“Bantu women on the move” : black women and the politics of mobility in the Bantu World

Abstract

For the most part, the inter-war years in South Africa have been researched as the time when African nationalism and resistance developed. Many such studies analyse the work of African intellectuals (mostly men) in this period while the role of women has become a serious consideration since the 1980s. In her book, A World of their Own: A History of South African Women’s Education (2013), Meghan Healy-Clancy examines the role of education for black women from the 1800s as a way to study their experiences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her book raises questions about the less public nature of black women’s lives, such as family, marriage and education. This paper aims to enter this conversation by examining the mobility of black women through a selection of articles which appeared in The Bantu World during 1935. Mobility is understood as an intensely political expression of movement which is also part of the quotidian. The analysis of these articles argues for a more complex understanding of the lives of black women, one beyond the narrative of subjugated women who did not have access to mobility, freedom and agency.

Die jare tussen die twee wereldoorloë in Suid-Afrika word meestal bestudeer as die tydperk waartydens Afrikanasionalisme en -weerstand ontwikkel het. Studies van hierdie tydperk het tot nou toe meestal gefokus op die werk van prominente (meerendeels manlike) intellektuele Afrikane; die rol wat vroue gespeel het, word sedert die 1980’s ’n ernstiger fokusarea. In haar boek, A World of their Own: A History of South African Women's Education (2013) ondersoek Meghan Healy-Clancy die rol wat opvoeding vanaf die 1800's vir swart vroue gespeel het, om swart vrouens van die laat-negentiende en vroeë twintigste eeue te bestudeer. Haar boek opper vrae omtrent die minder openbare aard van swart vroue se lewens, soos familie, die huwelik en opvoeding. Hierdie artikel bestudeer swart vroue se mobiliteit na aanleiding van artikels uit The Bantu World van 1935. Beweeglikheid word hier verstaan as 'n hoogs politieke uitdrukking van beweging, wat ook deel is van die alledaagse. Die analise van hierdie artikels pleit vir 'n meer ingewikkelde begrip van swart vroue se lewens, wat verder gaan as die narratief van onderworpe vroue sonder toegang tot mobiliteit, vryheid en mag.