Discourses of Gender and Political Violence in South Africa

Abstract:Politically violent women are regularly muted or made exceptional. Yet, underplaying women's involvement in political violence obscures the systemic nature of such violence. We employ a discursive psychology analysis of an in-depth interview with a South African woman who has been involved in decades of political activism, and identified two discourses: Gendering Politically Violent Symbols and Enactments, where political violence was wielded as a symbol, and Gendering Political Organizing, wherein feminist agencies were directed against political structures. Together, these discourses indicate how gender identity is simultaneously consistent and at odds with political identity and how gender intersects with political violence.

[1]  Nyasha Karimakwenda.  Safe to Violate: The Role of Gender in the Necklacing of Women During the South African People’s War (1985–1990) , 2019, Journal of Southern African Studies.

[2]  Lauren Tracey-Temba.  Damned to Desperation: The Gendered Nature of Disruptive Politics among South African Youth , 2018 .

[3]  Emily Bridger.  Soweto’s Female Comrades: Gender, Youth and Violence in South Africa’s Township Uprisings, 1984–1990 , 2018 .

[4]  Emmanuel-Pierre Guittet.  Gendered political violence: female militancy, conduct and representation in contemporary scholarship – a review , 2018 .

[5]  Candice D. Ortbals,et al.  Gender and Political Violence: Women Changing the Politics of Terrorism , 2018 .

[6]  S. Davis.  The ANC's War against Apartheid: Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Liberation of South Africa , 2018 .

[7]  E. Duzel.  Fragile goddesses: moral subjectivity and militarized agencies in female guerrilla diaries and memoirs , 2018 .

[8]  Karyn Stapleton,et al.  Conflicting categories? Women, conflict and identity in Northern Ireland , 2014 .

[9]  Peace Kiguwa,et al.  Violent masculinities and service delivery protests in post-apartheid South Africa: A case study of two communities in Mpumalanga , 2013 .

[10]  Linda Åhäll.  Motherhood, Myth and Gendered Agency in Political Violence , 2012 .

[11]  S. O’Neill.  Struggles against injustice: contemporary critical theory and political violence , 2010 .

[12]  F. Boonzaier.  `If the Man Says you Must Sit, Then you Must Sit': The Relational Construction of Woman Abuse: Gender, Subjectivity and Violence , 2008 .

[13]  G. Eagle,et al.  The Intractability of Militarised Masculinity: A Case Study of Former Self-Defence Unit Members in the Kathorus Area, South Africa , 2008 .

[14]  Carrie Hamilton.  the gender politics of political violence: women armed activists in ETA , 2007 .

[15]  M. Fine.  Bearing Witness: Methods for Researching Oppression and Resistance—A Textbook for Critical Research , 2006 .

[16]  M. Alison.  Women as Agents of Political Violence: Gendering Security , 2004 .

[17]  Piers Pigou.  The apartheid state and violence: What has the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found? , 2001 .

[18]  D. Bonnin.  Claiming Spaces, Changing Places: Political Violence and Women's Protests in KwaZulu-Natal , 2000 .

[19]  S. Meintjes.  Political violence and gender: a neglected relation in South Africa's struggle for democracy , 1998 .

[20]  Lorraine Dowler.  'And They Think I'm Just a Nice Old Lady' Women and War in Belfast, Northern Ireland , 1998 .

[21]  Sikata Banerjee.  The Feminization of Violence in Bombay: Women in the Politics of the Shiv Sena , 1996 .

[22]  Nicola Gavey,et al.  Feminist Poststructuralism and Discourse Analysis: Contributions to Feminist Psychology , 1989 .

[23]  S. Axelsson.  Gendered Struggle for Freedom: A Narrative Inquiry into Female Ex-Combatants in South Africa , 2015 .

[24]  Linda Åhäll.  Confusion, fear, disgust : emotional communication in representations of female agency in political violence , 2012 .

[25]  C. Donaldson,et al.  Maternal communication styles and young children’s cooperation in a paediatric setting , 2009 .