Synopses & Reviews
Originally a discursive and administrative construction for political control by whites of sections of Xhosaland, the Ciskei came to be a site for an awakening political consciousness among the African population living within its boundaries. As Mager shows, the creation of the Ciskei was a dynamic gendered process, and attempts to establish boundaries for the Ciskei were also attempts to stabilize and satisfy particular needs and interests. By locating gender relations within overlapping domains of politics, space, and institutional arrangements, Mager joins insights from feminist theory with geography and gendered history to produce a compelling social history.
Review
One of the outstanding characteristics of the book is the way it demonstrates that gender relations were integral to the continued mutations of the unstable phenomenon known as 'Ciskei.' The book is a vindication of Mager's position that when one views a slice of history through the perspectives of gender, unnoticed areas of it become illuminated and the whole history starts to look different.J.B. PeiresAuthor of The Dead Will Arise (1989)
Synopsis
Mager joins insights from feminist theory with geography and gendered history to produce a compelling social history.
Synopsis
Originally a discursive and administrative construction for political control by whites of sections of Xhosaland, the Ciskei came to be a site for an awakening political consciousness among the African population living within its boundaries. As Mager shows, the creation of the Ciskei was a dynamic gendered process, and attempts to establish boundaries for the Ciskei were also attempts to stabilize and satisfy particular needs and interests. By locating gender relations within overlapping domains of politics, space, and institutional arrangements, Mager joins insights from feminist theory with geography and gendered history to produce a compelling social history.
Synopsis
with geography and gendered history to produce a compelling social history.
About the Author
Anne Kelk Mager is Lecturer in the History Department of the University of Cape Town.
Table of Contents
Part I: Mapping, Boundaries, and Contested Structures
1. Defining the Border(s)
Mapping "The Family": The Creation of Zwelitsha
The People Get Fenced
Patriarchs, Politics, and Ethnic Mapping
Part II: Subjectivities, Gender Regimes, and Resistance
5. Gendering Identities between Childhood and Adulthood
Independent Women and Youth in the City of East London
Sexuality, Fertility, and Male Power
Educating an Elite: Gender Regimes and Resistance