Gender, Power and Space-Making in the City of Johannesburg

Beschreibung

This book uses gender and the history of migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa to highlight a marginal area of research in the Global South. It investigates the rich everyday experiences of Zimbabwean immigrant women classified by South African law as illegal. It envisions a kind of citizenship which is sensitive and aware of gender issues for black working-class women in Johannesburg. This book draws on fieldwork and analysis to examine how gender and migration are integrated into the processes of globalization and by centering the agency of women, it helps us to understand how ‘bordered femininity’ explains the experiences of being an undocumented woman. This approach decolonizes our understanding of borders and the latter’s relationship to the changing transnational and transcultural landscape phenomena, which extends from the political to the cultural, from the (nation) state to everyday social acts at the everyday level of border practices. It will be of interest to students and researchers interested in gender studies, African studies, international policy and development, geography, Southern African history, human rights, migration studies and decolonial studies.

Nigel Mxolisi Landa is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research focuses on the intersection of gender with migration, state building, and the politics of belonging. His research is inspired by social justice and Afro-feminist worldviews.

This book uses gender and the history of migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa to highlight a marginal area of research in the Global South. It investigates the rich everyday experiences of Zimbabwean immigrant women classified by South African law as illegal. It envisions a kind of citizenship which is sensitive and aware of gender issues for black working-class women in Johannesburg. This book draws on fieldwork and analysis to examine how gender and migration are integrated into the processes of globalization and by centering the agency of women, it helps us to understand how ‘bordered femininity’ explains the experiences of being an undocumented woman. This approach decolonizes our understanding of borders and the latter’s relationship to the changing transnational and transcultural landscape phenomena, which extends from the political to the cultural, from the (nation) state to everyday social acts at the everyday level of border practices. It will be of interest to students and researchers interested in gender studies, African studies, international policy and development, geography, Southern African history, human rights, migration studies and decolonial studies.

Autor*in

Nigel Mxolisi Landa

Themen in »Gender, Power and Space-Making in the City of Johannesburg«

Gender and Migration Decolonial theory Borders Gendered spaces Transnational politics South Africa Zimbabwe

Stimmen zu »Gender, Power and Space-Making in the City of Johannesburg«

“This is a groundbreaking book on migration with a focus on how women from Zimbabwe, whose lives are precarious due to their (il)legal status navigate daily lives in the city of Johannesburg. The originality of this book lies in its combination of deep historicization, strong engagement with political economy of South African and the wider region,  as well as careful and effective deployment of decolonial and Afrofeminist theories to make a case for decolonizing borders. This is a welcome work of good sense that enriches studies of gender, migration and space.” (Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor of History and holder of the Canada Research Chair (CRC) Tier 1 in Pluralistic Societies: Epistemic Pluralism and Ecologies of Knowledges, University of Calgary, Canada)

“This book contributes to what is now a substantial body of literature on Zimbabwean migration to South Africa. It adds depth and richness by placing women’s voices and experiences squarely at the centre of its analysis. What emerges are not tales of vulnerability and despair but rather ones of adaptability, independence, care, and mutuality in a context of intersecting political, economic and social marginalization. Adopting a decolonial, historicized approach means that the work will resonate beyond its particular regional context. It provides a sensitive, layered account of migrant women’s agency in navigating conditions of precarity and establishing spaces of urban belonging.” (Belinda Dodson, PhD Adjunct Research Professor, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada)

Details

Link teilen