives on the margins of the South African society. Particular light is shed on the limited and uneven impacts of the post-apartheid state's historical remedies and attempts to make a clean break with the past. Tracing how women's agency has played out over nearly four decades, the thesis shows how apartheids' racial, gendered and spatial legacies endure and are reinforced by current neoliberal policies and urban planning. The women's narratives also illustrate a yawning gap between South Africa's ideological and constitutional commitments and the lived realities for women left out of the "liberal promise" of development and prosperity (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2001) By shifting the focus from the spectacular and extraordinary to the ordinary, the thesis ultimately challenges us to rethink the notion of 1994 as a watershed moment in the lives of women of colour. On the one hand, the women's narratives clearly demonstrate…
abstract: A wide range of auto/biographies and life stories has narrated South Africa's transition from apartheid to non-racial liberal democracy. However, the vast majority of these works has viewed the transformation process through the eyes of men and women who have lived extraordinary and spectacular lives. Following Ndebele's (1994) recognition of the radical potential of attending to the lives of ordinary South Africans, this thesis shifts the focus from the extraordinary and spectacular to the ordinary and examines the personal life stories of two female rural-to-urban migrants who have lived their entire lives on the margins of society. Viewing 'the margins' and 'the ordinary' as powerful sites for the production of counterhegemonic discourses (ibid; hooks, 1990:145) the thesis also reflects on what the women's life stories can teach us about South Africa's transformation process and post-apartheid freedom twenty-two years on. The thesis documents a halting and ambiguous transformation process and its impact on two black women who have spent their entire lives on the margins of the South African society. Particular light is shed on the limited and uneven impacts of the post-apartheid state's historical remedies and attempts to make a clean break with the past. Tracing how women's agency has played out over nearly four decades, the thesis shows how apartheids' racial, gendered and spatial legacies endure and are reinforced by current neoliberal policies and urban planning. The women's narratives also illustrate a yawning gap between South Africa's ideological and constitutional commitments and the lived realities for women left out of the "liberal promise" of development and prosperity (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2001) By shifting the focus from the spectacular and extraordinary to the ordinary, the thesis ultimately challenges us to rethink the notion of 1994 as a watershed moment in the lives of women of colour. On the one hand, the women's narratives clearly demonstrate…
author: Mogstad, Heidi
language: eng
date published: 2016
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:22:46Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Political Studies

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/23758