Generation, Gender and Negotiating Custom in South Africa (Routledge Contemporary South Africa)

This book investigates how customary practices in South Africa have led to negotiation and contestation over human rights, gender and generational power. Drawing on a range of original empirical studies, this book provides important new insights into the realities of regulating personal relationships in complex social fields in which customary practices are negotiated. This book not only adds to a fuller understanding of how customary practices are experienced in contemporary South Africa, but it also contributes to a large discussion about the experiences, impact and ongoing negotiations around changing structures of gender and generational power and rights in contemporary South Africa. It will be of interest to researchers across the fields of sociology, family/customary law, gender, social policy and African Studies. This book investigates how customary practices in South Africa have led to negotiation and contestation over human rights, gender, and generational power. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of contributors 8 Chapter 1 Generation, gender and negotiating custom in South Africa 12 Chapter 2 Lobolo and the making of men 60 Chapter 3 Very long engagements: The persistent authority of bridewealth in a post-apartheid South African community 79 Chapter 4 Inhlawulo, Kin and Custom: Young men negotiating fatherhood and respectable masculinity 97 Chapter 5 Negotiating sisterarchy within polygynous marriages 113 Chapter 6 Women’s historical recollections of familial power, ukuthwala marriage and sexual violence 131 Chapter 7 The power of state law: Female initiation, consent and generational entanglements 148 Chapter 8 Negotiation of inheritance rights by widows: A case study in rural South Africa 167 Chapter 9 Resisting for one and all: Gender and generations amidst guns in rural KwaZulu-Natal 184 Glossary and Notes 204 Index 206 traditional,customary,practices;,human,rights;,gender;,legal,system;,generational,power traditional customary practices,human rights,gender,legal system,generational power "This book investigates how customary practices in South Africa have led to negotiation and contestation over human rights, gender, and generational power. Drawing on a range of original empirical studies, this book provides important new insights into the realities of regulating personal relationships in complex social fields in which customary practices are negotiated. This book not only adds to a fuller understanding of how customary practices are experienced in contemporary South Africa, but it also contributes to a large discussion about the experiences, impact and ongoing negotiation around changing structures of gender and generational power and rights in contemporary South Africa. It will be of interest to researchers across the fields of sociology, family/customary law, gender, social policy, and African Studies"-- Provided by publisher.