Women of Steel : articulations of empowerment and livelihood practices in the Dwars River Valley, Western Cape

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: Women's livelihoods are not only experienced differently, but are articulated in different ways. Thisdissertation begins from the understanding that women's livelihoods are processual, complex andcontextual. They are embedded in multifarious processes, structures, discourses and everyday practices,which are locally defined and globally linked. This thesis interrogates women's articulations ofempowerment and agency that were central to their community and entrepreneurial activities. Women'ssocial actions and responses to constraints and transformation they encountered in the valley were sites ofstruggle.Informed by local women's perspectives and articulations of empowerment, this ethnography focuses onhow women practiced their livelihoods: how they manoeuvred, negotiated and performed their livelihoodtactics in response to local, national and global constraints. The study narrates how women in a rural valleyin the Winelands of the Western Cape (South Africa) spoke of how they felt 'empowered' despiteconstraints. They claimed that they exhibited productive moments and harnessed opportunities to rise aboveconstraints. They felt that in general men in their communities were passive in their response to crisis in thevalley. Women's narratives of empowerment in the Dwars River Valley invoked ideas of 'women of steel'and 'moments' of agency. These helped to re-fashion local gender orders and rehabilitate notions of'appropriate' women's work.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University