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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Changing History, Changing Histories: Separations and Connections in the Lives of South African Women
Author:Marks, ShulaISNI
Year:2000
Periodical:Journal of African Cultural Studies
Volume:13
Issue:1
Period:June
Pages:94-106
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:women
letters
history
1940-1949
1950-1959
History and Exploration
Women's Issues
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Urbanization and Migration
Historical/Biographical
Cultural Roles
Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713674309
Abstract:The author revisits correspondence between Lily Moya, a 15-year-old school girl growing up in the Eastern Cape, Mabel Palmer, a 74-year-old Fabian socialist and head of the 'Non-European' section of Natal University, and Sibusisiswe Makanya, the first Zulu woman to train as a social worker in the USA. This correspondence dates from the period between 1948 and 1951, and was first edited and published by the present author in 1987. This edition explored the divisions and misunderstandings between these three generations of South African women. Challenged by recent events in South Africa, in the present paper the author argues that the text can also be read as a story of the shared worlds of these three women, of the connections between them wrought by mission education and philanthropy, which in turn have provided some of the conditions of possibility for the country's negotiated settlement. In this narrative, the personal has become the political. At the same time, the author argues that this microhistory prefigures the gendered violence which is so disturbing a part of South Africa's contemporary social landscape. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum.
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