Gender and the Making of a South African Bantustan: A Social History of the Ciskei, 1945-1959 (Social History of Africa)

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. Mapping, Boundaries, And Contested Structures -- Defining The Border(s) -- Mapping The Family: The Creation Of Zwelitsha -- The People Get Fenced -- Patriarchs, Politics, And Ethnic Mapping -- Subjectivities, Gender Regimes, And Resistance -- 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. Anne Kelk Mager. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [225]-240) And Index. How did an odd assortment of often unconnected spaces become Ciskei in the 1940s and 1950s? The author uses the prism of gender to displace the universal male subject of mainstream South African history, moving between the social space of families and the political space of the apartheid state. North