Issue

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2002): African Sociological Review

1 - Gender, Dress and Self-Empowerment: Women and Burial Societies in Botswana

Barbara Ntombi Ngwenya
Department of Social Work University of Botswana P/Bag UB 00705 Gaborone
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4401-5648

Corresponding Author(s) : Barbara Ntombi Ngwenya

ntombi@mopipi.ub.bw

African Sociological Review, Vol. 6 No. 2 (2002): African Sociological Review

Abstract

One measure of relative poverty, humiliation and indignity among Batswana is wearing tattered clothes (makatana). Literally, a dress (seaparo) means to adorn oneself. Particular kinds of clothes have multi­ ple meanings and authorise and legitimise participation of certain social groups in given situations in society. This paper focuses on specific ways in which women in local institutions known as burial societies (diswaeti in everyday Tswana discourse), ceremonially and ritualistically empower themselves through an event known as kapeso - to be garbed, enrobed or dressed. Empowerment embodies a sense of competence, mastery, strength, and ability to ejfect change. The event incorporates biblical knowledge associated with Christian religious ceremonies of dedication or devotion and Tswana funeral ritual symbols. Given the extraordinary context of the AIDS crisis in Botswana, taking up specific intervention raies of providing emergency financial relief to households in distress demands some sort of public authentication. Women in burial societies adopta particular dress code as ritual abject of social power to perform gendered social roles that close/y conform to status obligations to self,family, kin, community and society. Their dress code enables them to dramatise social action (that is, the ability to understand what they do and to use that understanding as part of their performance) in ways that redefine gender relations, practices of spirituality across denomina­ tional affiliation and Tswana humanism (botho).

Keywords

Gender Dress and Self-Empowerment Women Botswana
Barbara Ntombi Ngwenya. (2002). 1 - Gender, Dress and Self-Empowerment: Women and Burial Societies in Botswana. African Sociological Review, 6(2), 1–27. Retrieved from https://journals.codesria.org/index.php/asr/article/view/3868
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