African Sociological Review

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

Barbara Ntombi Ngwenya — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

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).

2 - Learning to Live or to Leave? Education and Identity in Burkina Faso

Sten Hagberg — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

3 - Non-State Justice in the Post Apartheid South Africa – A Scane of Khayelitsha

Boyane Tshehla — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

4 - Matriliny, Patriliny, and Wealth Flow Variations in Rural Malawi

Mike Mathambo Mtika, Henry Victor Doctor — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Literature on African kinship political economies suggests that under matriliny, wealth flow would be biased towards a matrilineal line in that children would engage in transfers with their maternai more than their paternal relatives. Under patriliny, the reverse would be the case. We explore these propositions using data from a sample survey of 1257 respondents in rural Malawi, 29 percent of whom were from a predomi nantly matrilineal ethnie group, 36 percent werefrom an ethnie group that is transformingfrom matrilineal to patrilineal practices, and 35 per cent were from a patrilineal ethnie group. These data were comple mented by qualitative interviews of 18 respondents from the matrilineal ethnie group, 20 from the transforming group, and 18 from the patrilineal group. Results reveal little evidence to support the propositions. We think that the increasingprivatisation of production and consumption, that has over the years penetrated rural Malawi, has led to some individualistic tendencies among rural Malawians and weakened both matrilineal and patrilineal influence on people 's wealth transfer behaviours.

5 - Trade Union Responses to the ‘Flexible' Workforce in Namibia Incorporation or Marginalisation

Gilton Klerck — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

It is now widely recognised that a key feature of current restructuring is an increasing polarisation in employment conditions and a growing differentiation of the worliforce. The changing social composition of the worliforce associated with employment 'flexibility 'poses serious challenges to the modes of organisation that have long served the labour movement. Available evidence suggests considerable variation in the nature and efficacy oftrade union responses to the casualisation ofwork. This heterogeneity highlights the extent to which choices are structurally determined and underscores the tensions that can arise between d(fjèrent union strategies. A meaningful explanation of this diversity must there fore be rooted in the existence of different 'types' of trade unions. Prevailing typologies of trade unionism, however, cannot adequately account for the variety of union responses to 'flexible' employment. By linking the various responses to specific trade union 'identifies ' and by highlighting the limiting factors which serve to constrain choice, the approach adopted here represents an advance over alternative accounts. It allows us to proceed beyond mere taxonomies of trade unionism and to explore their conditions of possibility, reproduction, and propensity for transformation.

6 - Inaugural Address, Eastern Cape Technikon, Butterworth

Blade Nzimande — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

7 - Supra-Ethnic Nationalism The Case of Eritrea

Redie Bereketeab — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

8 - Aili Mari Tripp. Women and Politics in Uganda. Madison. The University of Wisconsin. 2000. Xxvii + 277 pp.

Hannington Ochwada — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

9 - Glenn Adler (ed.). Engaging the State and Business: The Labour Movement and Co-determination in South Africa. Johannesburg Witwatersrand University Press. 2000

Franco Barchiesi — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

10 - J. Crush and D.A. McDonald. (eds). 2002. Transnationalism and New African Immigration to South Africa. Cape Town. Southern African Migration Project and the Canadian Association of African Studies. IV + 188 pp. ISBN 0-88911-926-0.

Vusumzi Duma — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

11 - Brenner, Robert. The Boom and the Bubble: The US in the World Economy. London. Verso. 2002. (xv + 303 pp).

Geoffrey Wood — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

12 - Johann Graaff. What is Sociology? Cape Town. Oxford University Press. 2002.

Monty J. Roodt — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstarct

13 - Book Review: Brenner, Robert.The Boom and the Bubble: The US in the World Economy. London. Verso. 2002. (xv + 303 pages)

Geoffrey Wood — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

JHEA, Volume 6, n° 2, 2002 - Full Issue

Journal System — Tue, 15 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract