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A place-in-between: narratives of gender, violence and identity in a South African township

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A place-in-between: narratives of gender, violence and identity in a South African township

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Content A PLACE-IN-BETWEEN: NARRATIVES OF GENDER, VIOLENCE AND IDENTITY IN A SOUTH AFRICAN TOWNSHIP by Upjeet Chandan A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ANTHROPOLOGY) December 2004 Copyright 2004 Upjeet Chandan Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION For my parents Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have achieved fruition without the participation, support, and guidance of numerous people and institutions. My first thank-you extends to the residents of Chatsworth who shared their lives, stories, and homes with me. To all those who endured my persistent questioning, I am eternally grateful. The warmth, grace, and hospitality of Chatsworth friends that became family sustained me in crucial ways during a time of tremendous change. The Anthropology Department at the University of Natal/Durban was kind enough to provide office space during my first year of residence in South Africa. I benefitted from the intellectual engagement and friendship of various people that I met both through the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville, which have since merged. Special thanks go to Betty Govinden, Ramesh Harcharan, Jim Kieman, Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, Ted Leggett, Monique Marks, Beverly Muller, Devi Rajab, Vasu Reddy, Resthma Sathiaprasad, Anand Singh, and, in different contexts, Ronnie Govender, Thumida Maistry, Kami Naidoo, and Brandon Pillay. Thank you to Robert Luyt of The Local History Museums1 and Alan ‘The images from the Local History Museums Collections are the property of the Local History Museums, Durban, South Africa. Copyright reserved. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Christian of the Survey Department of the eThekwini Municipality for granting permission to use the photographic images included in this dissertation. Without adequate funding, this research would not have been possible. The Fulbright-Hays Advanced Group Study Program for Zulu facilitated my first entry into South Africa. The David L. Boren Fellowship provided resources for language study and pre-dissertation research; Fulbright-Hays supported the main phase of dissertation research; and the University of Southern California’s Haynes Foundation funded my first year of data analysis and writing. While I wrote my dissertation at a distance from my home department in Southern California, the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University graciously provided library privileges and collegial environment to engage on issues relating to Africa. At the University of Southern California, I would like to thank the Anthropology Department and the many scholars at USC who have shaped my intellectual and personal development over the past six years. My dissertation committee has provided critical feedback at important junctures, and it is with their voices in my head that I have written. For your careful, thoughtful readings of my work and confidence in my abilities, warm thanks go to Jerry Bender, Soo-Young Chin, Eugene Cooper, Dorinne Kondo, and Janet Hoskins. As my dissertation chair, Janet Hoskins has illuminated my blind spots each step of the way and, through her incisive commentary, has shaped the contours of my writing. As my outside committee member, Jerry Bender has been a relentless, but not uncritical, iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. advocate. Without Tricia Gilson’s intellectual companionship and friendship, graduate school would certainly have been less enjoyable. I am very grateful to Rita Jones for her perseverance in managing the bureaucracies of the Graduate School on my behalf and to Roylene Sims for assisting with the final formatting of this manuscript. And to my parents and Jay Key, without your unconditional love and support, the journey would not have been complete. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................... iii LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................... viii ABBREVIATIONS.......................................................................................... ix ABSTRACT...................................................................................................... x Chapter I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................... 1 II. DURBAN AND THE INDIAN PROBLEM....................................... 52 III. MODERNIZING RACE AND PLACE: CHATSWORTH AS AN “INDIAN” TOWNSHIP .................................................................... 109 IV. HOUSING, GENDER, AND W ORK................................................. 161 V. GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND FAMILY ......................................... 213 VI. MASCULINITY AND GENDER VIOLENCE ................................. 267 VII. CONCLUSION................................................................................... 339 GLOSSARY .................................................................................................... 351 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................ 354 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES 1. Economically Active South African Indian Women by Industry, 1960-1991—Percentage of Total) .............................................. 202 2. Economically Active South African Indian Women by Industry, 1960-1991—Actual Numbers).................................................... 202 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES 1. South Africa............................................................................................. 1 2. Durban Township of Chatsworth by Unit A reas..................................... 1 3. eThekwini Municipality........................................................................... 59 viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABBREVIATIONS ANC African National Congress CBD Central Business District DA Democratic Alliance DP Democratic Party GEAR Growth, Employment, and Redistribution IFP Inkatha Freedom Party MF Minority Front NIC Natal Indian Congress NIO Natal Indian Organization NP National Party NNP New National Party RDP Reconstruction and Development Program PAC Pan Africanist Congress SAIC South African Indian Council TIC Transvaal Indian Congress UDF United Democratic Front Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Located within the historical framework of apartheid South Africa and the contemporary conundrums of its post-liberation transition, this study analyzes the peculiar predicaments of gendered race, place and identity in post-apartheid South Africa from the perspectives of South African Indians, the smallest of South Africa’s historically racialized groups. Set primarily in Chatsworth, Durban the first large- scale working class township built by the apartheid government in the 1960’s specifically for persons racially defined as “Indian,” this ethnography contextualizes the ruptures and reversals of post-apartheid political-economic transformations within a historical framework of spatialized racial domination and forced culture change. It traces the historically produced, everyday gendered experiences and effects of legalized racial segregation, spatial control, and dislocation at the level of community, family, and gender relationships and formations. Examining stories of violation and violence within their particular apartheid and post-apartheid contexts of spatial, political and cultural change, this study illustrates how racial and masculine domination were interwoven in the making of Chatsworth as a modem township and how its legacies continue to shape the pervasiveness of gender violence in the present day. This ethnography argues that while post-apartheid x Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. narratives of decay and decline and feelings of racial “stuck-in-betweenness” that predominate among Durban Indians speak fundamentally about the uncertain “place” of this racialized community within the new post-apartheid body politic, these narratives must also be contextualized within a longer history of political insecurity, displacement, and exclusion on South African soil. In addition, these narratives of in-betweenness simultaneously reflect gendered cultural tensions between “tradition” and “modernity” and nostalgia for previous hierarchies of identity and certainty within a context of rapid political change, globalization, and economic struggle. While post-apartheid democratic rule has created new opportunities for self-making through the universalist discourse of citizenship, contemporary economic conditions and political re-configurations from White minority rule to Black majority governance have also provoked new dilemmas of place. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This ethnography unfolds in the township of Chatsworth, which is part of the Durban municipality located along the eastern seaboard of South Africa. M ANH StA SOTTit AfBICA J Londcav, Figure 1. South Africa. Figure 2. Durban Township of Chatsworth by Unit Areas. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Durban, South Africa (2001-2002). Driving south into Chatsworth on the N2, at the turnoff to the Higginson Highway, Lotus FM, an SABC radio station catering specifically to South Africans of Indian descent, has prominently placed one of their signature billboard advertisements. The station’s motto “Not Everything’s Black and White” astutely plays on the in-between character of Indianness in South Africa, while simultaneously projecting an image of feminized glamour and sexual mystique. The staged symbolic image depicts “Whites” dressed in white in the background, “Blacks” dressed in black in the mid-ground and all eyes focused forward on a hybridized “Indian” woman in the foreground whose gaze extends 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. outward beyond the billboard to the consumer. Hers is the look of elegant and confident beauty, decidedly feminine, with her body made useful as a space to perform different meanings of Indianness. With arms, shoulders, and midriff bare her body refuses traditional concepts of South African Indian womanhood that enjoin modesty in attire and enclosure from public view. Wearing a multicolored feathered halter top and an embroidered sari-like bottom, her body is made to play with and provoke questions of place, Indianness, tradition, and modernity. Interestingly, the spatial layering of raced color (white background, black mid-ground, and multi foreground) reconfigures common contemporary complaints of caught-in-between- ness echoed by many South Africans of Indian origin. Rather than being “stuck in the middle” all eyes look forward toward a glamorized, gendered Indianness at the forefront. As advertisements are prone to construct ideals, addressing both anxieties about and cultivating desires for belonging and achieved status through the pleasures and promises of consumption, the Lotus FM poster gestures toward the positive resolution of South African Indianness through the embracing of cultural hybridity. Recognizing the body’s powerful symbolism, the billboard attempts to settle questions of identity, both gendered and raced, that in lived reality are more open to contestation and subject to conflict. Its postmodern pastiche presents the possibility of playful invention but effaces relations of power that produce raced, sexed, and gendered bodies in specific places. 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lost Futures It is Sunday afternoon, March 25,2001. I am attending the unveiling of a memorial to honor the thirteen adolescents, who were killed in a stampede during a matinee (afternoon disco) at the Throb nightclub in the township of Chatsworth. One of the few social spaces where township youth can openly express their sexual identities, dancing, drinking, smoking, and drug-taking are part of the sexual courtship and self-expression that unfolds in the popular matinee club scene. Caught between commercial rivalry and jealousy, thirteen children and teenagers, between the ages of eleven and seventeen, lost their lives one Friday afternoon after hired men intentionally detonated a tear gas canister at the nightclub.1 Although their purpose was to frighten the youth away and attract them to a rival nightclub in the township, namely the Silver Slipper, the ends were much more calamitous, provoking both community and national mourning. The anniversary ceremony begins promptly at three o’clock in the afternoon, on a small patch of grass at the busy intersection of Arena Park and Tranquil. Compared with the large numbers that converged at the Chatsworth stadium the previous year, the gathering is small and unassuming, with perhaps 250 people. Present are the diverse constituencies variously invested in the commemoration: families of the deceased children, students in school uniform, members of community organizations, political elites, religious leaders, the press, and the police. Narend ‘See “No Lessons from Throb Tragedy,” Independent on Saturday, 16 December 2000. 4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Singh, Inkatha Freedom Party Provincial Minister and Chairman of the Chatsworth Community Distress Committee, a group specifically formed to assist the families of the deceased and those injured is first to speak. The day’s tone is one of “senseless loss” and stolen futures. Unable to convince a “local” female friend to join me, I attend the ceremony alone and initially feel like an uninvited spectator. With a camera in one hand and notepad in another, I alternately situate myself at the margins of the crowd and try to blend in. Without a companion or children to define me however I am conspicuous in my solitude. Some participants take note of my presence and through wondering looks try to identify and place me. I suspect it is the combination of being alone and yet unmarked with local meanings. It is, however, the thirty-something “Indian” riot squad policeman standing next to me and staring without any attempt at discretion that I find most uneasy. I am not surprised that he begins to interrogate me once the ceremony is over. Slender and masculine with amber eyes, moustache, and a glistening gold tooth he bothers me with questions as if entitled to my response. There is an underlying sexual aggression and I find myself resisting his verbal advances. His colleague, more muscular and imposing in presence, and also eager to deconstruct my identity, chimes in periodically. I retreat physically in response to their sudden presence and attention. We have the following conversation, reconstructed in my field notes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Policeman I: Are you a reporter? UC: No. Policeman I: I saw that you were taking notes (pause). You don’t see a lot of people doing that. UC: Ja. I noticed that it seemed to make some people uncomfortable. {Iam annoyed by his probes). Policeman I: Are you going to write this up somewhere? UC: My work is similar to journalists but more in-depth. I’m doing research. Policeman II (grinning): She’s doing research on tragedies. Policeman I: You know there was a tragedy like this in China. You should try to find the reports on it. UC: Oh, really. Similar to this (pause). Actually I’m doing some research on Chatsworth and this has been a major issue in Chatsworth. Although I maintain physical distance, the exchange softens and Policeman I focuses our discussion on race. What “race” am I, he wonders? I do not sound South African and moreover look “Mexican” to him. I explain that I am from the United States but was bom in India and the conversation, without intentional probing on my part, drifts from crime and policing to the state of the country, affirmative action, and the position of “Indians” in South Africa. Both policemen decry the emergence of “human rights” as limiting police power in post-apartheid South Africa, but assure me that they nonetheless “know what to do with them” when they get their hands on them, namely criminals. There is an implied us-versus-them racial sub-text that I cannot ignore. I ask if they want to tell me this, as it sounds like a clear argument for police brutality. They backtrack momentarily and after asking whether I have a recorder (I do not), Policeman I counters that he stands by their statements. It Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is his word against mine, he states without antagonism, but in a clear assertion of his masculine authority. I do not challenge him further. The conversation continues and both policemen articulate other complaints about the South African Police Service (SAPS), namely affirmative action and being passed aside for promotions because they are “Indian” and not “Black.” Indeed it does not help that the police in South Africa are poorly paid. In explaining the predicament of race, Policeman I invokes a “sandwich” metaphor, Whites on one side, Blacks on the other, with Indians as the “butter-in-between.” But now it is even worse, he contends: Stuck in-between under both systems of government, then it was apartheid, now it is “reverse apartheid.” A socio-spatial metaphor for being stuck and squeezed in the middle, I had heard this complaint before and listen quietly. South , Africa is going downhill, I am told, just like Zimbabwe. I should not plan to be in the country for long. On a day of mourning for futures lost and children killed at the Throb nightclub, a feeling of loss hangs in the air. “Fine, there is democracy; but there’s still apartheid.” In the spring o f2002 (a southern hemisphere), Markinor, a South African affiliate of Gallup International surveyed people to gauge respondents’ expectations, economic and otherwise, of the coming year’s prospects. According to survey results, of South Africa’s four racialized groups, South African Indians were the most Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pessimistic about the near future.2 It seems the survey captured the anxieties and deepening discontent of a racialized, minoritized, and heterogeneous community still uncertain about its place within post-apartheid South Africa. Indeed, it takes little probing to discover that there is a groundswell of disillusion and political apathy among South African Indians in the township of Chatsworth. Racialized critiques of post-apartheid governance are plentiful and for many, changes implemented under the rubric of democracy, de-racialization, and redistribution have been experienced in everyday life as decay, loss, and deterioration. While there is a tendency among the local and national ruling elite and their allies to read such critiques of the current political dispensation as “racist” and an unwillingness to embrace a non-racial South Africa, for many Chatsworth residents the everyday realities of precarious post-apartheid economic conditions, struggling schools, unemployment, crime, and violence shade and nuance any stark characterizations. For it is fair to say that with the transition to democracy in South Africa has arrived neo-liberalism and globalization, the erosion of working class jobs and the informalization of labor, the widespread introduction of user fees in schools,3 2 “SA’s Indians the Most Gloomy,” Mail and Guardian, 8 January 2003. 3 During the apartheid years, government schools in Chatsworth and other “Indian areas” charged only a nominal fee for attendance and school supplies such that primary and secondary education was largely free. In the post-apartheid context, government schools have instituted user fees, usually ranging between two hundred and five hundred rand per year. Many families either cannot afford to pay these fees or choose not to and as a result many schools in the township are struggling economically. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the equalization and reduction of welfare benefits for women and children,4 the growth of urban informal settlements,5 and a rising cost of living.6 In a predominantly 4 Prior to 1994, South Africa’s social security and welfare system was comprised of fourteen separate departments divided along racial and ethnic lines. O f the four categories of state support for South Africans, namely pensions for elderly men and women, disability grants, child and family care, and social relief, the State Maintenance Grant (SMG) was the primary grant for child and family care. It was critical in keeping female headed households who were able to access the grant above the poverty line. A means tested grant, SMGs were awarded to custodial parents, the far majority of whom were single mothers. The grant was divided into a monthly parental allowance of 430 rand and child grant of 135 rand for a maximum of two children until the age of eighteen. Prior to 1992, when the Social Assistance Act was passed, African women were to a great extent excluded from access, as most of the former homelands did not administer the grant. Moreover during the 1970s and 80s, as White applicants means tested out of the grant, there was a sharp increase in grants awarded to Coloured and Indian South Africans (Vorster & Rossouw, 1997, pp. 316-317). In 1996 the Lund Commission of Child and Family Support was appointed to address historic inequalities and the need to equalize benefits within the overarching parameters of the government’s economic policy which emphasized reducing fiscal austerity. The Lund Commission estimated that in the early 1990s, Coloured and Indian applicants received the preponderance of grants with 50 of 1000 Coloured children and 45 of 1000 Indian children receiving the Maintenance Grant. In contrast only 3 of 1000 African children were receiving the benefit. Extending benefits at current levels to all eligible applicants was deemed unsustainable economically. Instead the committee recommended phasing out the State Maintenance Grant and replacing it with a Child Support Benefit that excluded a parental or care-giver allowance. In addition to reducing the amount of state support, the new system would award the child support benefit only until the age of seven. While the Lund Committee recognized the negative impact of their recommendations on recipients of the SMG, they held that the combination of macro-economic imperatives to curb social spending coupled with the need for equity meant that there would be “losers” and “no win-win situation is possible” (Lund Committee, 1996, p. 97). The phasing out of the maintenance grant was completed in April 2002. As the statistics above suggest, it is poor and low-income Coloured and Indian women who were receiving the grant that were the principal “losers.” 5 I address the growth of African informal settlements in Durban in Chapter 2. The emergence of these settlements are part of a broader pattern of urbanization, land hunger, and political violence. 6 During my time in Durban, the South African rand depreciated considerably. It was approximately 7 rand to the dollar when I first arrived in June 2001 and reached a peak of nearly 12.5 rand to the dollar in January of 2002 before slowly rebounding. This affected the cost of basic commodities and transportation. Furthermore, between 1995 and 2000 average African and Indian household income and expenditure declined nationally while average Coloured and White households earned and spent more. In the province of KwaZulu Natal where Durban is located, average household income decreased from 49,000 rand in 1995 (adjusted in 2000 market terms) to 39,000 in 2000. For South African Indian households, the average household income is lower in KwaZulu Natal than any other province. In 2000, average Indian household income was 75,000 in KwaZulu Natal, 108,000 in Gauteng, 105,000 in Mpumalanga, and 107,000 in Western Cape. Given (continued...) 9 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. working and lower middle class township, such changes are not abstract ideas or processes, but have been experienced at the level of the everyday. Importantly, while these economic conditions and changes have been experienced differently by South Africans of Indian descent, depending on the imbrication of race, class, gender and generation, there are also unifying threads and narratives across difference that speak to the uncertainties and material particularities of race and place in the “new” South Africa.7 Indeed, I was often struck by how few positive things Chatsworth residents, across the generations, had to say about post-apartheid South Africa. I don’t think the apartheid period is over. I just guess we have the wrong color of our skin. Before we were too black and now we’re too white. This is “apartheid in reverse” in my opinion.. . . Because of affirmative action. What’s affirmative action? It’s another name for apartheid. Logically speaking, it is IT. Nothing is done on merit. Everything is done on quota system. So to me, I don’t feel this country is doing any good. . . . Given me the opportunity, I would like to get out of this country. I think this country has no future. What do we have? Nothing. Like I said, we have the wrong color skin. It’s a sore issue. We’ve been trapped. We trapped. I feel trapped. Look at the education system. It’s gone to the dogs. There’s no standards. Compared to the days when we had it to what it is (...continued) that 59% of South African Indian households earn an annual income of less than 46,221, it suggests that sharp income inequality is pulling the average Indian annual household income upwards. (See Stats South Africa, 2002.) In Chatsworth, according to Census 2001, 50% of households earned less than 38,400 rand yearly. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine household income based on census data, as it presented in range rather than absolute values. 7 The following quotes derive from residents o f Chatsworth, reflecting responses to my questions about post-apartheid changes and hopes for the future. 10 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at present Fine there is democracy but there’s still apartheid. Naseeba (35), nurse, January 2002 It’s good in a way when you see apartheid change. When we go to the beach, Whites only, you know what I mean? You’ll see on the toilets White only, or you’ll see on the buses Whites only, and we couldn’t use it. In that sense, it’s ok. But now with the changes, the Africans got more rights than, but they supposed to be equal. Ok on the TV how many Africans to, there’s about ten Africans to one Indian, and there’s more programs about Africans than Indians. We don’t have a say, but we all pay equal TV. We supposed to be equal and then I think this Black government, I’m sorry to say, I don’t like it. I think when the Whites ruled it was better. As much as there was apartheid, but we didn’t go in to so much of violence. We didn’t have rape like this. We didn’t have shooting like this. The Blacks stayed in their community and we stayed. OK we didn’t mix but I think it was better. But now the Blacks are coming and what are they taking vengeance. And what are they shooting and stealing like mad and everyone having their own ways. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. Sharon (40), housewife and mother, December 2001 In another ten years let’s hope we don’t go further down. Because all the ANC people in the offices are pocketing everything. And these people who are fighting, the DP, Majority Front {sic},they are doing not everything. They’re not really going out to fight. You find the DP coming here only election time. Other than that, you don’t ever find them here. They’re more or less looking for the rich who can finance them. They don’t care about the poor. There’s so much of poor people walking around.. . . They can do so much more. Like OK the Hare Krishna do so much. They can do the feeding part. Why don’t you do the rest of it? Get homes for them. Find jobs for the people. So the ANC is not doing enough. Though the White man did that [apartheid], but the White man still kept the country going. It wasn’t in this state. We never had people in the street.. . . Our West 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Street you could walk in West Street.8 It was such a beautiful place but now it’s no more. The shops are all coming out because it’s so dangerous. So now the government is not doing—our crime rate is one of the worst things. It’s not only the Blacks, it’s also the Indians. The Indians are terrible. Anita (54), clothing machinist, January 2002 It’s really deteriorating {South Africa}. Drugs, violence, now unemployment. It’s really deteriorating. At one stage, you know you went to school, you got an education, it wasn’t that expensive too and when you finished matric, you’re going to get a job. Almost guaranteed. You just have to finish matric. . . . And now you pass matric and you go to study. And you study for so many years and you still don’t get a job Now ever since a Black guy started running the country, became president everything has—now he made publicity to better the country but nothing’s better in fact. Everything’s gone worse. So from my point of view I would rather a White man run the country. Not even an Indian because he can be trampled over. We {Indians} don’t fall anywhere now. When it was a White man’s country, we weren’t White enough and now it’s a Black man’s country, we not Black enough. So I think it’s very unfair. Sarah (20), unemployed youth, December 2001 You know I love America I’d like to go there.. . . I guess for the opportunity. There’s no opportunity here. There’s no opportunity. With regards to race. When we had a White president it was cool in sort of a way. There were bad things happening, like with racism and all that. But now we have a Black president. It’s only for the Blacks now. It shouldn’t be that way. Kelvin (24), unemployed youth, February 2002 It is important to note that although there are and were many ANC South Africans of Indian descent in prominent positions in the post-apartheid government, especially at 8 West Street is one of the main streets of the old “Indian quarter” in Durban’s Central Business District (CBD). 12 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a national level as ministers and members of Parliament9 and to a lesser extent, locally in city and provincial governance, the government is broadly raced in the above comments as “Black.” However, it also deserves mention that while national and city government is ANC-led, provincially the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has until recently been the dominant party. Contests for power between the ANC and the IFP are part of the regional political climate, with potential eruptions and a recent history of political violence, ever-lingering in the background. Provincially and especially within the Durban municipality, South African Indians have voted for neither the ANC nor the IFP in large numbers. Locally, for the ANC, the “Indian vote” has been an important swing vote that it has been unable to attract. It is my contention that the feelings that emerge in these accounts of being trapped, dominated, sidelined, trampled, and discriminated against cannot glibly be categorized as “racist,” although no doubt a constitutive self-other racialism courses through them. Indeed, it would be unrealistic to expect, in a society as divided as South Africa, that problematic racialism(s) would not exist. However what I aim to emphasize is that as socio-spatial metaphors these comments speak to the everyday 9 To name but a few: Kader Asmal, Ela Gandhi, Frene Ginwala, Pravin Gordhan, Pregs Govender, Mac Maharaj, Valli Moosa, Jay Naidoo, Aziz Pahad, and Essop Pahad. Some might argue that in the post-apartheid ANC government South African Indians have considerable political power, given that four cabinet posts are presently occupied by ANC leaders of Indian origin. Creating a rainbow nation at the level o f elite political power and appointments however should not be confused for reflecting “Indian interests,” if there is such a thing. National ANC leaders of Indian descent were either struggle activists or key players in the ANC exile bureacracy. These leaders identify strongly with a nonracial South Africa, first and foremost being South Africans, such that their Indianness rarely surfaces as an identity marker, except when noted by outside observers. In addition, based in Pretoria and Cape Town these leaders live and work at a distance from the everyday struggles of South African Indian township life in Natal. 13 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. experiences and realities of feeling overrun and dominated, of living in places where schools are struggling with the introduction of user fees and the de-racialization of education, where the combination of unemployment and affirmative action within the context of globalization has been especially hard on the working class, particularly women and youth, and where crime, especially for residents living without the privilege of private security and expensive alarm systems is a reality.1 0 Moreover these fears and concerns about being trapped and excluded are not new sentiments, but echo apartheid experiences and histories of racial domination in Durban. The second point I want to underscore is that while Naseeba’s argument that “there is democracy but there’s still apartheid” is tied to affirmative action and feelings of being sidelined economically, it also speaks to political marginality and displacement on a symbolic level. Her comments implicitly critique the South African nation-building process, the discourse of non-racialism, and ANC’s 1994 election slogan of “a better life for all.” The truth in Chatsworth is that for many residents everyday life has not improved. It has worsened. When Sarah comments, “We don’t fall anywhere now. When it was a White man’s country, we weren’t White enough and now it’s a Black man’s country, we’re not Black enough.” And Kelvin laments, '"Before I was mugged at knife point in broad daylight, chased, and pushed by a young man with glazed and reddened eyes, I tended to read popular and public discourses about crime in South Africa as a form of sensationalized hysteria. Being victimized, however, altered my perception and analysis. While this incident unfolded in Manor Gardens near the University of Natal bordering the settlement of Cato Manor, stories of violent crime such as hijacking, murder, and armed robbery emerged with regularity in conversations with residents of Chatsworth. We should not underestimate the effects of crime and violence in shaping subjectivities and feelings of frustration over governance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “But now we have a Black president. It’s only for the Blacks now. It shouldn’t be that way,” the unarticulated question is one of citizenship and place, with all its material, symbolic, and political connotations. Is there a place for South Africans of Indian descent in the purportedly new non-racial South Africa? And in fact the broader question is this: Is there a place for the poor and working class in a globalizing South Africa? For although inter-racial inequality in South Africa declined in the 1990s, intra-racial inequality has risen and without re-distributive measures such as large-scale employment generation and welfare reform targeting the poor and unemployed, such trends are likely to continue (Seekings & Nattrass, 2002). Chatteijee’s (1993) analysis of Indian colonial and post-colonial nationalist histories furthermore suggests that the universalizing claims of modem nation-building, however emancipatory in discourse, often entails the suppression of the nation’s fragments, suppressed elements—women, minorities, peasants, outcasts—that challenge and complicate the “hegemonic project of nationalist modernity” (p. 13). In a sense, the discourse of modem nation building in a context of inequality and stratification is inherently exclusive. The nation cannot in practice speak for and to all. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ One of the goals of this ethnography is to examine and challenge a popular contemporary construction of South Africans of Indian origin as a privileged 15 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. racialized minority by presenting more complex and gendered historically-situated tellings and readings. A popular misconception in South Africa is that citizens of Indian origin comprise an affluent merchant class who benefitted from apartheid. While there is partial truth to this stereotype,1 1 in actuality the majority of South African Indians are working and lower middle class men, women, and youth, wage- dependent in an increasingly insecure labor environment as the informalization of labor, high unemployment rates, and post-apartheid globalization are eroding worker protections and rights. Despite these material realities, in the post-apartheid context of Durban, South Africa where the discourse of “oppressors,” “comrades” and “collaborators” still circulate as unexamined constructs for identifying political allies 1 1 In order to evaluate the truth claim of this construction, one would have to carefully examine the political and economic interrelationships during the apartheid years between the South African Indian merchant class and South African Indian Council (SAIC) and its successor the House of Delegates of the Tri-cameral Parliament. Desai (1986) notes that the majority of SAIC members were of the commercial class, and these “leaders”expended much energy protecting the interests of Indian traders, particularly those displaced by apartheid legislation. Regardless, to associate the entire South African Indian population with the government sanctioned leadership of a select class of the population is intrinsically flawed. Neither political body, institutionally legitimated by the apartheid regime, had popular support among South African Indians (I address related political questions more fully in Chapter 3). It is also difficult to determine the actual size of this merchant class from existing data sets, since census figures identify workers by industry divisions (i.e., commerce or wholesale/retail trade) rather than class of worker. So, for example, although 1980 census statistics, identify 30% of gainfully employed South African Indian workers as being engaged in commerce, such broad characterizations elide important class and gender relationships such as whether workers are self-employed entrepreneurs, unpaid family labor, or unrelated sales workers (cf. statistics in Arkin, Magyar, & Pillay, 1989, p. 60). It is also impossible to differentiate by scale, for clearly there are vast differences between survivalist hawking and established big businesses. According to Census 2001,21% of economically active Indian/Asian males and females in Durban were employed in wholesale and retail trade as compared with 14.7% of Black/African, 22% of Coloured, and 16.4% of White Durbanites. Unfortunately these numbers tell us little about the relationship between labor and capital. 16 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and foes, South African Indian communities as a whole have not fared well in the cultural politics of representation. Numerically the smallest of South Africa’s racialized groups, South African Indians approximate 1.1 million, less than 3% of the country’s total population. Part of a global wave of gendered indentured emigration that shuttled people of Indian origin overseas to the plantations of colonized places as divergent as Mauritius, Guiana, Trinidad, Surinam, Malaysia, Jamaica, and Fiji, the majority of South African Indians today, descend from indentured labor brought to the British colony of Natal between 1860 and 1911. A smaller segment traces its history to an immigrant trading class that paid its own passage to colonial Natal. Known as “passenger Indians” these emigrants originated predominantly from the region of Gujarat in colonial India but also via the island of Mauritius, following their indentured counterparts and seeking new markets to advance their economic interests. Of the 149,791 Indians enumerated in South Africa’s 1911 census, an estimated 30,000 or 20% were thought to be of passenger origin (Bhana & Brain, 1990, pp. 34-36). Although both migration streams were a product of British colonialism and imperial expansion, the social, political, and class positions that each stream represented were markedly different. From the early days of Indian migration to South Africa, indentured and passenger, the population was stratified by labor and class. While the majority of South African Indians today descend from the 152,184 indentured laborers brought to Natal between 1860 and 1911 to work the sugar cane 17 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. plantations, coal mines, railways, and to a lesser extent as domestic servants (Bhana & Brain, 1990, p. 15), it is the minority history and presence of traders or “passenger” Indians who arrived a decade later that has endured in shaping the prototypical representation of “Indians” in South Africa. Indeed, the figure of the merchant as a symbol of threatening alterity has proved to be powerful in mobilizing and inflaming public sentiment at different points in South African history, dating as early as 1885 when one of the first anti-Indian laws was passed restricting trading and occupation rights in the then Boer Republic of the Transvaal.1 2 Most recently, the specter of the Indian merchant emerged again in Mbongeni Ngema’s controversial song, “AmaNdiya,” which blames Indians for the poverty of Africans in Durban.1 3 The prevailing association of South African Indianness with an affluence and privilege, I wish to suggest, has important political effects. First, it re-inscribes South African Indians as somehow alien or outside of the national body politic, as a parasitic class interested only in accruing wealth and capital at the expense of the masses. Second, similar to the “model minority myth” in the United States it flattens difference., simultaneously eliding intra-racial variation (i.e., class, gender, and ethnicity), foregrounding wealth, and downplays the realities of racial discrimination (cf. Kim, 1 2 It would be discrimination faced by traders that initially brought Mahatma Gandhi to South Africa as their legal counsel. Although Gandhi is usually remembered as having fought for the rights of the indentured and ex-indentured through his satyagraha campaigns, the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), which he represented was dominated by merchant interests until the 1940s when a new vanguard of NIC activists emerged. 1 3 I discuss this song and controversy in Chapter 2. 18 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2001, p. 54).1 4 Finally, within the post-apartheid context, the association of Indianness with privilege has the effect of silencing dissent and de-legitimating criticism of the current political dispensation. Like Asian-Americans and Latinos in the United States who have historically been marginalized through invocations of immigrant-othemess and discourses of inassimilability (cf. Takaki, 1989; Okihiro, 1994; Rosaldo, 1997; Chang, 2001), as a racialized community South African Indians continue to occupy an tenuous place within the South African body politic. This is not to dispute that all South Africans now enjoy formal citizenship and equality before the law, but that the historical racialization of South African Indians as foreign and alien continues to haunt the political imaginary of the post-apartheid state, provoking questions of belonging and political entitlement. Furthermore formal equality should not be confused for substantive equality. While as a political abstraction, citizenship may be deemed universal such that individuals regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, religion and national origin have equal rights and responsibilities vis-a-vis the state, citizenship is also a cultural construct whereby citizens or subjects variously marked as outside or threatening to the racial, cultural, and gendered parameters of the nation-state are at a disadvantage in achieving full citizenship (Williams, 1989,1996; Lowe, 1996; Mohanty, 1991; Munasinghe, 2001). In the post-apartheid context, constructs of ,4 According to Okihiro (1994), the concepts of “yellow peril” and “model minority” are intrinsically both anti-Asian as well as part of the same continuum. Success can be both admired and deemed dangerous or threatening. The model minority can become the yellow peril (pp. 141- 142). 19 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. citizenship are further complicated by discourses of racial and moral worthiness, whereby degrees of “undeserving or deserving citizenship,” to borrow Ong’s (2003) elaboration (p. 11), are implicitly assigned racialized groups and individuals based on their resistance to and complicity with the apartheid regime. If within the racial bipolarism of South Africa, despite the narrative of the “rainbow nation,” privilege is associated with Whiteness and Indians are associated with privilege, then criticism of post-apartheid South Africa, by the logic of association, becomes a defense of past privilege. Durban journalist Eric Ndiyane’s call on South African national radio for the Indian community to apologize for its role in apartheid illustrates this merging of race and privilege.1 5 Moreover, the particularities of Durban as a place are significant in this regard. It is important to know that due to racially inflected immigration restrictions on inter-provincial mobility tracing back to the early decades of the 20th century, South African Indians, particularly those of indentured backgrounds, are overwhelmingly concentrated in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.1 6 More than 1 5 See “Outrage at Call for Apartheid Apology,” Sunday Tribune and Herald, 3 February 2002. Among other things, Eric Ndiyane said, I just think South Africa as a country needs to address this Indian question, all right. It’s important. It is the only community that I know of that has never stood up as one voice and said you know what we have actually exploited a lot of Africans, Black South Africans. And we’d like to say sorry and move forward.. . . Afrikaans-speaking people have gone forward. They have spoken. (SAFM, Tim Modise Show , January 2004.) 1 6 According to Census 2001, the provincial distribution of South African Indians is as follows: Eastern Cape (18,367), Free State (3,699), Gauteng (218,009), KwaZulu Natal (798,278), Limpopo (8,589), Mpumalanga (11,239), Northern Cape (2,315), Northwest (9904), and Western Cape (45,209). 20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 600,000 people of Indian descent live within the municipal boundaries of Durban, with the majority of Durban Indians living in the large apartheid-era townships of Chatsworth and Phoenix.1 7 The visibility, influence, and concentration of South Africans of Indian origin in Durban cannot be compared with any other part of the country. Importantly, this forced historical concentration and population visibility has simultaneously produced a peculiar vulnerability. To complicate the construct of unequivocal masculinized racial privilege that is associated with Indianness in Durban, I have written a feminist historical ethnography of race, place, and identity rooted within the framework of apartheid South Africa and the contemporary conundrums of its post-liberation blues. As a point of contrast to the trope of the exploitative Indian merchant and the dominant narrative of illegitimate privilege, I have crafted a more complex gendered narrative of “in-betweenness,” one that engages the historical experience of violence, displacement, and loss that accompanied apartheid domination and the rapid cultural and economic changes that were set into motion by apartheid planning, township housing, and policies of separate development. Situating my analysis in place, namely the township of Chatsworth, I trace the historically produced, everyday gendered experiences and effects of legalized racial segregation, spatial control, and dislocation 1 7 Phoenix and Chatsworth are the largest working class Indian townships in Durban defined by mass-produced, council built housing on a large scale. Phoenix is approximately fifteen years younger than Chatsworth and located north of Durban’s CBD, adjacent to Inanda. 21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at the level of community, family, and gender relationships and formations. In this way, the story of Chatsworth is a distinctly South African story. Families and communities long settled in particular places were forcibly removed to Chatsworth and as a result apartheid spatial policies tore apart established communities and place-based identities, reconfiguring place, family life and gender relationships in indelible ways through the modernizing discourses of township housing. Examining stories of violation and violence within their particular apartheid and post-apartheid contexts of spatial, political and cultural change at the level of the every day, I illustrate how racial and masculine domination were interwoven in the making of Chatsworth as a modem township and that its legacies continue to shape the pervasiveness of gender violence in the township. I argue that while post apartheid narratives of decay and decline and feelings of “stuck-in-betweenness” that predominate among Durban Indians speak fundamentally about the uncertain “place” of this racialized community within the new post-apartheid body politic, these narratives must also be contextualized within a longer history of political insecurity, displacement, and exclusion on South African soil. I argue that the fears and anxieties these narratives of in-betweenness speak in part to ongoing gendered cultural tensions between “tradition” and “modernity” and nostalgia for previous hierarchies of identity and certainty within a context of rapid political change, globalization, and economic struggle. In the post-apartheid context, these changes partially experienced through 22 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the lens of tradition and modernity have left many Chatsworth residents feeling caught between worlds, places, and identities. A Place-in-Between When President Thabo Mbeki speaks about the contradictions of South Africa and the polarities of Black and White, he often maps the inequalities of race through the discourse of First World and Third World. Yet there is also a “Second World” in South Africa and that is a world that contains aspects of both First and Third in dynamic tension. Originally designed to house South Africans of Indian origin in apartheid’s remaking, racial purification, and industrial development of Durban and meant to be an Indian “homeland” of sorts, Chatsworth as a formerly “Indian,” increasingly “African”1 8 township is neither First World nor Third World. It is a place-in-between. A hybridized space of formal and informal with mostly paved roads and the benefits of running water, modem sanitation, and electricity, it is also bursting at the seams, poorly maintained, at the fringes of comfort or survival, depending upon where you sit and sleep and stand. It is a place caught in between the rhetoric of privilege and dispossession. Built by the apartheid government between 1960 and 1975 and a product of the Group Areas Act (1950), the cornerstone apartheid legislation that made I S With the dismantling of legislation that enforced residential segregation, African informal settlements in Chatsworth have been growing since the early 1990’s. Formal housing in Chatsworth however is still predominantly “Indian” owned and occupied. According to Census 2001, the official population of Chatsworth is 192,168 classified as follows: 27,100 (Black African), 1505 (Coloured), 163,459 (Indian/Asian), and 104 (White). 23 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. residential segregation compulsory in South Africa, Chatsworth was the first large- scale working class township in Durban, specifically constructed for persons racially defined as “Indian.” As an act of racial domination, it is within the context of forced removal, the displacement of settled communities and modernist discourses of township development that Chatsworth as an “Indian township” was designed and constructed. Located approximately ten to twelve miles south of the Durban CBD, Chatsworth today, as a predominantly South African Indian township is multi-class, increasingly African, overcrowded, and densely populated. If estimates given by community-based organizations are to be believed, Chatsworth is likely home to more than 300,000 people, far greater than its initial design capacity of 160,000, and like other “Indian” townships in Durban is strategically “placed” and nestled between formerly White and still Black residential areas. A buffer zone between the densely populated African townships of Umlazi and Lamontville to the South and the spacious previously White and landscaped suburbs of Yellowwood Park, Woodlands, Malvern, and Escombe to the North, the racial hierarchy of apartheid was also spatialized in Durban.1 9 This spatial positioning and dual worlding is not insignificant. The sense of neither and both that Chatsworth emblematizes mirrors the middle positions of South '"Writing about the implementation of the Group Areas Act in Durban, Davies (1991) describes this process as such: “Asymmetrical relations in the social formation were deliberately reflected in the core-peripheral relations of the design. In the spatial sequence of group areas marginalized Indians and Coloureds effectively buffered dominant Whites from subordinated Africans” (p. 80). 24 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. African Indians during apartheid rule as well as contemporary feelings of “stuck-in- betweenness” that are being forcefully articulated in the post-apartheid context. Although the articulation itself is contemporary, the complexity of this sentiment and positioning, I illustrate, is intrinsically historical. For during the mid and late apartheid years, South African subjects of Indian origin occupied structural positions of ambiguity, contradiction, and duality, their lives and histories reflecting a complexity of oppression and privilege. Neither “Black” nor “White,” both South African “Indians” and “Coloureds”2 0 as legally racialized groups were simultaneously oppressed by and privileged within the racial hierarchy of apartheid. Both “Coloureds” and “Indians” functioned as intermediate racialized groups, middle groups ranked and placed above “Africans” but below “Whites” in terms of access to social and economic resources, and to lesser extent political rights (Meer, 1969; Moodley, 1980; Dhalla, 1993; Freund, 1995; Ebr.-Vally, 2001). Dominated politically, economically, socially, and culturally by a White minority and treated as second-class citizens, both intermediate groups were also given preferential access to resources, particularly jobs and education.2 1 2 0 The racial classification of “Coloured” refers to people of “mixed race.” 2 1 In her critical analysis of the call within race theorizing to extend beyond the Black and White binary, Kim (2001) argues that the two dominant approaches scholars have taken, namely the “different trajectories approach” and the “racial hierarchy approach” have serious shortcomings. The different trajectories model, she holds, assumes racialization processes are autonomous rather than mutually constitutive whereas the racial hierarchy approach assumes a single scale of status and privilege. She argues that in the United States, Whites have ordered racial groups according to at least two interrelated axes o f superior/inferior and insider/foreigner. She advocates understanding race as a “field of racial positions”and describes Asian-Americans as “racially triangulated” vis-a-vis White and Black Americans (pp. 39-51). While both axes are germane to the South African context, (continued...) 25 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Moreover, it was during the apartheid years, in 1961 to be exact, that South African Indians were finally recognized as a permanent population in South Africa as opposed to being defined as a problem, unwanted, alien, and needing to be repatriated to the “homeland.” With apartheid racial domination then also came limited security of place. Significantly, this political reconfiguration of the place of “Indians” in South Africa coincided with spatial technologies of apartheid, namely the implementation of the Group Areas Act, the mass construction of township housing, and policies of separate development whereby the racial regulation of space as a way of marking and creating difference was critical to the regulation of a racial hierarchy and for promoting in-group awareness. Indeed the translation of the Afrikaans word “apartheid” as separateness or apartness speaks to the concept of creating spatial distance and as a result social distinctions based on race. Importantly, with greater state intervention for the creation and policing of race through the policy of separate development, also came the creation of administrative apparatuses and their appendages (hospitals, police stations, courts, schools, housing, advisory councils) as well as township housing, institutions and structures that formalized and mobilized particular concepts of family, gender, and sexuality and the proper places for men and women within given racialized localities. 2 1 (... continued) understanding racial formations through the lens of “native” and “alien” has been overpowered by an emphasis on racial hierarchy (superior/inferior) and access to resources. One ready example of how racial bi-polarism tends to be die dominant framework within South African race thinking is through an overemphasis on economic indicators as a measure of privilege and oppression, mapped along a White-Black continuum. 26 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although apartheid itself was hated and fought against by many South African Indian ANC activists, apartheid also, under conditions of racial domination, for the first time offered South African Indians a sense of political security and clearly defined place within South Africa, however fragmented and distorted by racialized constructions that conflated race, space, nation, and culture. As a modem form of domination, apartheid constructed a problematic certainty through a particular politics of racialized and gendered place and space. In the post-apartheid context, this raced and gendered layering and sense of place has been disrupted by the transition from political repression and legalized inequalities to democratic governance, political equality, and racialized efforts at redress (i.e., affirmative action and black economic empowerment) within a context of economic globalization and increasing income inequality. While democracy has created new opportunities for self-making through the universalist discourse of citizenship and rights, contemporary post-apartheid economic conditions and political re-configurations from White minority rule to Black majority governance have also provoked new dilemmas of place. For many, the insecurities and uncertainties of the new post-apartheid state and its neo-liberal economics have provoked both old and new questions of identity and belonging. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ In focusing on South African Indians, I do not mean to suggest that Indianness as a racial formation is homogenous or constitutes any kind of cultural or 27 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. political unity. Let me underscore emphatically that the so-called “Indian community” is heterogeneous, fragmented, differentiated, and stratified with the principal divisions falling along the fault lines of linguistic identification (Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu), class, and religion (Christian, Hindu, Muslim).2 2 As an ethnographer, to the extent that South African Indians tried to mark me racially, I was never confused for being of South Indian Tamil or Telegu descent, although I was at different times asked if I was “Moslem” “Hindustani” or “Gujarati.” This reflected both an interpretation of my physicality as North Indian (my skin color was often commented upon) as well as class privilege, as those of North Indian descent are often associated with a professional and merchant class. Although historically there has been cross fertilization across linguistically based and religious divisions through marriage, work, friendships, shared neighborhoods and schools, community and political organizations, and employment, these differences are nonetheless spoken of and registered in social interactions. Perhaps the most unifying element across these differences is spoken language with the majority of South African Indians speaking English as their home language. To the extent that “Indian” is and has been a salient political identity in South Africa, it has been shaped powerfully by the racialized articulations and policies of the State. This point is illustrated in Chapter 2. “ One of the most visible emergent identities in the post-apartheid context that challenges the racial construct of “Indian” relates to the Islamicization of Indian Muslims. In a rich and provocative essay, Vahed (2000) describes the post-apartheid intensification of Islamic religious identities as responding both to political changes as well as the perceived impositions of global material culture (such as television and “Western” dress). 28 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However I also want to emphasize that “Indian” in South Africa, although simultaneously a transnational and cultural referent, is a distinctly racial categorization historically buttressed by colonial, legal, and state definitions, produced through shifting state discourses, enactments of power and contestations of that power. I am working with a concept of “race” as a shifting social construction that reflects the intersection of complex and historically contingent political, cultural, economic, and intellectual currents, processes, contestations, and relations.2 3 Over time, these processes would prove to have far reaching, although not determinative effects in the making of “Indian” as both an imposed and indigenized identity in South Africa. It follows that the construction of “Indian community” that is bandied about in public discourse is both fact and fiction as well as inherently contested, negotiated and unstable. While on the one hand “imagined” through various media technologies such as the print press, radio, television shows, Internet and Bollywood fdms (cf. Anderson, 1983), Indianness on the other hand has also been cultivated through the racializing practices of the state, such as residential and institutional segregation, the particularities of political exclusion and incorporation, immigration and trading restrictions, labor legislation as well as political action contesting these racialized meanings. Significantly during the apartheid period, these processes and practices coalesced in the making of racially defined places and persons. 2 3 As articulated by Qmi and Winant (1986), “race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies”(p. 55). 29 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Localizing Moves During my two-year in-country immersion in South African and Durban history and politics between June 2000 and May 2002,1 primarily and alternately lived near the University of Natal in the formerly White areas of Manor Gardens and Glenwood and in the township of Chatsworth located approximately twelve miles to the south. For the first eight weeks, however, I studied Zulu as part of an eight-week intensive language program funded by Fulbright-Hays. Along with a dozen other students from a variety of universities in the United States, I was based at a dormitory at the University of Natal/Pietermaritzburg interspersed with two short home stays with Zulu-speaking families, one in the township of Mbali, and the second in the rural area of Dududu. During this two-year period, I also returned to New York and Los Angeles on two separate occasions and in the second instance, I moved cross-country with my partner from L.A. back to New York, the city where I was schooled and raised. Less than a month after my return to South Africa, the World Trade Center towers came crumbling down, provoking an intense urge to return home as the city sifted through boulders of rubble and collectively mourned. It is fair to say that my sense of space, place, and identity during this two-year span was profoundly unearthed and marked by a pattern of change and disruption. Indeed my sense of “home” and the distinction between “here” and “there” were hardly fixed, but rather in a continual state of flux. In fact, if home is in part a network of familial relationships, it is in South Africa that I found a sense of political 30 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. kinship among diverse, committed activists and scholars broadly concerned with questions of justice and inequality. My fieldwork experience has thus been shaped by a continuing process of “shifting locations” both in terms of actual physical movement as well as political commitments and alliances (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997). It has been molded by both a process of moving between places and being in place. Importantly, the borders and meanings of my own insider/outsidemess kept changing depending upon context and relationship, similar to my lived experience in the United States as a person of color, Asian-American, feminist, New Yorker, and immigrant-citizen. To the extent that I am multiply constituted and identified (race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, generation, marital status, national origin, citizenship, and professional affiliation) and to the extent that I have chosen to research a topic defined by diversity, complexity, and ambiguity, the duality and tensions of insider-outsider were regularly being probed and negotiated. My childhood experiences of regular movement across the borders of nation states, namely the U.S., England, and India to maintain family relationships dispersed across continents and mirroring the diasporic trajectory of my father’s own path of forced and voluntary displacements have in numerous ways prepared me for disjunctions of fieldwork and the themes that I have explored. My paternal family history of loss and displacement as a result of Partition and having to flee present-day Pakistan as India ushered in its independence from British colonial rule, served as a living reminder that with nation-building, even in the context of liberation, often 31 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. comes violence and revived justifications for practices and policies of inclusion and exclusion. During my residence in Chatsworth, I rented a “bachelor flat” at the Aryan Benevolent Home, commonly called the ABH, a venerated community site and institutional home for those in need of full time care, primarily the elderly, the disabled, and fostered or abandoned children. I did not easily fall into any of the above categories but the ABH was kind enough to accept me nonetheless. I lived above a creche in one of four flats off a long walkway and had two wonderful neighbors, Sandy, a young, committed administrator for the children’s home and Ms. Pillay, a teacher in her elder years who in her retirement worked at the creche below. We were three women, each of us living alone, but side by side in a township otherwise defined by marriage and family life. Although as a person sensitive to light and color, I felt aesthetically challenged by the housing quality (dingy and soiled carpets, baby blue peeling paint and a leaking toilet), the ABH gave me a secure and relatively comfortable place to live where there was always a guard at the gate and I did not have to worry about potential hijackers greeting me as I entered and departed the compound. Although a highly controlled environment, living at the ABH allowed me the independence I needed to both keep my sanity and move around freely in the township without excessive community monitoring or too frequent requests to facilitate the transportation needs of friends, acquaintances, and strangers (although I did my fair share). 32 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In terms of access and exposure to city life, life in the suburbs clustered around the University and Chatsworth is worlds apart. Although Chatsworth is but a twenty-minute car ride from the University of Natal, it became an hour and half headache when my lemon-of-a-car coughed and sputtered, forcing my reliance on taxis and public transportation. While I enjoyed the warm hospitality and intensity of family and religious life in the township and despite the visible effects and embodiment of globalization all around me, I also felt marooned in a far away place at times. This reflects both my own preference for the diversity and pulse of city life and the lived realities of apartheid planning. While in South Africa, I was often asked why I decided to conduct research in the new democracy, what with all its challenges and dangers. Indeed, with many South Africans trying to migrate to England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, what was my incentive to defy the dominant logic of the migration stream? In essence, if we’re trying to go there, why are you coming here? One of the most common questions I was asked by South African Indians was “Is it better over there?” with “for Indians” as either an explicit or implicit addition. Although mostly a privilege of the middle and professional class who can muster the resources for visa applications, airline tickets, and the expenses of settling in a new country, migration as a strategy of security for future generations and better economic opportunities was articulated by many, both young and old, as desirable. 33 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. My Americanness was alternately an asset and a liability. Youth were the most starry-eyed about the promises and possibilities of America. With globalization has come the intensified, glamorizing force of American popular culture, and similar to youth around the globe, the mimicry of popular icons has broad appeal. I was at times bombarded with questions about movie stars and performing artists, usually whether I knew or had seen any. Feeling my age, I often explained with regret that although I had lived in both Los Angeles and New York, I led a quiet life with little access to the glitterati. In terms of skepticism relating to my assumed political loyalties as an American citizen, the greatest resistance I encountered was from Chatsworth Muslims in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 as well as struggle activists from Chatsworth, some of whom either directly or obliquely questioned my intentions and privilege as a researcher. While I partially accepted the legitimacy of the critique, that I could honestly position myself as critical of the foreign policy initiatives of the Bush Administration, may have softened some of the more strident ideologues that I encountered. My religious identity was another notable marker of inside/outside and most significant to Chatsworth Christians and Muslims. Although the majority of people, I encountered knew little about the religious tradition I was raised in, namely Sikhism, the emphasis was less on my religious affiliation in these instances, and rather that I was an outsider to a given religious community. The strength of these lines of 34 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. difference depended upon the context, shaping interactions and conversations, but not necessarily foreclosing access and communication. In terms of gathering qualitative data, I worked with a snowball sample and conducted in-depth interviews and life history research principally with women and youth in conjunction with participant observations of family life, community events, festivals, religious gatherings, political meetings, market activity, invited school visits, and other place-based happenings.2 4 I also spoke with and learned from a variety of community leaders, workers, and organizations (i.e., Chatsworth Child and Family Welfare, Durban Association for the Aged, Chatsworth Community Care Center, Chatsworth Alive, Bayview Resident’s Association, Westcliff Resident’s Association, New Bethesda Rehabilitation Center, Children’s Rights Ministry, and the Welbedacht Compassionate Care Center) and regularly spent time at the Chatsworth police station and the Chatsworth Court in my effort to unravel the pervasiveness of gender violence in the township.2 5 In a context of limited resources and funding constraints for community-based organizations where power struggles and fierce competition within and between community groups are par for the course regardless of public pronouncements of collaboration, I intentionally avoided associating myself too 2 4 Names and other identifying details of research participants have been altered or scrambled to protect identity. 2 5 Brandon Pillay, a youth community activist and President of the Bayview Resident’s Association, was a helpful guide who introduced me to various local issues, people, and leaders. Intermittently, he also assisted with gathering information and was always willing to share his analysis. 35 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. closely with any single organization. I generally accepted invitations to public, religious, and family events when offered and became involved in community life to the extent that I was recognized around the township by the time I departed. It was difficult not to encounter friends and acquaintances in everyday life and my initial anonymity was supplanted by a discernible presence. My formal recorded interviews with research participants, some of whom became friends, are but a small measure of the countless everyday and casual conversations that over time drift from inscription in field notes, but were nonetheless critical and formative in shaping my analysis and understanding. Theoretical Location Writing culture or ethnography involves deploying distinct narrative strategies, rhetorical devices and representational practices, and invariably is implicated in shifting relations of power between observer and observed (Kondo, 1986; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; van Maanen, 1995; Behar & Gordon, 1995; Visweswaran, 1997). Indeed there are many different stories one could narrate about South Africa, Durban, and Chatsworth from a variety of perspectives, narratives that, if rendered side by side, would likely be contradictory and seemingly incommensurable. One among many, the narrative and argument I have crafted is my particular interpretation of the history of place, identity, and everyday life in a changing Durban township within a given region of South Africa as the post-apartheid government seeks to both redress past racialized injustices and incorporate itself into a globalizing economy. I have 36 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. foregrounded displacement, violence, and gender to complicate associations of Indianness with illegitimate privilege in post-apartheid South Africa. Each step along the way, I have made editorial decisions about which perspectives to include shaped both by my theoretical concerns and the patterns and idiosyncrasies of my data. Other writers would make different decisions and privilege other processes. Although I spoke with and sought the insights of a wide swath of Chatsworth residents, the voices inscribed on the following pages largely include those who are not socially, politically, or economically prominent or powerful, as these “big man” voices are often heard in the press or other public forums, purporting to represent and speak for others. There are many self-appointed leaders in Chatsworth and there is no lack of grandstanding for authority and prestige. I have rather privileged voices, that although heard, are often ignored, or marginalized (women, youth, working class and poor), voices easily eclipsed in a broader discourses about race, place, and Indianness in South Africa. At the same time, I want to be clear that I am not “giving voice” to the people, perspectives, and lives that animate these pages, although my intent has been to flesh out context where it is not necessarily apparent. I want to underscore that I was often impressed by the strength of participants’ voices, analyses, and insights which have by necessity shaped and molded my own. To the extent that I am writing people’s lives, I have also been “written.” The immersion of field experience has changed and marked me indelibly and in different ways the research has been participative, collaborative and transformative. While I want to 37 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. acknowledge that my geopolitical location as an American citizen has afforded me the funding resources and economic privilege to study and research in South Africa, it also deserves mention that there is a long tradition of South African intellectual scholarship and social science research conducted across divisions of race, class, and gender. Postmodern and post-structural debates about location, power, and representation that continue to shape North American academic discourse however infrequently surface in qualitative, ethnographic, or social science research issuing from South African universities and research institutes. While in part this reflects an objeetivist approach and public policy orientation of much research, especially within the post-apartheid context, it also speaks to the peculiar position of ■writing from a North American academic context as well as the theoretical demands of writing for a North American marketplace. It is not my intention to skirt the issue of how shifting power relationships shape the gathering of all data and life histories and the production of knowledge, but it would be erroneous to describe the relationship between researcher and research subject(s) as inherently unequal. I often felt vulnerable as well as dependent on the generosity of others in the giving of their time and energy, and as an American and foreigner was also actively courted as a potential resource and link to overseas funding opportunities. To the extent that I attempted to “co-opt” participants to serve my agenda of research, there were also attempts to co-opt me for other purposes. Moreover, not all were willing to share their lives and in a few instances, 38 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. there was little hesitance to say no or otherwise close the door to inquiry. When the door was opened, however, I was often feted with great hospitality and care. At the end of the day however I am the scribe with pen, paper, and computer. I have worked hard to avoid grave errors of interpretation while recognizing that such a risk is always present and betrayal is always possible whenever we venture into the realm of representation (Stacey, 1988). Regardless, I acknowledge that through the active processes of writing and interpretation, I wield an authorial power that no textual strategy can erase (cf. Rosaldo, 1989; Kondo, 1990; Visweswaran, 1997, among others). Reader, be wary. My theoretical orientation has been informed by a variety of post-structural (feminist, post-colonial, critical race, deconstructive, postmodernist) debates that emphasize history and power in the making of self and personhood, family, community, place, culture, race, and nation. Attentive to the conjunctures of identity, inequality, and power, I have sought to fuse broader structural constraints and opportunities with the everydayness and agency of people’s lives. I understand power to be exercised both through coercion and consent, to be repressive as well as productive of new desires, identities, and formations (Gramsci, 1971; Foucault, 1978). Subjectivities are never formed outside of power relations but produced within them. Following Butler (1997), I recognize that the experience of subjection, as a process of domination as well as subject-formation is inherently paradoxical, such that resistance and agency are invariably marked by ambivalence and contradiction. 39 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although methodologically, my approach is decidedly feminist, paying due attention to how gendered inequalities and violence in the realms of home, family, and community intersect with broader socio-cultural, political, historical, economic, spatial, and legal contexts, in terms of feminist practice, I do not assume any “natural” identification or necessary affinity with women across the spectrum of difference that I encountered (class, religion, culture, nationality, and age). I nonetheless recognize that my gender and “married woman” status enabled certain conversations to unfold, especially regarding sexuality. The emphasis on gender and sexuality that emerges variously in each of the chapters stems in part from its critical absence and erasure in South African Indian historiography. Indeed South African Indian historical narratives are most often crafted with masculinist bias. The preponderance of academic and historical writings about “Indians,” “Indian immigrants,” “indentured Indians,” “Indians in Natal,” “Indian South Africans,” and “South African Indians” emphasize indentureship, working class and economic history, racial discrimination, political exclusion and resistance with little or no attention to gender as a structuring or institutionalized relationship of power and inequality or the role of state as a player in the making of gendered selves (Burrows, 1952; Beall & North-Coombes, 1983; Bhana & Pachai, 1984; Ginwala, 1985; Arkin et al., 1989; Bhana & Brain, 1990; Henning, 1993; Desai, 1996; Ebr.-Vally, 2001; but see Beall, 1991 as an exception). Overall, women are noticeably absent as social actors with agency. In other writings where women’s lives 40 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. or perspectives are included or foregrounded, “woman” often functions as a stand-in for “gender” and gender itself is largely unproblematized (Kuper, 1960; Meer, 1969; Freund, 1991; Singh, 1995). Moreover while I am sympathetic to the political import of writing South African Indian women into history especially where they have been excluded as political actors (cf. Shashikant-Mesthrie, 1991; Chetty, 1991; Rajab, 1999), my work seeks to push the envelope of writing women’s histories to pose questions of construction. How are gendered identities as social, cultural, and legal constructions actively produced, lived, and performed within particular contexts? How were gendered identities re-configured during the apartheid period and how are these effects visible today? In engaging these questions, I have emphasized both material and symbolic processes at work in the production of gender difference. I write from the implicit assumption that gender identities must be interrogated and situated within a dynamic interplay of historical, structural, representational, and spatial practices as they intersect with other markers of difference such as race, class, sexuality, generation, and religion. In this sense, I see my work as contributing to a broader feminist literature on the embedded and mutually constituted nature of gender within the context of multiple identities and stratifications (cf. Anzaldua & Moraga, 1981; Alarcon, 1991; hooks, 1990; Mohanty, 1991; di Leonardo, 1991; Frankenberg &Mani, 1993; Kondo, 1990,1995; Ong, 1987,1995; Tsing, 1993; Visweswaran, 1997). However, let me underscore that while I emphasize gender as a structuring subjectivity in relation to other axes of privilege and domination, gender relationships, 41 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. constructions of both masculinity and femininity, are not always the center of my analysis. The larger emphasis is on power and inequality through raced place-making and gender is one of the intersecting currents. I see this ethnography as contributing to what Sally Falk Moore (1994) has described as “current history in the making” (p. 4), and I have labored to situate the particular ethnographic moment of the text and research within broader political, economic, and historical perspectives. It is a way of stating what is obvious but often cast aside, namely that history and context matter. In South Africa, history and memory, especially those not encased within the political narrative of oppression and liberation, resistance and struggle have been casualties in the transition to democracy. While the highly publicized and emotive work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission detailed the brutal human rights abuses perpetrated by the apartheid state (i.e., murder and torture), the everyday historical complexity and violence of apartheid domination and the fallouts and shakedowns of transition as gendered and gendering are just beginning to be written and told. In this regard I have been influenced by the Comaroffs’ (1992) argument for a historical anthropology that emphasizes power, process and structure in “the making of collective worlds—the dialectics, in space and time, of societies and selves, persons and places, orders and events,” while still engaging the problematic of domination, fragmentation, and polyphony (p. 12). 42 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. With regard to race theorizing, I see this ethnography as exploring processes of re-racialization in the post-apartheid context as apartheid legal constructs of racially defined access to resources and places are disinterred and replaced by an official policy of affirmative action and emerging discourses of Africanization, however variably encased by an umbrella non-racialism and the necessity of redistribution. I underscore the State as the key player in the continuing significance of Indianness as a racialized construct in contemporary South Africa. This emphasis is significant for various reasons. As Seidman (1999) has noted in her review of social science scholarship on South Africa, it is truly remarkable that given its history of racial segregation and apartheid, that rather little has been written about racial formations in South Africa, especially in their everyday subaltern expressions.2 6 This does not mean that race is absent in accounts of South African history and society, but rather that it is largely unproblematized. Moreover within the literature on South Africa, there has been a strong intellectual tendency to treat race as an epiphenomenon of other relations, such as capitalist development and state formation 2 6 In reflecting on this conundrum, Seidman (1999) remarks, The dynamics of race remain perhaps more unexplored in South Africa than anywhere else.... It is ironic that in a situation where racial differences have been so visible—and in a situation where complexities of racial identities and racial politics were played out in daily newspapers, as individuals confronted the tension between rigid legal categories and the more fluid reality of human lives—discussions of race have largely been left out of progressive scholarly work. For many social scientists, the omission reflected a conscious desire to avoid any link to the scientific racism so rampant in South African science.... And, of course, for many South African scientists, racial identities hardly seemed problematic. Racial categories were so explicitly built into the legal and social framework that they seemed almost biological, (pp. 433-434) 43 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Wolpe, 1972; Legassick, 1974; Greenberg, 1980) as well as Afrikaner nationalism and cultural history (Adam & Giliomee 1979). During the 1970s and 1980s, this came to be known as the “race-class debate.” While Marxist scholars underscored apartheid as a form of racial capitalism, liberal thinkers emphasized the contradictions between apartheid and capitalism (cf. Maylam, 2001, pp. 194-204 for review). As argued by Posel, Hyslop, and Nieftagodien (2001), the theoretical parameters of the debate had the ironic effect of fostering closure on the subject of race (p. vi). In addition, while the early historiography of race relations in South Africa reflects the assumption that the more liberal English-speakers capitulated to the fundamentalism of Afrikaner nationalism (see discussions in Dubow, 1995, and Legassick, 1995), this line of thinking has been seriously challenged in recent decades, and greater emphasis has been placed on Afrikaner and English complicity, particularly in the politics of race making (Cell, 1982; Legassick, 1995; Marx, 1996). Although the complexities of White racial identity and domination in South Africa have received some ethnographic attention (Crapazano, 1985; Johnson, 1994) and numerous scholars have evaluated the history, ideological content, and impact of the freedom struggle and oppositional political movements in South Africa during in the 19th and 20th centuries (Walker, 1982, 1991; Lodge, 1983; Fatton, 1986; Beinart, 1994; Halisi, 1999; Fredrickson, 1997), racial identities and formations in their everyday, embodied subaltern expressions and dimensions merit much greater study (Greenstein, 1998, pp. 7-9; Seidman, 1999, 44 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pp. 433-436). Given that the White minority in South Africa dominated, among Others, a majoritarian African population for much of this century, it is not surprising moreover that most discussions of race in South Africa continue to be embedded in a binary logic of Black and White. Yet, this resilient polarity also effaces the realities, lives, and experiences of persons neither “White” nor “Black” but subjected to histories of racial discrimination in South Africa. Moreover, it my contention that although formally apartheid as a political system of White domination has ended and the ANC government’s official policy is one of non-racialism, race as a social historical construction is of enduring, continuing significance.2 7 Within this framework, I examine historical experiences and the everyday effects of raced displacement and the politics of place-making as constitutive components in the making of raced, classed, gendered, and sexed identities and bodies. I do not assume any natural connection among people, culture, and place but rather emphasize how relations of inequality are implicated in the making of places (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997). In McDowell’s (1999) words, 2 7 One ways in which race remains salient in post-apartheid South Africa is through the continued use of apartheid-era racial classifications (African/Black, Coloured, Indian/Asian, and White) as a means of categorizing people and allocating resources, albeit with the justification of addressing past inequities. Mare (2001) argues that institutionalized practices of post-apartheid race counting have the effect of re-inscribing the “banality” of apartheid race thinking—the taken-for granted, essentialized everydayness of race—while also foreclosing other strategies of addressing inequality, namely along axes of class and gender. In a similar vein, Posel (2001) poses the disturbing question of how, within the legal context of racial redress such as the Employment Equity Act, bodies are marked as racially distinct. In their respective essays, both Mare and Posel point to the dangerous contradiction between an official discourse o f nonracialism and policies that presuppose race essentialism. Similar to the apartheid regime, it is the post-apartheid state that serves as the central arbiter of racial difference. 45 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Places are made through power relationships which construct the rules which define boundaries. These boundaries are both social and spatial—they define who belongs to a place and who may be excluded, as well as the location or site of the experience, (p. 4) I see my work as informed by a body of literature that examines the intersection of architecture, power, and politics and more particularly examines the spatial technologies of apartheid not only as expressive but constitutive of political and racial domination (Foucault, 1975; Western, 1981,1996; Robinson, 1996; Judin & Vladislavic, 1998). While there are a number of essays that examine the transformation of Durban into an apartheid city built upon the principles of racial zoning as well as shaped by the imperatives of industrial development (Kuper, Watts, & Davies, 1958; Davies, 1991; Southworth, 1991; McCarthy, 1991; Maharaj, 1992,1994,1995; Scott, 2003), gendered race and constructs of masculinity and femininity as well as the everyday gendered effects of displacement, domination, and forced removals infrequently surface as areas worthy of study. Drawing from contributions in feminist geography (Massey, 1994; Blunt & Rose, 1994; McDowell, 1999; Johnson, Huggins, & Jacobs, 2000), I work to extend this discussion in two ways. I examine not only how apartheid as a form of socio-spatial engineering was central to the making of placed race as a social construction but also how the built form of township housing carried gendered ideological assumptions with the modem heterosexual nuclear family at its core such that the effects of displacement (physical, economic, political, or cultural) 46 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. were and are gendered. Finally, let me be clear that this is not a study of diasporic displacement, celebratory hybridity, or the emancipatory possibilities of transnationalism and mobile or migratory subjectivities and transnationalism (cf. Appadurai, 1996; Bhabha, 1990). While I recognize that globalization has created new imaginative possibilities, I am nonetheless skeptical of the construct of globalization as liberating, given that its fruits are unevenly distributed. I have rather emphasized the weight of history and the political economy of place as grounding and situating the imagination. Not all subjects are equally mobile and mobility moreover is powerfully shaped by localized structures and ideologies of power, of which gender is significant variable (Ong, 1999; see Introduction). In addition, as Joseph’s (1999) work underscores, mobility is often propelled by nationalist discourses and the “tenuous status of immigrants,” regardless of tenure and the raced political imaginaries of given nation-states (p. 2). This is rather a study of place and displacement within South Africa, shaped by the history of apartheid policies such as forced removals and the particularities of post-apartheid transitions. Rather than associate South African Indianness with India, as a study of diaspora might, I have emphasized the distinctiveness of South African Indianness as South African. The “Indian” in South African Indians I have labored to underscore as a state-cultivated and placed racial classification. The central question of identity that courses through my narrative pertains to place and belonging within South Africa. 47 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Outline While a historical framework has shaped the layering of my analysis and the weaving of my narrative threads, the structure of the ensuing chapters does not unfold within a strict linear time line. Rather, the movement is circular. I open with contemporary conditions, shift to historical constraints and opportunities, and then cycle back to the present day. Although these are the broad strokes of the ethnography, within each chapter there is likewise a tacking between past and present. This approach derives from a historical imagination that sees the effects of historical processes as everywhere present and shaping the future. The Chapters 2 and 3 foreground race and class, political economy and history while Chapters 4, 5 and 6 emphasize gender, sexuality, violence, and constructs of family. An emphasis on place and space are unifying themes. In Chapter 2 ,1 examine the political economy of race in Durban from a historical perspective, looking at how the city is both evolving and changing as well as powerfully shaped by its history and politics. In order to understand the particularities of Chatsworth as a working class, predominantly “Indian” township, it needs to be situated within the broader globalizing urban economy of Durban as historical inequalities live and breathe in the present. Emphasizing the material conditions of everyday life and the simultaneous de-racialization and “Africanization” of Durban as a city, I trace how the contest over race and the resources of place have been interwoven in the making of the city. I emphasize that racialized tensions in the 48 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. city, particularly White/Indian and African/Indian have historically been related to competition over land and commercial opportunities/markets, and that resurgent racialized attacks of the present are part of a longer, broader historical trajectory that has defined “Indians” as unwanted and inassimilable within the body of the nation. This placed analysis is intended to provoke questions about the disjuncture between the state’s official discourse of nonracial citizenship and situated meaning of Indianness in post-apartheid Durban. In Chapter 3 ,1 step back in historical time to the racialized reconfiguration of urban space with apartheid through the implementation of the Group Areas Act in Durban and the creation of Chatsworth as a modem Indian township. I look at how masculine domination and power was expressed and constituted through the spatial practices of forced removals and displacement. I argue that the spatial technologies of race zoning and town planning associated with the Group Areas Act were part of a modernizing discourse that set into motion a transformation of everyday life for the communities displaced to Chatsworth. While state policies of race-based residential and institutional segregation created new opportunities of advancement for some, forced removal dismpted established communities and livelihoods for others, weakening established place-based social relationships and provoking new strategies of economic survival. In Chapter 4 ,1 explore how the seizure and destruction of house and home through the Group Areas Act and the concomitant displacement to state-built housing 49 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in Chatsworth as an act of masculinized raced domination fostered conditions that would over time normalize masculine violence as a part of everyday life. Both forced removal and the mass provision of housing built upon a nuclear model moreover impacted gender and family relationships in complex ways, on the one hand spurring greater female labor participation and independence as necessary to survival in the township context while simultaneously enforced the dependency of “housewives” through spatial design, housing policies, and restrictions to mobility. In Chapter 5 ,1 shift from an emphasis on house, home, and identity to the gendering institution of the Indian Family as a site of conflict and duress. I consider how the breakdown, dispersal, and reconstruction of the family as a moral unit within the township context of Chatsworth placed increasing emphasis on the marital relationship and nuclear household outside the lived everyday authority and network of the extended family system as a means of regulating kin relationships. I consider how the increased visibility of women outside the identity-sphere of house and home coupled with the erosion of the family to regulate female sexuality has heightened broader cultural anxieties about female purity, sexuality, and power. Finally, I suggest that to the extent that kin relationships have been unable to sustain members through the nucleation, violence, addictions, and poverty of township life, Pentecostal Christianity has articulated an alternate family of Christian fellowship, presenting a recipe for healing and restoration in a context of broken families and lives. 50 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In Chapter 6 ,1 focus on the contemporary significance and pervasiveness of gender violence in Chatsworth within the context of shifting state policies relating to family and marriage, and post-apartheid legislation relating to domestic violence. By reading the experiences of marital violence endured by three Chatsworth wives as evidence of a violent gender struggle and masculinity in distress, I suggest that women as wives and girlfriends are bearing the brunt of masculine domination, historically sanctioned by the apartheid state through statutory laws and housing policies but also embedded within a continuum of spatio-cultural beliefs and practices that define female movement, voicing, power, desire, and sexuality as essentially threatening and needing to be contained. At the heart of gender violence in Chatsworth is unequal gender relationships and attempts to preserve male privilege within broader political and legal context of change and reversal. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of tradition and modernity and examine how culture is mapped onto female bodies through discourses of place and identity. Contemporary political-economic complaints of in-betweenness and narratives of decline while indicative of post-apartheid blues, also reference broader concerns about modernity and rapid cultural change set into motion by apartheid spatial practices and housing policies. Desires to return to old ways (i.e., “It was better under the White man”) and nostalgia for previous hierarchies of identity speak both, I suggest, to the rapidity of cultural change over the past half-century and the uncertainty about the future. 51 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II DURBAN AND THE INDIAN PROBLEM In order to understand the present day particularities of Chatsworth as a formerly Indian group area, the township needs to be situated within the broader political economy and racialized urban formation of Durban. In this chapter, I explore the tensions between a globalizing post-apartheid Durban and the enduring spatial imprints of its colonial and apartheid inscriptions and contestations. Tracing how racialized tensions in Durban particularly White/Indian and African/Indian have historically been related to competition over land, commercial opportunities and markets, and political uncertainty, I emphasize that in post-apartheid Durban population pressure, land hunger, high unemployment, growing class inequalities, and the simultaneous de-racialization and “Africanization” of Durban are feeding racial tensions between African and Indian residents. Documenting resurgent anti-Indianism in the post-apartheid context and the re-emergence of the “Indian problem,” I point toward its continuity with a longer historical racialization that has defined “Indians” as unwanted and inassimilable within the body of the nation. Etched in the early discursive practices of the city are colonial constructions linking race with place defining Africans as “native” to the land and belonging in the reserves and Indians as 52 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. an alien invading force needing to be expelled from the body politic. While present day population pressures, the struggle for everyday survival and urban resources, and inequality lay the groundwork for discontent among the differently marginalized, the in-between positioning of the Durban Indian community, in political, economic, racial, and spatial terms has heightened its vulnerability in the post-apartheid context. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Durban is a globalizing city by the sea. Principally Zulu and English-speaking, Durban distinguishes itself from the rest of South Africa in many ways, but particularly in its unique history and population dynamics. Home to a racially and ethnically diverse as well as economically stratified population of more than three million, Durban or eThekwini in Zulu is South Africa’s most significant port city, the second largest industrial hub in the country, and the economic and population powerhouse of KwaZulu-Natal, the most populous of South Africa’s nine provinces. Although the City’s jurisdiction extends to less than 2% of the provincial territory (2,297 square meters), Durban is inhabited by more than one third of the province’s population and generates 60% of its economic activity (eThekwini Municipality, 2003, ch. 1, p.l ). The economic engine of “The Kingdom of the Zulu,”2 8 the only province in South Africa with a monarchy, headed by beloved Zulu King Goodwill 2 8 Both the eThekwini City Council and KwaZulu Natal Tourism are actively working to attract international tourism as a stimulus to economic growth. The commodification and promotion o f “traditional” Zulu culture as income generating has been a by-product of this marketing strategy. 53 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Zwelithini, Durban holds a strategic position as a conglomeration of desired resources, namely land, jobs, housing, and residential services. Using the four part racial classification system of apartheid that still governs the gathering of statistics, Durban’s population is approximately 65% African, 21% Indian, 3% Coloured, and 11% White (eThekwini Municipality, 2003, ch. 1, p. 1). The majority of African residents are mother tongue Zulu speakers, many of whom continue to have strong links to the rural areas, formerly part of the KwaZulu bantustan.2 9 The language of non-Zulu speakers and the official language of government and business in the region is English, reflecting both a colonial heritage and dominance of English-speaking White South Africans (in contrast to Afrikaans speaking) in Durban. In addition, as a result of historic restrictions on inter-provincial mobility tracing back to the decades of the early 20th century, South Africans of Indian origin, are to a large extent concentrated in the Durban metropolitan area. Similar to the Coloured population of Cape Town, the visibility and presence of South Africans of Indian origin in Durban cannot be compared with any other part of the country. Within the history and making of Durban as a town and city, the politics of race have long been expressed through the struggle, contest, and control over space, place and its resources (Maylam & Edwards, 1996). Formerly a British colonial town M Under the apartheid regime, the KwaZulu “homeland” unlike other bantustans in South Africa was comprised of noncontiguous territories and fragmented throughout the province. While some segments of KwaZulu (i.e., KwaMashu and Umlazi) were comparatively close to the city center, others were far removed from any urban resources. 54 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and later an apartheid city, Durban was one of the first urban areas to develop and implement policies of racial segregation and later urban apartheid, and also one of the last to materialize post-apartheid democratic restructuring.3 0 While it was the “Durban system” of African administration that would later serve as a template for urban apartheid in South Africa, segregationist initiatives associated with the “Asiatic menace” have also powerfully shaped the racialized landscapes of the city (Swanson, 1976,1983). Urbanization and Population Pressure Although shaped and structured by its history, the city is not determined by it and in this sense, Durban is also an Africanizing, democratizing and globalizing “city in transition” (Freund & Padayachee, 2002). Indeed, over the last two decades, Durban has undergone dramatic transformations of place and identity. Previously a prototypical apartheid city spatially defined by racial zoning and Group Areas, the Durban municipality and the CBD once defined as the apartheid privilege and purview of a White Durban electorate has become increasingly Africanized, both in terms of population and self-definition. The recent change in the City Council’s official name designation from the Durban City Council to the eThekwini City Council reflects a 3 0 While local elections took place across South Africa in November of 1995, due to political violence and conflict between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party, it was only June of 1996 that elections could peacefully be held in the province (Maharaj, 2002, pp. 184,189). 55 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. longer historical process whereby Durban through both discursive and material practices is being transformed and remade into an African city. Since the early 1980s, but especially after the abolition of influx control laws in 1986, which restricted the movement of African persons through a pass system, the African population of Durban has grown significantly. Through urbanization, in- migration and land invasions, informal settlements at the periphery of the city and in buffer zones initially designed by apartheid planners to separate racialized groups have grown rapidly (Hindson & McCarthy, 1994). Driven partly by socioeconomic and political conditions in the city’s African townships such as lack of formal housing for the African poor, high population density, insecurity of land tenure, and violent political struggles between the ANC and IFP in the 1980s and 1990s which claimed an excess of 15000 lives (Waetjen & Mare, 2001, p. 195), informal settlements within and just beyond the city’s jurisdiction have grown rapidly. Paul Maylam (1996) suggests the population of “greater Durban” tripled between 1973 and 1988, with nearly half the population having grown in shack settlements, just outside the municipality, areas then under jurisdiction of the Kwa Zulu “homeland” government (pp. 24-26).3 1 In addition, the recent creation of a single integrated tax base in 2000 3lAlthough Maylam’s estimated population of Durban as 3.5 million in 1988 may err on the side of excess, that the growth of African settlement accounts for much of this increase is little disputed. A 1999 analysis of migration trends in the Durban municipality, significantly more conservative in its estimates, suggests that more than a million adults migrated into Durban within their lifetimes from outside the metropolitan area, with the African in-migration, having been the largest, at over 700,000. Interestingly, most White residents of Durban were also in-migrants, with only 38% having been bom within the municipality. In contrast, Indian and Coloured residents had the highest percentages of persons locally bom, 80% and 76% respectively, with in-migration (continued...) 56 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in conjunction with the extension of the city’s boundaries to include poorly serviced rural areas that prior to the new municipal demarcation were being administered by traditional leaders and regional councillors means the city’s constituency has furthermore grown in number.3 2 As a result of urbanization and the high cost of housing, many residential settlements in Durban, both the informal areas and the racially segregated working class townships of the apartheid days, are densely populated. Indeed, with more than 80% of the city’s population concentrated on 35% of the land (eThekwini Municipality, 2003, ch. 1, p. 1), large numbers of people, are often crowded onto small plots of land with limited, severely strained, or nonexistent infrastructure, creating population pressure points. Within the municipal boundaries, the areas with (...continued) populations on the decline in the 1990s. The report suggests that while African migration to and within Durban reflects strategies of upward economic mobility, especially for the poor, the comparative stability of Indian and Coloured residents comments on a history of housing and land scarcity as well as limited financial resources compared to White Durbanites. Finally although Durban in-migration rates have fallen during the 1990s, at approximately 15% they still present a challenge to the city, especially in providing basic infrastructure for the African rural poor struggling with high rates of unemployment and concentrated in shack settlements (Cross & Webb, 1999). 3 2 During the apartheid period, local government was highly fragmented such that greater Durban was administered by over sixty separate authorities. White residents elected their local officials, Indian and Coloured residential areas were administered by a combination of White officials and local affairs committees, and excepting Chesterville and Claremont, KwaZulu homeland authorities administered most o f Durban’s African townships. Although in 1996, the city’s boundaries were extended to include Durban’s African townships, due to political sensitivities certain areas of the previous KwaZulu homeland governed by tribal authorities were initially excluded from the municipality. Only in 2000 were the peri-urban poor living in these areas brought within the city’s jurisdiction (Hall & Robbins, 2002). Significantly this expansion of the city’s jurisdiction places additional pressure on the city to address historic inequities with regard to basic services without, importantly, commensurate growth in its revenues. In a sense the city will have to do more with less. 57 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the highest population density are predominantly African and Indian, where townships were built side by side.3 3 With population growth has come population pressure, intensifying local conflicts over scarce resources, particularly land.3 4 “Although in comparison, the population numbers are significantly smaller, Coloured communities in Durban are also concentrated within these areas. Based upon 1996 census statistics, North Central and South Central had by far the highest population densities within the Durban Metro, with 4000 and 3900 people per square kilometer respectively North Central and South Central reference the political and administrative substructures of the Durban Metro between 1996 and 2000, prior to the new boundary demarcations o f 2000 (Durban Metropolitan Transport Advisory Board, 1996, Section A, Section C). 3 4 In their discussion of political violence in KwaZulu and Durban in the early 1990s, Morris and Hindson (1992) emphasize that with the erosion of apartheid institutions and under conditions of rapid urbanization and inequality, racial, ethnic, and class antagonisms had become pronounced provoking conflicts over basic urban resources. Political violence between the ANC and Inkatha they underscore is more complex than political rivalry and instead has been driven by class and social divisions such as differential access to employment and residential resources within black urban areas, reflecting a struggle for increased access for urban resources such as land, housing, and residential services. 58 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LA MEKCr 'HOEMI* INCHAN6X*, BOTHAS HILL HB.LCR68T •WF1KCKAU AVOCA, HNGAlttU h«Bhly n«»oure»d Aren* lull:! Dense Informal SetllemenCs Frwtou* Maiiv Boundary — Unicfty Boundary Matlonal Read* Figure 3. eThekwini Municipality. Note that the densely populated informal settlements border the formerly Indian working class townships of Chatsworth to the South and Phoenix to the North. (Source: eThekwini Municipality (2003). Integrated Development Plan 2003-2007. Durban, South Africa: eThekwini Municipality.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Moreover, population growth through urbanization and in-migration has not been limited to the periphery of the city. African tenants have moved into Durban CBD and importantly were preceded by White residents migrating to suburban lives, creating a surplus of housing on the market and a place for African tenants despite legislated prohibitions (Maharaj, 2002, p. 177). Since the mid 1980s previous White middle class residents and the commercial elite of Durban have largely abandoned the CBD, gravitating toward suburban lifestyles and mall-based consumption. New residents have moved in and informal traders have peopled the streets, claiming the city as their own in a powerful de-racing and reclamation of place. The Durban CBD, previously controlled by a White political and economic elite, is now increasingly an African city. During the day, the streets of downtown Durban testify to the pulsing vitality of city life as it has changed through the de-racializing and Africanizing of place. Although a ghost-like vacancy descends on most parts of the inner city in the evening hours, during the day there is an intense, exciting bustle of street activity marked by the strong presence of female African traders.3 5 Since the early 1990s, the informal 3 S Legitimated through different acts and city bylaws, African businesses, both formal and informal, have historically before the early 1990s been denied a place in the city and the right to compete for its consumer markets. Although from the 1940s through the early 1980s, the local state’s policy with regard to street traders was defined principally by a regime of repression and regulation, in the mid-1980s, under conditions of rapid urbanization and high unemployment, local government began to shift towards a policy of de-regulation (Nesvag, 2002, pp. 286-289). 60 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sector along with the African population of Durban has grown dramatically.3 6 Once empty of hawkers, public space in the CBD is now animated with hundreds of small stalls selling a range of everyday goods (i.e., fruits, vegetables, household items, traditional medicine) and services (i.e., hair salons, telephone access, shoe repair, etc.). Within this context, the Warwick Avenue Triangle and Grey Street area, constitute the largest of Durban’s informal street markets. The Grey Street complex or “imperial ghetto” as termed by Omar Badsha in his photographic paean to the area, is significant in that formal Indian commercial activity has historically been concentrated here, despite concerns about expropriation and displacement during the apartheid years.3 7 Importantly both the Grey Street complex and Warwick Avenue Triangle are situated astride and amidst a key transportation node in Durban, namely Warwick Junction, marking the area as a highly desirable and profitable place to do business. 3 6 In 1998 there were an estimated 20,000 informal traders in the Durban metropolitan area, 60% of whom were women. Moreover, in post-apartheid Durban, local government seeking to stimulate and support small business development has invested resources to upgrade infrastructure for street traders (Durban Metropolitan Authority, 1998, cited in Skinner & Valodia, 2001, p. 83). 3 7 While the threat of removal contributed to urban decay and served as a disincentive to maintaining properties, the area was proclaimed an Indian business zone in 1973 through the lobbying intervention of the South African Indian Council (SAIC). Originally a hand picked council by the apartheid government to be the official “voice” of the “Indian community,” the SAIC collaborated with the apartheid state and disproportionately represented business interests as the voice o f South African Indians. In conjunction with other legislation, this zoning effectively barred a formal African business class from emerging within the area. Ownership, however, was delimited to particular streets and other sections of the Grey Street area were zoned for White residence and business. Importantly, the properties could be used only for business and not residential purposes. See introductory essay “Traveling Cultures” by Zegeye and Ahluwalia in Badsha (2001, p. 20). 61 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. With high foot traffic and bus, train, and taxi transportation links to both local and regional destinations, an estimated 300,000 commuters pass through neighboring streets daily. Today while street trading is principally African, the more formal commercial premises within the Grey Street complex are still predominantly Indian owned and operated reflecting a historic structural imbalance that wields a potency of racialized meaning for the present. The streets may be Africanized, but the question of ownership still hovers in the backdrop.3 8 3 8 Still the numbers of street traders within these trading hives outweighs those occupying formal premises, and while much of the street trade is survivalist in nature, the muthi trade is particularly large and often quite lucrative as well as dominated by African women. uMuthi translates as “tree” in Zulu, but references traditional medicine more broadly. With 400 stalls and having generated 14,000 jobs, Durban’s muthi market is the largest in Southern Africa and also 80% female-dominated (Nesvag, 2002). 62 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Informal Street Trading at the Intersection of Grey and Queens Streets With the city’s public space having become increasingly African, many Durbanites, particularly the White middle class and those with the resource of private transportation, have come to avoid the perceived unruliness and “dirt” of the city for the first world malls at the borders of chi-chi suburbs. In an example of how economic apartheid is coming to replace its racialized predecessor, extravagant first world shopping complexes have emerged in affluent areas, mimicking public space and urbanity in controlled, virtual realities. The much-vaunted Gateway Shopping Complex located in the coastal resort town of Umhlanga Rocks, but smack in the 63 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. middle of nowhere, illustrates how in a democratizing Durban new forms of exclusion are emerging. Globalization and Inequality There is a quiet glory and seductive calm to Durban. Its formerly White middle and upper class residential areas are unusually spacious and plush, some with commanding vistas of the sea. On hot windless days, Durban can easily feel like a sleepy dorp of avocado, banana, and papaya trees. The coastal city has allure and for some no doubt there is the experience of pleasured plenty. Yet if Durban has Edenic qualities, its tropical abundance is an illusion built behind towering walls, barbed wire, and expensive security systems. For Durban’s verdant hills, leafy suburbs and first world luxuries of expensive cars and private swimming pools stand in disturbing contrast to the palpable everyday struggles for basic needs (food, housing, water, electricity, healthcare) that define much of its citizenry and residents. There is no hiding that scarcity and excess coexist in an uneasy and sometimes dangerous tension, with a history of racialized struggle and domination piercing the present. Although considered an upper middle-income country, South Africa is simultaneously one of the most unequal societies in the world with a genie coefficient surpassed only by Brazil.3 9 More than half of South African households either lives in 3 9 The genie coefficient is a measure of income distribution and wealth. On a scale of 0 to 1, zero represents perfect income equality and one perfect income inequality. According to the 1996 World Development Report, the genie coefficient in South Africa is approximately .58 (cited in May, Woolard, & Klasen, 2000, p. 28). 64 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. poverty or struggles at its cusp, and in Durban those “with” live alongside those “without,” as many informal settlements in the city have sprung up alongside middle class or affluent residential areas. While it is true that given South Africa’s racialized history, race and poverty are often intimate bedfellows, at the same time, they are not coterminous. It is significant that while the preponderance of South Africa’s poor is African, female, and living in the rural areas and income inequality across racialized groups is considerable, inequality within racialized groups is the main contributor to South Africa’s high genie coefficient.4 0 Moreover, Budlender’s analysis (1998) of earnings inequality between 1995 and 1998 suggests a rising trend in the post-apartheid context, with the level of inequality among African persons higher than other population groups. While in part this reflects, under the post-apartheid dispensation, the ANC government’s explicit cultivation of an African professional and middle class through black economic empowerment policies, this trend also has precedent in the apartheid government’s strategy in the 1980s of developing a conservative middle class elite within each racialized community of color for the purpose of separate development and “ “According to Whiteford and Van Seventer (1999), inequality increased within all population groups between 1975 and 1991 but most sharply among African households. Moreover between 1975 and 1996, the gini coefficient for African households jumped from .47 to .66, an inequality comparable with Brazil. Within each population group, between 1991 and 1996, the poorest 40% of households were the “biggest losers” in terms of income decline (pp. 16-20). The widening gap between rich and poor they argue is a product o f high skill, well paid employment showing strong growth while semi-skilled and unskilled labor is on the decline, marked by the shedding of employment in the formal sector. Using 1995 Income and Expenditure Survey data, May et al. (2000) arrive at similar conclusions but cite a genie coefficient of .54 among African households (pp. 26-28). 65 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. administration as well as to quell political dissent. While the apartheid state nurtured both divisions of race and class in its politics of co-optation, the growing class inequalities of the post-apartheid context within a broader political-economic discourse of affirmative action, black empowerment, and globalization, I suggest, are cultivating fertile conditions for new racialized struggles. In conjunction with sharp income inequality and pervasive poverty, unemployment in South Africa is also unacceptably high and in addition to violent crime and HIV/AIDS, one of the most serious social problems facing the country. According to 1995 statistics, the expanded unemployment rate within KwaZulu-Natal was 33%, with the highest unemployment rate among African females in non-urban areas.4 1 Importantly, according to the same data, across all population groups in KZN, 73% of unemployed males and 74% of unemployed females were less than 35 years of age in 1995.4 2 In addition, whether one prefers the official or expanded definition, nationwide the unemployment rate increased between 1995 and 1999 4 1 Statistics South Africa works with two definitions of unemployment, the strict or official definition and the expanded definition respectively. The official definition of the unemployed enumerates those aged 15 and older who have taken specific steps to seek employment four weeks prior to the survey interview. The expanded definition includes those with a desire to work regardless of whether they have taken active steps to find employment in the four weeks prior. I have opted to emphasize the more inclusive definition as long- term unemployment can discourage many from actively seeking work. Finally, while Central Statistics (1998) enumerates both formal and informal sector employment, the phenomenon of under-employment is left unconsidered. Using the expanded definition, the unemployment rate in KwaZulu Natal in 1995 was as follows: African Female (48%), African male (33%), Indian Female (22%), Indian male (10%), White Female (8%) and White Male (5%). Across racialized groups, unemployment statistics are higher for women. 4 2 At the same time, when you disaggregate the data, this distributional concentration is more pertinent to the African and Indian unemployed than White males or females (Central Statistics, 1998, figures 17, 18,21). 66 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. across racialized communities.4 3 While the number of employed people, in both the formal and informal sectors, gradually increased from 9.6 million in 1995 to 10.4 million in 1999, the total of unemployed people (official) jumped sharply from 1.8 million to 3.2 million between 1995 and 1999.4 4 In addition, the increase in the number of employed persons needs to be treated with skepticism, as much of this increase reflects an expansion in the informal sector, which tends to be survivalist in nature. What these numbers obscure is that between 1990 and 2000, the formal sector, excluding agriculture, shed one million jobs. While the majority of job losses have occurred in mining, construction, and transport, post-1997 the manufacturing sector lost more than 100,000 jobs. The only sector registering notable gains in employment between 1990 and 2000 is wholesale and retail trade (Makgetla, 2001, pp. 16-17), marking an important shift away from manufacturing toward a poorly paid service-oriented economy. 4 3 According to 1999 statistics, the official/expanded unemployment rate was as follows: African females (35%/51.9%), African males (24.5%/36.7%), Coloured females (17.5%/28.4%), Coloured males (13.4%/19.3%), Indian females (17.2%/23.8%), Indian males (14.5%/17.8%), White females (5. l%/7.3) and White males (5.l%/6.3%) (Statistics South Africa, 2001, figure 5.2, p. 47). ^Statistics South Africa, 2001, pp. 2-3. With an increasing number of people entering the job market, particularly youth leaving high school, new job creation cannot keep pace with demand. Furthermore, it is those youth with some education, but without matriculation, that are at the greatest disadvantage in the labor market. The lowest unemployment rate by education is among those with a tertiary education, followed by those with no formal education at all. What this means for the region is that there is steady stream of semi-educated young men and women, who without the resources, credentials, or interest in pursuing a higher education, are at a real disadvantage in the labor market. It is this generation and segment for which self-employment and access to start-up capital will become critical. 67 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Like other South African cities however and although the economic engine of the province, Durban’s economy in the post-apartheid context has been characterized by low economic growth, recalcitrant unemployment and a concomitant informalization of labor. With a current growth rate of 1.8%, the City estimates its unemployment rate to be between 30-40%.4 5 Within the context of a local and national skills shortage and an abundance of unskilled labor, it is the educated and skilled middle class across racialized communities that have been able to navigate difficult economic conditions most to their advantage while those without class or educational privilege are left to compete for increasingly scarce, low-paying employment. For the low income and working class, particularly newcomers to the labor market, the pie is shrinking. Although driven broadly by four sectors, manufacturing, tourism, finance, and transport, manufacturing contributes the greatest percentage of Durban’s gross geographic product, approximately 30%, to the city’s economy and second to the public sector (government) in generating local employment. Highly diversified, manufacturing’s sub-sectors include food, beverages, textiles, clothing, paper, printing, chemicals, metals and automotive. In the 1980s, at its height, Durban’s manufacturing sector, essential to the economic health of the region, employed as many as 200,000 workers (Freund & Padayachee, 2002, p. 66), but between 1993 4 5 Based upon a monthly income threshold, the city classifies 67% of its African residents and 20% of its Indian and Coloured residents as poor (eThekwini Municipality, 2003, ch. 2, p. 7). 68 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and 1998, this strength was eroded with Durban losing approximately 40,000 manufacturing jobs (Wiley, Root, & Peek, 2002, p. 228). Moreover with the City citing a net loss of 40,000 formal sector jobs between 1997 and 2002, for many, survivalist self-employment is the only option left. The pervasiveness of car guards4 6 in Durban, for example, speaks not only to the high prevalence of car theft and break- ins but also reflects a strategy of income generation for those without other options. While Durban’s economy, especially from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, expanded under the apartheid government’s policy of import substituting industrialization marked by tariff protectionism, the emphasis in post-apartheid South Africa on global competitiveness, has been accompanied with important policy shifts weighted toward supply side measures and export promotion. Although the RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) ushered in the new democracy in 1994, with promises of poverty alleviation and economic restructuring through people driven development, government intervention and redistribution, RDP had a short shelf life of two years. By June of 1996, under the tutelage and policy development of professional technocrats, national government had shifted its macroeconomic framework to prioritize economic growth and foreign direct investment. GEAR (Growth, Employment, and Redistribution) had all the ingredients of the neo-liberal 4 6 Car guards are found throughout South Africa working in parking lots, near commercial complexes as well as other nodes of activity. 69 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. recipe of “structural adjustment,” namely fiscal conservatism, trade liberalization, corporate welfare, deficit reduction and cuts in public expenditure.4 7 For certain manufacturing sub-sectors whose expansion and success have historically been enabled by tariff protections—namely the textile, clothing, automotive, and food industries—the policy implications of GEAR have been deleterious, saddled as they have been with job losses in the formal sector. Other sub sectors, in contrast, namely the capital intensive, chemical and petrochemical industries appear positioned to benefit through globalization (Morris, Barnes, & Dunne, 2002). Importantly these industries tend to be male dominated. At whose expense such growth will be enabled is another question as the Southern Industrial Basin where these industries are concentrated, surrounded by formerly African, Coloured and Indian townships, is highly polluted and has been subject of environmental activism in South Durban for many years, but especially in the post apartheid context. 4 7 The significance of the post-apartheid ANC adoption of neo-liberalism, replacing prior re distributive RDP policies with market driven growth oriented GEAR policies, has been the subject of much academic debate. Bond has perhaps been the ANC’s most vociferous critic, arguing that government has sided with global capital and the neoliberal Washington consensus (IMF, World Bank) at the expense of the working class and poor (2002). Hart (2002) more measured in tone delineates the polarities of the debate that range from the TINA narrative (There is No Other Alternative) but to globalize to leftist critiques that the ANC has “sold out.” Alternately she emphasizes the limits imposed by a negotiated political settlement and the corporate structure of South African capital as having shaped the adoption of GEAR in South Africa. Other analysts emphasize the considerable power and mobility of capital within the political economy of post apartheid South Africa to not only “exit” (Seekings & Nattrass, 2002) but also to shape globalization from within (Carmody, 2002). My interest in these questions is less a matter of debating whether neo-liberalism is “good” or “bad,” but rather to examine the effects of economic globalization and how it is feeding antagonism and alienation on the ground. 70 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although formal employment has been lost across the board, some sectors have been disproportionately affected. Within this context, South Africa’s clothing industry, labor-intensive and highly feminized, has been particularly hard hit. In post apartheid Durban, the loss of formal jobs in a sector dominated by working class women of color (African, Indian, and Coloured) has heightened their economic vulnerability as both national and local government have embraced globalization as the way forward for the South African economy. Although the clothing industry began retrenching workers and informalizing labor in the early 1990s as cheap imports from South and East Asia, both legal and illegal, began to flood the market, it was after the new ANC government became a signatory to GATT in December of 1994 that retrenchments intensified, as the government removed trade tariffs with dazzling speed rather measured concern for those it would displace. While cutting tariffs quickly within the context of trade liberalization was motivated by the post-apartheid state’s desire to “get ahead of globalization,” forcing industry to restructure and become globally competitive while also attracting foreign direct investment, on the ground neo-liberal reforms have been accompanied with large scale job losses (Carmody, 2002, p. 259). For example, according to the regional Bargaining Council, between 1990 and 2000, the number of formal jobs in the KwaZulu-Natal clothing industry plummeted from 45,000 to 19,000 with registered firms receding from 425 to 186 (Fakude, 2000, p. 24, note 3). Moreover, with the Durban municipality home to more than 75% of 71 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. clothing factories in the province (Morris et al., 2002, p. 118), the effects of informalization and job loss have been concentrated within the admittedly porous borders of the city. Although some firms have responded to global competition by closing shop altogether, other clothing industrialists have taken the route of informalizing labor—cutting costs through slashing wages as well as withholding worker benefits and protections.4 8 At present, it is hard to contend that the working class and poor in Durban and throughout South Africa have not been caught in the whirlwind of globalization and the lived everyday effects of market-driven economic policies. That this process of economic globalization works to serve the interests of corporate capital and political elites, while sidelining those of the poor and working class has long been argued by a broad base of civic associations, NGO’s, and progressive development organizations around the world. Furthermore, it is often women of the South particularly in the feminized and poorly paid sectors of the labor market that disproportionately bear the burden of market “adjustments” as “flexible production” and the casualization of labor chisel away at job stability and worker protections (cf. Agenda, 2001, no. 48). In addition at the level of local government, one of the practical policy impacts of GEAR has been real cuts in intergovernmental transfers to municipalities, placing a 4 8 Other strategic responses have included decentralizing and dispersing production components, as well as relocating firms to semi-rural areas in an effort to cut production costs (Harrison, 1997). 72 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. greater emphasis on local government to generate its own revenue, hence an emphasis on public-private partnerships (PPP’s) and making Durban “globally competitive.”4 9 Indeed, municipalities have begun to conceptualize themselves as businesses and it can be forcefully argued that democratic governance and business principles are incommensurable given the competing interests of profit and public good. As illustrated by McDonald and Pape (2002), the principle of full cost recovery in contrast to subsidization for basic services (i.e., water and electricity) by municipalities across South Africa is bom of a neo-liberal calculus, one that demands fiscal austerity as local government allocations from the central state dwindle (p. 5). The irony is that while government is on the one hand investing resources to build infrastructure in poor communities (roads, housing, piped water, electricity) it is simultaneously foreclosing access by making services increasingly unaffordable for the majority of its constituents. This is a confusing contradiction, both dangling and withholding the fruits of liberation within a context of historical deprivation as well as continued poverty and unemployment. It reflects a living tension between the political discourse of democratization and the economic realities of liberalization. 4 9 With export and tourist markets in mind, Durban is being marketed as both a gateway to the East and a destination for the world, with the political and business elites of the city working hard to transform Durban into a “world class city,” and “treasure chest for investors.” (See eThekwini Online at www.durban.gov.za.) While the hope is that tourism as one of the world’s largest industries will create much needed employment, the impact of significant government investment in tourist-related initiatives for long term job creation is yet to be determined. 73 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Indian Problem Within a broader context of economic restructuring and political transformation, at the level of the everyday, South Africa is still sifting through the rubble of its past and its haunting divisions of race. Nearly a decade has passed since South Africa held its first democratic elections, ending more than forty years of apartheid domination that parsed and divided South Africans into four racialized groups namely African, White, Coloured, and Indian.5 0 Hierarchically structured with a White minority at the top, an African majority at the bottom, and Coloureds and Indians in the middle, racial classification determined differential and disparate access to resources (land, education, housing, jobs, infrastructure) and the degrees and kinds of discrimination communities of color faced in apartheid South Africa. The logic of cultural difference and separation became embodied through legalized residential segregation, race-specific schooling and political administrations, and a racially fragmented labor market, legitimating hierarchy through the socio-spatial politics of exclusion. Through its unequal practices, apartheid sowed fear, distrust, and hatred across communities, an uncomfortable truth and contradiction that live S 0 Afficans were further subdivided by ethnicity (i.e., Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Venda, Tswana, etc.). With the 1951 Bantu Authorities Act, government appointed chiefs became the administrative arms of the state in the reserves, and by 1959 with the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act, the “homeland” or bantustan policy of the apartheid state was launched. Eight African political units with territorial bases, structured in the discourse of “nation,” were proclaimed. Intended to provide a political home for ethnicized Africans, the bantustan system rather enabled the material aggrandizement of political leaders that collaborated with the apartheid state while leaving the majority in destitution (Maylam, 2001, pp. 180-181). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. alongside the expansiveness and generosity of ubuntu. The real beauty of the country and its people coexists with brutalizing stories of separatist and everyday violence. In a local context where difference has been constituted through racialized discourses, legalities, and institutions for over 150 years and redistribution through institutionalized affirmative action necessary to address unconscionable inequalities of income, opportunity, and outcome, an unavoidable effect is that one is continually marked and marking others as “African,” “Indian,” “White,” or “Coloured.” It is ironic that as a person bom in New Delhi but raised in immigrant New York, with regular family visits to India and England, it was in Durban that I felt most “Indian.” Socially marked in everyday encounters and interchanges by pre-existing definitions and histories of Indianness in Durban, I often felt the force of history pressing heavily on the present. Racially polarized, Durban’s colonial and apartheid past perforates the present in the everyday language and ethos of its residents. It lives through the banal but potent resistance of its inherited institutions, the still segregated socio-spatial worlds and disparate life-chances of its racialized communities, and the visible effects of a labor market historically segmented by race and gender. And at times, Durban still feels like an old English colonial outpost caught in a tropical time warp of domination and desire. In fact, the first place I found myself after flying into Durban in June of 2000 surprised me in its nostalgic re-creation of colonial India in the coastal heart of the Kingdom of the Zulu. Expecting the Holiday Inn of the Durban beachfront to be 75 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. predictably bland, I found instead an invocation of British colonial mystique with “Indian” waiters turbaned and studded in Eastern exotica, ready to serve the imaginations of locals and tourists alike. Gone may be the days of the English Raj, but moments of simulated remembrance were certainly possible! For historically in colonial and post-colonial Natal, British settlers and their descendants were far more comfortable with “coolie” servants than merchants of Indian descent long viewed as a dangerous source of economic competition and a threat to White economic hegemony and trading interests. At the same time, the introduction of indentured labor into the colony of Natal in 1860 was a matter of serious contention and conflict between new White settlers on the one hand and the interests of plantation owners and metropolitan capital on the other. Significantly before the first ship of indentured laborers from Madras even arrived, “Indians” were already constituted as alien within a colonial political economy of race. In his history of Natal, Bulpin (1953), for example, renders the following about the arrival of the first shipload of laborers: Durban welcomed them half curiously, half fearful of such Asiatic bogeymen as cholera or plague. The Africans just stared at them, with surprise and some antagonism. They promptly named them abakwaMnanayi, from their nasal speech and smiled at their appearance, (p. 252) Bulpin then cites the Natal Mercury’s description of their arrival on November 16, 1860. They were a queer, comical, foreign-looking, very Oriental like crowd. The men with their huge muslin turbans, bare, 76 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. scraggy shin-bones, and coloured garments; the women with their flashing eyes, long, disheveled, pitch hair, with their half covered, well-formed figures, and their keen inquisitive glances; the children with their meager, intelligent, cute, and humourous countenances mounted on bodies of unconscionable fragility, were all evidently beings of a different race and kind from any we have yet seen either in Africa or England, (p. 252) The discursive Othering of “Asiatics” and “Orientals” as alien, strangely threatening, and racially distinct based upon “queer” phenotypic characteristics vis-a-vis “Europeans” and “Africans” is clearly articulated in both excerpts. Moreover, the association of “Asiatics” with disease would be a resilient theme throughout the latter three decades of the 19th century. Swanson (1976), for example, illuminates how beginning in the 1870s colonial hysteria over Indian presence in Durban surged toward a fevered pitch, associating immigration with epidemic disease and culminating in the “Asiatic invasion” crises of 1897 when White mobs in Durban prevented the landing of two ships from India, assaulting Mohandas Gandhi in the process. Suggesting that the racialization of Indians as an active alien menace was central to feeding public alarm and racism, Swanson also makes the point that this racial typology unfolded within a context of severe commercial depression as well as imminent self-governance for Natal, a time of both economic distress and political change. Indeed, this appears to be a recurring pattern in anti-Indian sentiment in South Africa that at times of political uncertainty and economic hardship, those defined as “alien” signify an active threat. 77 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Historically constituted as a “problem,” the question of what to do with “Indians” has loomed large in the variously raced political imaginaries of South Africa. Prior to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, each of the colonies (English Natal and Cape) and republics (Boer Transvaal and Orange Free State) had enacted their own legislation to keep people of Indian descent out through restrictive immigration laws as well as other coercive measures of population and labor control. The Orange Free State was most vociferous and unequivocal with a closed-door policy. In 1891, the Boers shut down all Indian business and deported owners and residents without compensation, and as late as 1986, South Africans of Indian origins were by law prohibited from settling in the province.5 1 The net effect of restrictions on immigration and inter-provincial movement has over time been the historic concentration of Indians, particularly those of indentured backgrounds and families in Natal. Those who were able to migrate and settle in the Transvaal before the full onslaught of restrictions were largely traders and overwhelmingly involved in the commercial sector (Ginwala, 1985, p. 7). Importantly, the restrictions to Natal 5 1 The most famous restrictive legislation, Law 17 of the Colony of Natal (1895), imposed a three pound tax on the ex-indentured. The purpose was to force laborers back into indenture, which exempted them from paying the tax, or to force return to India upon completion of their “contracts.” The coercive injustice of this tax led to a mass strike by more than 20,000 Indian workers in Natal in 1913. Although it was Mohandas Gandhi that led the call to action, prior to the mass strike there was little coordination between the merchant dominated politics of the Natal Indian Congress and conditions and interests of the indentured and ex-indentured (Beall & North-Coombes, 1983; Swan, 1984). Other early restrictive legislation includes the Immigration Restriction Act in Natal (1897), the Immigration Act of Cape Colony (1906) and the Transvaal Immigration Restriction Act (1907). All imposed, among other things, an educational means test. These acts are a small sample of the labyrinthine and extensive legislation passed to control and administer an unwanted population. 78 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. meant that people of Indian descent coming out of an indenture did not have the option of seeking employment opportunities outside of the region. The last shipment of indentured laborers arrived in Natal soon after unification, in 1911. In 1913, the Union Immigration Regulation Act was passed, making literacy in a European language compulsory for all new immigrants throughout South Africa. Although the Act did not particular reference race, it was intended to restrict Asian immigration and its effects were nonetheless racialized (Bhana & Brain, 1990, pp. 156-157). Simultaneously the government continued to offer incentives for the ex-indentured to repatriate, intensifying its campaign in 1925 when the Asiatic Bill presented by D. F. Mala., then Minister of Home Affairs was passed (Ebr.-Vally, 2001, p. 83). Significantly this was during a historical period when the existence of “poor whites,” largely Afrikaners, was of increasing concern to the South African government (cf. Morrell, 1992). Defining India as the homeland of South African Indians, the Asiatic Bill in conjunction with the unsuccessful Class Areas Bill and the Areas Reservation Bill of the 1920s aimed at segregating Indians into separate areas, fueled tension between the Union and British Indian governments. While the Cape Town Agreement of 1927 would temper the vehemence of repatriation as a national strategy changing the public discourse to “assisted emigration” and including a policy of “upliftment” for Indians remaining in South Africa, it was only in 1955 that the policy preference of returning “Indians” to India was abandoned. 79 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The 1940s, in Natal and the Transvaal particularly, were marked by an intensification of anti-Indian sentiment. Based upon exaggerated claims of “Indian penetration” and property ownership in White areas, one of the central issues of the 1940s was related to the compulsory residential segregation of Indians. Until the early 1920s, there were no legal restrictions on the ownership and occupation of land by Indians in Durban. When the Durban Land Alienation Ordinance, however, was passed in 1922, it introduced an “alienation” clause in the transference of title deeds on city owned property, delimiting ownership by race (Maharaj, 1995, p. 34). The racialized exclusion of Indians from the purchase of city property to build homes combined with a shortage of suitable formal housing with civic amenities for the commercial and professional middle class meant that the higher income began moving into “White areas” as White residents began to move out of the city’s core. Moreover, in 1932 the Transvaal Land Tenure Asiatic Act and its subsequent amendments legalized the residential segregation of Indians in the Transvaal, placing tighter controls on property acquisition (Meer, 1969, p. 47). With comparatively fewer restrictions on the occupation and acquisition of land in Natal, those unable to purchase property in the Transvaal, began to do so in Natal, particularly in Durban. In 1939, this pattern of Indian land acquisition began to be framed in the language of “Indian penetration” and in 1940 the Government appointed a Commission to investigate the salience of increased Indian land ownership and occupation. 80 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The First Penetration Commission arrived at two important conclusions: First die main reason for the acquisition of property was a desire for investment among wealthier Indians, with 70% of the Indian owned properties being unoccupied; Second, that the allegations with regard to penetration were exaggerated, bearing little objective validity. The Durban City Council and electorate dissatisfied with this conclusion clamored for the appointment of a Second Penetration Commission, which focused primarily on a given section of the Old Borough of Durban, Block AL, within a three-year framework (1940-1943). While the pattern in property acquisition in Block AL was largely unrepresentative for the city as a whole, middle class people of Indian descent had indeed purchased a number of properties in the area. The report of the Second Penetration Commission was followed by public calls for legalized restrictions on Indian land ownership (Maharaj, 1995, pp. 35-36). In 1943, the Trading and Occupation of Land Act, also known as the Pegging Act was thereafter passed, freezing the transfer of property from Whites to Indians in the City of Durban for three years. Both the Durban City Council and White civic groups were vigorous in their support for the Act, arguing that without controlling Indian land ownership, White political and economic hegemony would be seriously undermined (Maharaj, 1995, p. 37). The demonstration of economic power and class privilege evinced in the Indian acquisition of property, however limited and unrepresentative of the larger population, was nonetheless considered a real threat to White racial privilege. Through a synecdochic logic, part came to signify whole. 81 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1946, the Asiatic Land Tenure Act was passed, limiting the purchase and occupation of property by people of Indian descent to scheduled or controlled areas while simultaneously granting them communal representation. With greater constraints and controls compared with previous legislation, it was widely rejected by the Indian community and dubbed the “Ghetto Act.” It had the effect of mobilizing a two-year NIC passive resistance campaign (1946-1948) as well as the intervention of the Indian government that brought to world attention through the United Nations the unjust treatment of South African Indians as a violation of human rights. It was within this context, in part, of White agitation over the visible propertied wealth of an Indian minority that the National Party ascended politically on a discourse of separate development. Indeed, the National Party played upon both anti-Indian and anti- African fears, reviving calls for Indian repatriation, and using slogans of “swart gevaar” or black peril to unify White constituencies under conditions of rapid urbanization (Trapido & Mark, 1987, p. 20; Ginwala, 1985, p. 6). It was only in 1961, after a hundred years of presence on South African soil that people of Indian descent were legally recognized as a permanent population rather than alien, inassimilable, and unwanted, although in the court of popular opinion these currents still remained. Significantly this shift reflected the National Party government’s efforts to present a humane face to the world in its policy of separate development, especially after the Indian government brought the South African government international reproach at the United Nations (Ginwala, 1985, 82 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. p. 8). While in the early 1960s the National Party government established the Department of Indian Affairs and the South African Indian Council manned by conservative voices of Indian heritage and in the early 1980s attempted to co-opt both Indians and Coloureds into a tricameral system of government excluding Africans, these attempts created the illusion of political power, a thin veil for a politic of patronage. Importantly, it was only in 1994 with the democratic elections throughout South Africa, that people of Indian origin began the transition from being a voteless, racialized minority to racialized minority with the power of the vote. Anti-Indianism in South Africa however has not been limited to White racism. The resilient racial construction of “Indians” as a non-indigenous, exploitative mercantile elite has shaped the racialized imaginations of all South Africans, despite the fact that until the recent past, a large majority of South African Indians have been low income and working class, and by 1960, nearly 95% of South African Indians were locally bom (Brijlal, 1989, p. 27). While the politics of the Indian mercantile class, which historically has been conservative, racially exclusive and consumed primarily with securing its trade and property interests in the face of White racism and 83 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. threat, have fed this stereotype,5 2 it is also the structural position of South African Indians as an “in-between” racialized group, albeit fragmented by economic, religious, and ethnic diversity, that has made them particularly vulnerable to racially motivated violation from both above and below.5 3 Although prior to the apartheid years, it would be difficult to characterize Durban Indians as an in-between racialized community in economic terms given high rates of poverty, unemployment, and disease, their differential incorporation within a 5 2 It was only in 1945 when a vanguard of radical Natal Indian activists usurped the reins of leadership in the Natal Indian Congress that progressive Indian voices advocating solidarity with Africans emerged in the public sphere culminating in the Doctor’s Pact of 1947. This was followed by a period of cross-racial organizing, before the intensification of political repression in the 1960s. While the more politically conservative segments of the Indian community were incorporated into the leadership structures of the apartheid government’s South African Indian Council and later Local Affairs Committee, the Natal Indian Congress during the apartheid years actively opposed any collaboration with the apartheid government and was largely an ANC underground in the anti apartheid struggle. In 1960, the ANC and the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) were banned as political organizations. In contrast, the NIC was not banned, although many of its leaders were detained, under house arrest, and imprisoned. 5 3 Some might invoke middleman minority theory—a universalist, ethnicity-based construct of race relations—to explicate this structural vulnerability. Middleman minorities are defined by the economic role they play as intermediaries between elites and masses, as traders, brokers, and money lenders, for example, in societies characterized by a status gap. Edna Bonanich (1973), the best known of middleman theorists has emphasized middleman minorities as “immigrants” and sojourners whose thrift and liquidity of capital is directed towards returning to homelands of origin. Bonanich argues that the hostility middleman minorities engender is related to their “sojourner status,” limited lasting relationships with the “surrounding host society,” and great economic power (pp. 585-592). Middleman minority can be and has been critiqued from various vantage points for reasons such as taken-for-granted assumptions of ethnic solidarity, cultural distinctiveness, and wealth at the expense of internal division, diversity, and class stratification (cf. Min, 1996, pp. 18- 24; Yoon, 1997, pp. 29-35). It also traffics in problematic constructs of “host” and “alien” or “sojourner” that leave unexamined the racializing practices of given states, especially relating to immigrant regulations, that construct categories of “alien” and “native.” Finally, the static structuralism of middleman minority theory evades questions of historical specificity and context, for example, why at particular political junctures and in particular places, hostility against given minoritized communities become amplified. Stryker (1974), for one, emphasizes the significance of “emergent nationalism.” I find middleman minority theory conceptually limited for all of the above reasons. 84 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. political economy of colonial racism, subjected people of Indian descent to different constraints. Unlike Africans whose rights to land were principally limited to the “native reserves,”5 4 people of Indian origins were able to own land in urban areas, albeit with increasing restrictions, especially from 1940s onwards. Moreover, South African Indians were exempt from the pass laws and unlike Africans, could register with trade unions (Ginwala, 1985, p. 9). Although subject to racial discrimination, structurally as a racialized group, people of Indian descent have occupied positions of comparative privilege vis-a-vis Africans, particularly from the 1970s onward. These structural disparities have had contradictory effects, giving partial credence to associations of Indianness with privilege. In addition, borrowing from Mamdani (2001), the enduring racial construction of Indians as both alien and privileged relates in part to politicized colonial polarities of “settler” and “native” animated by state practices within a framework of rights and entitlements, particularly vis-a-vis land. African-Indian Conflict Setting aside the everyday politics of race, there have been two well- documented instances of African-Indian conflict in South Africa. Both unfolded during the apartheid years in Durban, in areas of mixed African and Indian residence 5 4 The 1913 Land Act prevented Africans from purchasing land in White rural areas while the 1923 Urban Areas Act prohibited Africans both from acquiring freehold land in municipal townships and also restricted the rights of Africans to enter urban areas. However, it was only in 1937 that Africans were specifically denied the right to buy land in urban areas beyond the reserves, meaning that prior to 1937, that there was some scope for African land ownership (Maylam, 1996, p. 9). 85 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. during times of political uncertainty and unrest as conflicts over urban space, land, and resources catapulted into physical violence, the destruction of homes and businesses, as well as the dispossession of land. In both cases, the perpetrators were primarily outsiders rather than residents of the areas and members of an aspiring African entrepreneurial class were positioned to gain from the wreckage. The 1949 Durban “Riots” were particularly directed at people of Indian descent and hold enduring significance in the collective popular memory of Durban Indians, especially the older generation, crystallizing for many fears of African violence under majority rule. The 1985 Inanda attacks against Indians, reaffirming these fears, however unfolded within a broader context of youth led political demonstrations over the assassination of Victoria Mxenge, a prominent UDF (United Democratic Front) lawyer and activist. Protests that began in the African townships of Durban later turned into socioeconomic riots, taking distinctly racial undertones in Inanda (Sitas, 1986). Most analysts of the 1949 violence have underscored the structural, material, and political conditions that enabled the violence to unfold and in a sense predetermined its expression (Webb & Kirkwood, 1949; Moodley, 1980; Thiara, 1999; Webster, 2000). Unfolding against the political backdrop of a National Party victory, with ministers and political officials having made blatantly anti-Indian statements, threatening repatriation as part of their election campaign, there was also at a local level, among Durban Whites, a groundswell of anti-Indian hostility, directed 86 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. particularly against the Indian minority able to buy properties in predominantly White residential areas (Thiara, 1999, pp. 167-168; Webster, 2000, p. 15).5 5 While the contributing factors are complex and compounded, structural inequalities in terms of ownership and access to urban resources, principally land, retail trade, bus licenses, and employment were the primary pressure points with Indians widely seen by Africans as getting preferential treatment. Under conditions of rapid African urbanization in the 1940s accompanied by a lack of housing in Durban for the urbanizing, many African residents began to settle in Cato Manor building shack settlements on land owned and once tilled by small Indian farmers who settled there after indenture. Within the context of a housing shortage, renting land to African newcomers became a more lucrative source of income for both Indian landowners and in the 1940s, a small group of wealthy African shack lords, that formed a sub-rentier class (Maylam, 1996, pp. 9-20). Moreover, people of Indian descent dominated both the retail trade and bus routes that serviced the African market, with allegations of 5 5 The instigating event took place outside the Indian market on Victoria Street on January 13, 1949 in Durban’s CBD and involved a young African boy being assaulted by an Indian shopkeeper, after which the child’s head “accidentally” went through the glass of a shop window (Webb & Kirkwood, 1949, p. 1). Observed by Indian and African commuters waiting at a crowded bus rank at the end of a workday, the incident sparked three days of violent attack against Indian persons, homes, business, and buses. Most of the destruction unfolded in the racially mixed area of Cato Manor, affecting the poorest members of the Indian population, displacing an estimated 25,000 people. Officially, the violence led to 142 deaths, 1087 injuries, the destruction of 247 houses, 58 stores, 1 school, and 1 factory as well as damage to 1285 houses, 652 stores, and 2 factories. The majority of those that died (87) were African, principally through police action (Moodley, 1980, p. 231). 87 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. price inflation within a postwar context of static wages and increasing cost of living, taking a distinctly racial tone (Webster, 2000, pp. 10-11).5 6 Within a context of widespread poverty and unemployment, it was in shops, on buses and as landlords, the main zones for interactions between Indians and Africans, that people of Indian descent occupied structurally advantageous position vis-a-vis Africans. Under conditions of scarcity and despite the poverty most people of Indian descent lived under, the “Indian” came to represent the obstacle to “African” advancement, particularly for an aspiring African trading and entrepreneurial class that was quick to fill the vacancy created by Indian traders fleeing the violence in Cato Manor. Indeed Edwards (1996) writes of the rise to power in the late 1940s of Zulu Hlanganani, a Cato Manor association led by shack lords, traders, herbalists, and Zionist preachers, which was both anti-Indian and fundamentalist Zulu (p. 107). Neither was the ANC leadership in Natal at the time, under A. W. G. Champion, a popular figure and prominent African trader, more sympathetic to people of Indian descent. While at a national level, Alfred Xuma (ANC), Monty Naicker (NIC), and Yusuf Daidoo (TIC) had signed the well-known “Doctor’s Pact” pledging non-racial cooperation among their respective organizations, in Natal the relationship between the NIC and Champion was marked by strain (Bhana, 1997, p. 81). Eager to promote business and trading interests 5 6 Moreover, Africans, unlike Indians, were denied access to hawking permits by the local state since residency was a requirement for applications. Africans, by law, were seen as temporary to the city rather than residents of the city. 88 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. among African people in Durban, Champion saw the dominance of Indian traders as a significant obstacle to the emergence of an African trading class.5 7 As Kuper (1965) illustrates, Champion was not unique in his beliefs as Durban African traders in the 1950s and 60s were largely anti-Indian and supportive of the homeland policy of separate development, to the extent that it enabled the emergence of an “African bourgeoisie.” Significantly, it was through homeland structures that African traders were able to command exclusive access to racially defined markets, with some growing both affluent and locally powerful (Sitas, 1986, pp. 89-90). Although different in tenor and political context, the 1985 violence in Inanda also reflects the aspirations of an African trading and entrepreneurial class, as well as the particular dynamics of housing, land ownership and government classification in the area (Meer, 1985; Sitas, 1986; Hughes, 1987). While on the one hand people of Indian descent in Inanda were caught in the political crossfire of UDF protest and IFP state-enabled crackdown, the particular politics of land, housing, and political incorporation shaped the unfolding of violence directed at Indians in the area. Of mixed African and Indian residence and ownership, Inanda was both, one of the few places where Africans could own freehold land as well as an area, like Cato Manor, where people of Indian descent had long histories of established settlement, following 5 7 Webster (2000) cites an excerpt of an interview he conducted with Champion in 1973 in reference to the 1949 riots. Champion defends the righteousness of the 1949 violence against Indians arguing they “deserved” the violence. “ They looked upon us as nothing except as a labourer and kaffir.... They had become too big for their boots. They were too proud. They were controlling all business” (note 18). Champion’s comments suggest that the violence was equalizing in context of disparity and that real and perceived assaults on identity and dignity also fueled the violence. 89 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. release from indenture. At the border of the then KwaZulu homeland, the land was privately rather than state-owned, but had been officially designated by the government, under the 1936 Land Act, to be “released” for incorporation into the neighboring reserve. The state however was slow to purchase the property from private landowners, many of Indian descent, and it was only the late 1970s as informal settlements in the area grew and the later drought and a typhoid epidemic swept the area, that the state began to actively pursue purchase of the land for incorporation into KwaZulu. Within the context of rapid urbanization between 1977 and 1986, informal settlements proliferated such that both Indian and African landowners became landlords to primarily African tenants under conditions of widespread poverty and unemployment. As the development plan for the area designated it as “African,” the removal of “Indians” was necessary. Yet while most Indian residents and landowners accepted removal they resisted its terms. On the one hand, for landowners the remuneration offered by State for the properties was significantly less than what alternate commercial or residential property in “Indian areas” would cost on the open market. Moreover, the State could not promise alternate housing for indigent Indian tenants who also would have to leave the “African” areas (Meer, 1985, pp. 151-152; Hughes, 1986, pp. 344-346). Faced with the resistance of Indian landowners and tenants alike, the state began to pursue policies forcing the evictions and removal of tenants on Indian owned 90 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. land. This fostered racialized divisions while simultaneously creating an opportunity for African entrepreneurs and shack lords in Inanda to exploit race for their own material advantage, playing upon stereotypes of Indians as exploitative. When the political unrest, violence, and looting in the wake of Mxenge’s murder had reached Inanda, it took a particularly racial tone with the looting and burning of specifically Indian owned properties, the stoning of vehicles as Indian residents fled, the destruction of the Phoenix Gandhi Settlement, and the instant creation of 2000 refugees. In the interests of the state and certain segments of an IFP aligned Zulu bourgeoisie, the violence in Inanda had the effect of the clearing the land of Indians, the majority of whom did not return. Political Place In the post-apartheid context, the “Indian problem” has both overtly and obliquely reemerged within public and political discourse. Before the first democratic elections were even held, there was the question of the “Indian vote,” and whether people of Indian descent would support the National Party (NP) or the African National Congress (ANC). Indeed, political analysts speculated, would “Indians” align themselves with their previous White oppressors, the National Party or rather embrace ANC black majority rule? The contradictory and complex positioning of the Indian community, both privileged and oppressed, by apartheid structures made and continue to make easy answers impossible. 91 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Herald on the cusp of South Africa’s first democratic elections spoke to this ambiguity and in particular addressed the power of perception, fear and memory in shaping concepts of citizenship. The community . . . has suffered doubly under apartheid. Blacks have seen Indians as privileged and for decades Whites have oppressed them. The fears are understandable: crime has soared, homes set aside for Indians have been taken by other groups, and there is still disquiet that Indians as a community are perceived to be successful in business. The memories of the Cato Manor Riots will not fade away.5 8 The 1994 “Indian vote” proved to be a serious disappointment for the ANC, with the largest percentage of votes from working class Indian areas going to the National Party. Looking at voting patterns in the Indian township of Chatsworth, for example, Desai and Maharaj (1996) reveal that among residents who participated in the provincial elections 22% voted for the ANC, 44% for NP, and 19.4% for the Minority Front (MF).5 9 In national elections, 25% went to the ANC, 64% to the NP, and less than 2% to the MF (p. 120). While I find the fragmentation of the vote more telling and interesting than the sizable percentage commanded by the National Party, the association of the “Indian vote” with Whiteness, opposition, and past privilege became part of the dominant discourse. Mandela for one was quite vocal in his disappointment, setting the stage for future ANC leaders to criticize both “Indians” ssApril 10, 1994 (quoted in Desai & Maharaj, 1996, p. 120). 5 9 The Minority Front is an ethnic Indian party led by Amichand Rajbansi of Arena Park, Chatsworth. He is widely criticized by South African Indian progressives for collaborating with the apartheid regime through the South African Indian Council. 92 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and “Coloureds” for exercising their political voice. Indeed the message would appear to be that all South Africans now had the power to vote, but only for the ANC leadership. During the local December 2000 elections, President Thabo Mbeki, for example, associated South African Indians not voting for the ANC with racism6 0 and ANC Chairman for KwaZulu-Natal, S’buNdebele, made questionable remarks after the local ANC branches failed to win a majority for the Durban municipality. To all the Africans, Coloureds and Indians who voted Democratic Alliance, be warned there’s going to be consequences for not voting for the African National Congress. When it comes to service delivery, we will start with the people who voted for us and you will be last.6 1 Such verbal strategies of intimidation do not bode well for racialized relations or principles of democracy in South Africa. Indeed, given a history of political violence between the ANC and the IFP, elections in KwaZulu-Natal are always contentious, and give greater credence to antipathy and racial populism on the ground. Prior to the 1999 national elections, for example, racist pamphlets were anonymously circulated around Durban. “This is an important message to our Indian brothers and sisters. We forgave you in 1994 and 1995 when you chose the white devils but we will not be that forgiving on June 2.”6 2 “ You are Wrong Mr. President, Sunday Times KZN, 3 December 2000. 6 1 Parties Ready to Deal, Daily News, 7 December 2000. 6 2 IEC Investigates Racism in KZN, Sunday Times, 1 June 1999. 93 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. That an editor of the Hanga6 3 had in the same year written an editorial calling for a local Idi Amin to settle the Indian problem in the region is part of this continuum of racial scapegoating. Although but a small percentage of the country’s population, the concentration of South Africans of Indian descent in KwaZulu-Natal and in Durban moreover gives the “Indian vote” particular significance, especially given the contest for political power between the IFP and the ANC at the provincial level, as well as the ANC and Democratic Alliance within the Durban municipality. For the ANC, the “Indian vote” in an IFP dominated province is desirable not only for practical politicking, but also within the rainbow imaginary of South Africa. For while the IFP holds a bare majority at the provincial level, the ANC, at the municipal level, has the strongest showing of all political parties, but has only been able to achieve a majority through coalition politics, ironically, -with the Minority Front. Capturing the “Indian vote” then has important strategic effects for the city and the province. It also suggests that politically the “Indian vote” is caught in between larger political struggles in the province. Importantly, however, as suggested above, “the Indian vote” is part truth, part fiction. With a significant percentage in the 1994 elections opting for an apartheid party in post-apartheid South Africa, the statement is one of conservatism. Still 6 3 Inkatha-aligned, the Ilanga is the most widely distributed and best-known Zulu language newspaper circulating in KwaZulu-Natal. 94 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without judging its moral import, its meaning may be more nuanced than superficial. Habib and Naidu (1999), for example, have argued against the concept of racialized voting blocks vis-a-vis Indian and Coloured communities. They contend instead that within each community electoral behavior is more shaped by class differences, with the middle class largely voting for the ANC and the working class and poor voting veering toward “White” parties (i.e., DA or NNP). With the simultaneous application of affirmative action and GEAR, the Indian, Coloured, and African working class, they argue, are pitted against one another to compete for declining economic and employment opportunities. A vote for the DP or the NNP, therefore, is a defense against the potential or real loss of livelihoods and living standards (p. 195). An argument with many merits, it is yet simply one important piece to the puzzle. While the ANC does have greater support among the Indian middle class better positioned to benefit from the government’s affirmative action policies,6 4 at the same time the Habib and Naidu’s exclusive emphasis on economic conditions fails to consider how macro-racial discourses and racialized fears of domination are also important contributive factors. The common complaint among South Africans of M The Employment Equity Act (EEA) of 1998 lays the foundation for the implementation of affirmative action in the workplace. As means of redress to assist groups “previously disadvantaged,” it obliges “designated employers” to both monitor their workforces according to apartheid racial classifications and to draft employment equity plans to rectify imbalances. The Act seeks to eliminate discrimination and accelerate the advancement of specific groups—namely “black people,” women, and the disabled. “Black” is defined broadly to include Africans, Indians, and Coloureds. In the workplace employers are expected to meet representational proportions across racialized groups (Adam, 2000, pp. 95-101). In a context of an unskilled labor surplus and skilled labor shortages, educated middle class people of color are best positioned to benefit from affirmative action policies in South Africa. 95 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Indian descent of feeling “sandwiched” and “stuck in the middle” as the “butter in- between” is not a class specific sentiment, although it does have material reference points, particularly vis-a-vis employment. The “Indian vote” is fragmented, it does lack cohesion, but to simply map class and political affiliation is also reductive, especially within the historical framework of racialized difference, black populist discourses, and a growing sense of political disillusion across class divisions. Moreover the political furor over the “Indian vote” speaks at another level to questions of nationhood and belonging and begs the question of whether one must vote for “Black parties” to belong? AmaNdiya In May o f2002, African-Indian tensions flared in Durban. Internationally famed South African lyricist and playwright Mbongeni Ngema had just released his new album Jive MaDlokovu and his concluding song was arousing intense public emotion and debate. “AmaNdiya,” (translated “The Indians”) narrated the hardships of poverty suffered by Africans in Durban, implicitly Zulus, laying the blame squarely at the feet of exploitative “Indians,” and berating African leaders unwilling to stand up against them. Sung in Zulu, Ngema prefaces the song in English with the following justification: “This song represents the way many African people feel about the behavior of Indians in this country. It is intended to begin a constructive discussion 96 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that will lead to a true reconciliation between Indians and Africans.”6 5 The lyrics in the English translation follow. Oh men! Oh young men! A brave man is wanted to face the Indians. This matter is difficult and now needs to be reported to the men. Indians do not want to change, even. Mandela has failed to convince them. It was better with Whites because we knew we were fighting over something (power) And you leaders of the country, you don’t want to interfere in this matter You are buying roti and paku from these Indians6 6 Indians do not vote and when they do, They vote for Whites, But they criticize the parliament, they criticize the government. Wow! Buthelezi why are you silent when the people of (your) Ngqengelele, people of Mnyamana are being played by Indians, Zulus do not have money, and are squatting in shacks. They are the slaves of Indians. Where is Ndebele? Where is Prince Gideon Zulu? Wow! Your Majesty let Dabulamanzi wake up, shooop! I have never seen Dlamini moving his things to India, But there is Gumede in Durban, He has no place to sleep. 6 5 I would like to thank Crescentia Ntshangase and Beverly Muller at the Zulu department of the University o f Natal for their generous assistance. Crescentia Ntshangase transcribed the song and translated it from Zulu to English and Beverly Muller, my former Zulu instructor, gave generously of her time in discussing interpretation. I have also relied upon the translation issued by the South African Broadcasting Complaints Commission in its consideration of whether the airing of the song within the context of a Khozi FM current affairs program amounted to hate speech against Indians. See Case No: 2002/31 SABC—“Ngema Song” Human Rights Commission of South Africa vs. SABC (Ukhozi FM). Any errors of translation are mine. 6 6 The word here used for Indians is “omnanayi.” Derogatory and offensive in nature, it is similar to calling an African person “kaffir” in South Africa. 97 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. We are so poor in Durban because everything was taken by the Indians. Who turn around and suppress our people. Mkhize has also started his business in West Street, The Indians closed his business and said there is no place to rent. Indian shops are full of our people everyday, They stopped Mkhize and said there is no place to rent And you Mbeki and them, why are you so quiet as Indians are playing the fool with us. [In Fanakalo] You do not want to listen, I tell you that all your people, all the Blacks buy from Indians’ shops.6 7 When we returned to Clairwood in Durban, Phoenix, and Montclair All the people are buying from Indians, But Indians do not even like to build schools for Blacks. I have never seen Dlamini moving from his house to Bombay in India, But Indians arrive everyday at Durban, frill at the airport.6 8 6 7 Fanakalo is a pidgin Zulu with English and Afrikaans elements. Often associated with relations of domination, particularly on the mines, its use here is in mocking reference to South African Indians who speak Fanakalo, usually without any attention to tense or subject-verb conjugation., and generally for the purpose of issuing orders (i.e., to employees in shops or domestic workers). Having studied Zulu and gained great appreciation for its poetic complexity and lyricism, I myself wince when I hear Fanakalo. I can image what an affront it can be to mother tongue Zulu speakers. “ The Zulu original reads: Iyo Madoda bo! Iyo Zinsizwa zakithi bo! Kufunek’ indod’ enesibindi ezoqondana namaNdiya Ibukhuni lendaba isifun’ ukubikelw’ amadoda AmaNdiya awafun’ ukushintsha, asehlule noMandela Kwakungcono abelungu sasazi ukuthi yimpi yombango Nani baphathi bezwe anifuni ukuyingena lendaba, Nanitheng’ uloti nopaku kubo lab’ omnanayi AmaNdiya awavoti um’ evota avotel’ abelungu, Kodw’ agxek’ iphalamende, agxek’ uhulumeni. Hawu! kodwa Buthelezi uthul’ uthini abantwana bakaNgqengelele bakaMnyamana bedlaP amaNdiya, Umzulu akanamali uhlala emikhukhwini, bayizincelebana zamaNdiya, Baph’ oNdebele, baph’ omntwana’uGideon Zulu, Hawu Ndabezitha akavuk’ uDabulamanzi (continued...) 98 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Given the incendiary lyrics of the song (despite stated intentions) and its distorted, homogenizing claims, it can hardly surprise us that the public outburst and debates that followed were polarizing. While one could deconstruct and debate its truth claims, what is more significant is its popular resonance and effects. Initially and on the ground, as a strategy of reconciliation, the song was a failure and rather fomented acts of racism from both racialized communities. At a five kilometer Chatsworth relay, for example, after a team of African athletes won the race, they celebrated with song and were assaulted by a group of Indian men, one with a gun, (...continued) Shoop! Angizange ngimbon’ uDlamini ethuthel’ okwakh’ eNdiya, Kodwa nangu uGumede eThekwini akanandawo yokulala Sihlupheka kanjena njen’ eThekwini, Zonk’ izinto zathathwa ngamaNdiya, Kodwa ajika avutha acinjdezela abantu bakithi, UMkhize uyaqala ukuvul’ ibhizinisi ku-West Street, AmaNdiya amvalela indawo, ath’ ayikho indawo yokurenta. Namp’ abantu bakithi begcwele izitolo zamaNdiya nsuku zonke, Amvalil’ uMkhize ath’ ayikh’ indawo yokurenta Kodwa nani Mbheki nithule nithini sidlal’ amaNdiya Iyo zinsizwa zakithi bo! Iyo madoda bo! Ayifuna lalela loskathi mina tshela wena phika lo bantu lomali zonke lomuntu omnyama thenga lapha duze kalostolo saloma-Indiya Sithe sesiphind’ eClairwood eThekwini, ePhoenix, eMontclair Bonk’ abantu bathenga emaNdiyeni Kodwa amaNdiya awafuni ngisho nesikole sabantu abamnyama. Angizange ngimbon’ uDlamini ethuthuzele’ kwakhe elibhekise eBombay eNdiya, Kodwa amaNdiya afika nsuku zonk’ eThekwini egcwel’ I-airport. Iyo zinsizwa zakithi bo! Iyo madoda bo! 99 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. who incorrectly assumed the song being sung was Ngema’s.6 9 On the day of court proceedings when Ramesh Jethalal sought a court order preventing Ngema and its distributor, from marketing and selling the song on the grounds that it incited race hatred, more than two hundred Ngema supporters sang “AmaNdiya” outside the Durban High Court and also attacked a journalist and photographer, both of Indian descent.7 0 A top IFP organizer, Reverend Alex Fakude, moreover made inflammatory statements about South Africans Indians after three young Indian males allegedly tried to steal money from him. We have good Indians as brothers, but 90% of Africans support that song by Ngema.. . . There have been threats that they want to drive the Indians here south of the Tugela. I’m not interested in that but Indians have taken employment from Africans and they breed like flies. The day Africans revolt, there will be a bloodbath. Although the IFP leadership, namely its president, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and national spokesman strongly criticized Fakude’s remarks and statement, the power of the song to motivate such unfiltered racism was not unique.7 1 With the song quickly pulled from the airwaves by the SABC, Ngema defended his right as an artist to give voice to the sentiments in the song, invoking free speech and arguing that it was about “African people who gather at taxi and bus ranks, shebeens, soccer matches and many other places and discuss their anger at the 6 9 Athletes Run Into Trouble Over Ngema Song, Sunday Times, June 9, 2002. 7 0 Ngema Claims Victory, Sunday Times, 30 June 2002. 7lIFP Slams Anti-Indian Statement, Natal Witness, 9 July 2002. 100 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. way South African Indians treat African people.”7 2 He even claimed divine inspiration for the lyrics as do izimbongi or Zulu praise singers. “How can I apologize to God? Who am I to betray the God of African song who gave me those words?”7 3 Indeed, few African voices emerged in the written press to contest the veracity of emotion expressed in Ngema’s song or that relations between Indians and Africans in South Africa were severely strained. An llanga editorial underscored this point, calling for government intervention and the establishment of an investigative commission. “Unless it is tackled while small, there is not a single doubt that the big noise caused by AmaNdiya, can end up like wild fire burning half the country, especially where black people and Indians live.”7 4 The controversy received considerable press coverage. The song was a subject of discussion on talk radio, television, and even circulated in the international print media. Early on, former president Nelson Mandela personally intervened and asked Ngema to apologize, pointing to the contributions of South African Indians in the struggle against apartheid. Many political and business elites as well as the South African Human Rights Commission and ID ASA (the Institute for a Democratic South Africa) joined the fray. Prominent (and affluent) Durban businessman and political 7 2 Anti-Indian Song Withdrawn, Sunday Tribune and Herald, 26 May 2002. 7 3 Ngema: Words for AmaNdiya “Came from God,” Natal Witness, 27 July 2002. 7 4 Mawubhulwe ngokushesha lo mlilo ungakabhebhetheki,” llanga, 6 June 2002. The Zulu original of the quote above reads, “Akukho nokuncane manje ukungabaza ukuthi umsindo omkhulu oqutshulwe yingoma kaMbongeni Ngema esihloko sithi AmaNdiya, ungase ugcine ubhebhethekise okomlilo wequbula ongashisa izingxenye eziningi zaleli zwe, ikakhulukazi lappho kukhona abaMnyama namaNdiya, uma ungabhulwa usalokoza nje.” 101 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. leaders, both Indian and African, in a spirit of non-racialism joined together to propose a summit on Indo-African relations.7 5 Ngema, in response, launched the “Ingobamakhosi Forum,” an African lobby group meant to promote the interests of “indigenous people,” with “Ingobamakhosi” referencing a famous Zulu regiment that was critical in defeating the British during the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. The forum called for its own summit in conjunction with ID ASA and Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, criticizing Vivian Reddy, a prominent Durban Indian businessman for using his economic clout to call for a summit.7 6 Despite such blatant posturing for political capital, the two groups later agreed to join forces in convening “The KwaZulu Natal Dialogue Initiative” which was held at the end of July 2002.7 7 While select members of the Durban Indian elite were present at the Symposium, as were African leaders and community groups, the lack of working class and civic group representation from the Indian community was a noticeable gap and in some instances deliberate strategy of boycott.7 8 Various newspaper accounts of the initiative underscored the presence of Indian and African political and business elites hobnobbing and networking on the first day, with a smaller congregation of community voices, primarily African, airing grievances and suggesting strategies on 7 S Business Bid to End Race Row, Sunday Times, 23 June 2002. 7 6 Now Ngema Starts African Lobby Group, Sunday Times, 30 June 2002. ’’Reddy and Ngema Join Forces to Fight Racism, Sunday Times, 14 July 2002. ’“ Indo-African Summits “Waste of Time,” Sunday Times, 21 July 2002; Where Were the Workers? Sunday Tribune, 28 July 2002. 102 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the second.7 9 Indeed, while the song had the effect of unifying African constituencies, particularly Zulu speakers, across class divisions, it had the inverse effect among people of Indian descent, magnifying divisions “within.” While it brought out well-to- do and middle class South African Indian elites (i.e., Vivian Reddy, Ashwin Trikamjee, and Saths Cooper) who have fared well under the post-apartheid dispensation, the presence and voices of the less fortunate, particularly the Indian working class and poor, were largely missing. While much attention was focused on the song as racist hate speech, a careful reading of the song’s narrative devices suggests another artful deployment, one of Zulu nationalist sentiment and masculine reclamation. With a clear demarcation of insiders and outsiders, Africans and Indians, it is a powerful reminder that nationalist discourse is often exclusionary and invariably gendered, invigorated by particular deployments of masculinity and femininity. Since the mid 1970s, the most successful ethnic mobilization in KwaZulu Natal, which threatened to derail the transition to democracy in the province in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has taken the form of an Inkatha-led, Zulu nationalism. Mare has written extensively on the recent history and significance of Zulu nationalism in the province and its conservative, precapitalist platform under the leadership of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, now Minister of Home Affairs, and a small, ambitious class of traders and professionals (Mare & Hamilton, 7 9 Building Bridges with Words, Natal Witness, 30 July 2002; Racial Tensions Under Scrutiny, Independent on Saturday, 27 July 2002. 103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1987; Mare, 1993). His work illustrates how Inkatha fashioned as a cultural liberation movement has in the past spoken powerfully both to the identity needs and material aspirations of its adherents, particularly the poor and marginalized (i.e., migrant workers, rural Zulu women), by marking insiders and outsiders through the construction of political enemies while simultaneously invoking a glorified military past and the masculine ideal of the Zulu warrior. Ngema’s invocation of manhood plays upon a similar motif. The song opens with a call to men. “Oh men! Oh young men! A brave man is wanted to face the Indians” Speaking to feelings of emasculation, it is a call to power, for someone to rise among “them,” for a “brave man” to stand up and come forth. Citing the failures of political leaders both ANC and IFP, particularly Mangosuthu Buthelezi, S’buNdebele, Prince Gideon Zulu, and Thabo Mbeki, the song charges them with silence and complicity, intimating they have been bought off. “You are buying roti and paku from these Indians.” Invoking ethnic tags, this rhetorical device of castigating “African” political leaders for allying with “Indians” plays on concepts of racialized identity, loyalty, and betrayal—that African leaders should first and foremost ally with Africans. The particular allusion to Buthelezi in the song is moreover a stinging critique of his leadership as Minister of Home Affairs. By invoking Buthelezi’s clan name, usually meant to signify the pride of lineage, for the purpose of political critique, Ngema argues that Buthelezi has in fact betrayed his own people. 104 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Wow! Buthelezi why are you so silent when the people of Ngqengelele, people of Mnyamana are being played by Indians. Zulus do not have money, and are squatting in shacks. They are the slaves of Indians. Where is Ndebele? Where is Prince Gideon Zulu? Wow! Your Majesty let Dabulamanzi wake up, shooop! In contrast to political leaders, Ngema holds up Dabulamanzi, son of Mpande and brother of Cetshwayo (Zulu kings), a military leader known for galvanizing Zulu men to launch an attack on the British at Rorke’s Drift during the Anglo-Zulu war. To move forward, the song suggests there is a need to return to a warrior tradition and a history of resistance against colonization. Ngema’s Ingobhamakhosi Forum likewise references a warrior history and militant past. Symbolically, the song is a call to war. The central mobilizing strategy of the song is to link masculinity, race/ethnicity, and class. The villain is held clearly in sight, typified and cast in the specter of an exploitative Indian merchant, implicitly male, a figure consistently summoned in South African nationalist history to justify expelling people of Indian descent. Counter posing wealth with scarcity, the song articulates an “us versus them” dichotomy. It represents as identity constituting process of boundary formation integral to ethnic and racial nationalisms. “Indian shops are full of our people [italics added] every day.” Within this context, place becomes a significant contested resource, with Durban, the jewel of the crown. The notion that there is “no place” to sleep or rent echoes throughout and the idea that all has been taken by “Indians” is moreover laced with a well-worn battle cry that people of Indian descent are foreign to South Africa. Indeed the song closes with a racialized merging of new 105 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. immigrants from South Asia and South African Indians settled for multiple generations in Natal. “I have never seen Dlamini moving from his house to Bombay in India. But Indians arrive every day at Durban, full at the airport.” Within this framework, the construction of the Indian trader as an active manipulative menace, a symbol layered with historic weight and meaning, is of strategic utility in associating South African Indianness more broadly with exploitative alien privilege. The reference to West Street and the closing of Mkhize’s shop suggests once again, similar to Cato Manor in 1949 and Inanda in 1985 that an African entrepreneurial class is seeking to secure its own interests and place in the city. “Mkhize has also started his business in West Street. The Indians closed his business and said there is no place to rent.” As a popular appeal to Zulu and African nationalism, the song speaks to a battered masculinity and palpable resentment over economic struggle. Indeed it raises provocative questions about place, gender and nationhood, namely who defines the nation and who has right to its resources? National discourses, be they inclusive or exclusive, make telling statements about belonging and entitlement. While the ANC officially embraces non-racialism, the post-apartheid state despite its emphasis on political equality, however is shaped by its historical inheritance and its efforts to address past imbalances through affirmative action and black economic empowerment in a context of growing class inequalities. One of the unavoidable effects of this tension however is to simultaneously unite and divide citizens through the language of race. 106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Knowing how race can polarize South Africans, Mandela in his tenure as president emphasized themes of unity, forgiveness and reconciliation, embracing a strategic “rainbow nation” multiracialism. While one could argue that Mandela’s stance was evasive, the conciliatory racial politics associated with Mandela has given way under the leadership of South Africa’s current president, Thabo Mbeki, to a noticeably more confrontational and Africanist racial politic. The shift under Mbeki away from rainbow nationalism toward a discourse of “Africanization” is not simply a matter of personality or individual leadership. In her critical reading of the ANC policy document, Nation-Formation and Nation Building, Filatova (1997) illustrates, how it reflects a subtle yet discernible policy shift toward “African hegemony in a multicultural context.” She suggests that African nationalism, among other things, is politically pregnant and unifying in a context whereby the government is actively cultivating a black middle class while focusing little attention on the struggles of the African proletariat. In this sense, invocations of a racialized nationalism work to elide or neutralize class divisions. Simultaneously widespread poverty, inequality, and economic struggle provide fertile conditions for ethnic populism to spread and thrive. Indeed, where the promises of non-racial citizenship fail to deliver both economically and politically, populist leaders will find seeds of discontent to water and group experiences of injustice upon which to mobilize. After two years of being in South Africa, I could not help but be perturbed by the release of the song. Over time my folders had grown thick with newspaper 107 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. clippings of racialized conflicts, insults, and allegations, as they played out in the city and while there were certainly stretches of calm, there were also sudden but steady outbursts of anti-Indianism and associations of Indianness with illegitimate privilege. While South Africans need to have frank discussions about race and the contradictory effects of both apartheid and post-apartheid policies, what often emerges in public discourse is reductive name-calling and racial mudslinging. In the rush to apportion blame, the complexities and contradictory effects of apartheid domination in shaping subjectivities and racialized identities fall by the wayside. 108 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III MODERNIZING RACE AND PLACE: CHATSWORTH AS AN “INDIAN” TOWNSHIP The apartheid years had radical effects on the re-configuration of urban space, transforming more informally segregated as well as racially mixed communities into distinctly racialized and formalized residential zones, particularly through the construction of townships and the implementation of the Group Areas Act (1950). Part of a modernizing discourse of race and place, the Group Areas Act was the cornerstone legislation that empowered compulsory residential segregation and the mass forced removals that would characterize apartheid of the 1950s and 60s, defining where groups and persons classified through the Population Registration Act (1950) could live or purchase property, business and residential. With the passage of the Group Areas Act, racial zoning, as the centerpiece of urban planning, emerged in Durban to dramatically alter the social, economic, and cultural lives of communities long settled. While the implementation of the Group Areas Act disproportionately displaced communities of color in apartheid South Africa, it also entailed increased resources for African, Indian, and Coloured housing (Lemon, 1991, p. 10). 109 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A powerful instrument of state intervention and control over property transactions through the discourse of race, the Group Areas Act displaced South Africans of Indian descent more than other racialized group, with one of four removed and resettled under the Act (Western, 1996, p. 81). With approximately 44% of the Indian population living in Durban in 1951 and in fact the largest of the city’s racialized groups at the time, the effects of displacement and resettlement have shaped the lives and family histories of many, if not most, Indian Durbanites.8 0 While it is hard to deny that the formulation and implementation of the Group Areas Act were not to a large extent shaped by the anti-Indian racism of the Durban City Council and its collusion with the National Party (Maharaj, 1992,1995). Mabin and Parnell (1995) have cautioned against an a priori or singular preoccupation with race, emphasizing the co-optation of postwar planning ideologies and modernist imaginings in the service of compulsory apartheid segregation. Looking at the formation of racially segregated townships in the apartheid era, they point instead to the “critical coincidence” of modernist planning principles that underscored the need for state intervention alongside the more racist clamoring for compulsory segregation in South Africa’s cities (pp. 54-55). The work of various scholars, examining the significance of European modernism for postwar urban planning and housing 8 0 According to the 1951 census, Durban population was 430,244. Of this, 34% were Indian, 32% were African, 30% were White, and 4% Coloured (Kuper et al., 1958, pp. 30, 51). Although there was significant popular resistance to the implementation of the Group Areas Act in Durban with political organizations such as the ANC, NIC, and NIO as well as Indian ratepayer associations playing active roles, African-Indian tensions as well as class differences among Durban Indians undermined its effectiveness (Southworth, 1991). 110 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. provision in South Africa as a precursor to the rise of the apartheid state, supports this contention. In his critical interpretation of the Social and Economic Planning Council’s (SEPC) Fifth Report on Regional and Town Planning 1944, Wilkinson (1996), for example, argues that township planning in the 1940s was powerfully shaped by a “discourse of modernity” that was international in orientation.8 1 Japha (1998) moreover illustrates how a dual emphasis on regionalism and the principle of the neighborhood unit drawing from international sources became the formal model for postwar housing and township development through the work of the National Housing and Planning Commission (NHPC) and associated administrative and research bodies. Justified through the discourse of scientific objectivity, the establishment of minimum standards of accommodation and space was of key importance to the NHPC and deemed necessary for the safeguarding of family life. The work of these scholars reminds us that the township landscapes of South Africa were to a large extent shaped, in both a material and imaginative sense, by contemporary international concerns and discourses with housing in urbanizing contexts. Moreover, these discourses of science and technocratic objectivity worked to legitimate planning ideas and implementation in the making of new places, persons, workers, and families. Thornton’s (1996) discussion of apartheid as a form of 8 1 Addressing how to manage a rapidly growing and urbanized non-European population, one o f the main arguments o f the report was that regulation and intervention by the state through spatial planning was necessary to offset the negative effects of economic modernization and urbanization. Although the recommendations of the report went largely unheeded by government officials in the immediate aftermath of its submission, Wilkinson (1996) proposes that the enduring legacy of the Council was in proposing a highly interventionist approach to the planning of space. I ll Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “rampant modernism” through the valorization of rational bureaucratic administration lends credence to the arguments that residential segregation, modernity, and narratives of progress were interwoven. In a sense, through the controlled planning of space and the regulation of race (and sexuality) would emerge the promises and fruits of modernity. It is within this context of forced removals, race zoning, and modem discourses of township development that Chatsworth, as the first large scale mass- produced, working-class township for South African Indians in Durban was bom. Although the Durban City Council made some effort to remove whole communities to given areas and units of Chatsworth,8 2 and many older residents of Chatsworth do speak of knowing their neighbors from previous community formations, Chatsworth fused smaller, dispersed, and established communities defined by everyday face-to- face interpersonal networks enlivened through place-based attachments with a grand- scale visual anonymity. It replaced informal ways of living at the edges, survival through the cobbling together of fishing and market gardening with the urban industrial economy and the clear intervention and hand of the State. Community-built temples, mosques, churches, community halls, and schools that took decades to construct as local Indian communities grew in size and scope were lost in the shuffle. Although not destroyed, removal to Chatsworth meant displacement from these 8 2 Such as Seine Netters from Bayhead to Unit 1 in Havenside and the Zanzibaris from King’s Rest to Unit 2 (Freund 1995: 74). 112 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. community sites and the family and social relationships that maintained and were expressed through them. With forced removals came a transformation in everyday life. Indian Durban Pre-Group Areas Act At the turn of the 20th century, Durban’s economy was largely driven by its harbor and positioning as a port city. With a small industrial base, the town was a central thoroughfare for trade and shipping, serving the interior of the country as its wealth of diamonds and gold was being mined and developed. Due to limited industrialization and a still emerging local system of administration, large expanses of land in Durban until the early 1930’s were thinly peopled and loosely administered. Prior to the expansion of the Borough’s boundaries in 1931, the city had a predominantly white core encircled by emerging and growing African and Indian informal settlements. Between 1911 and 1949, the number of Indians in Durban increased from 15,631 to 123,165, a nearly eightfold increase in less than forty years (Vahed, 1995, p. 10). The increasing availability of African labor to work on the coal mines, railways, and sugar estates during the inter-war years and the contraction of work opportunities in the rural areas drove a rapid urban migration of Indians in Natal, toward Durban. The most marked economic transformation was in agriculture on the sugar estates whereby the percentage of Indian labor dropped significantly from 88% in 1910 to 7% in 1945. The growing expense of housing a permanent labor force 113 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with large families made African migrant labor a more attractive alternative (Burrows, 1952, p. 11). The transition to city life, however, was not accompanied with economic prosperity. Although many workers were absorbed into manufacturing, 13,711 by 1949, due to the “civilized labor policy” meant to protect white workers from competition within a racially segmented market, Indians were concentrated in low- paying semiskilled and unskilled positions, earning incrementally more than Africans but substantially less than Whites (Freund, 1995, pp. 41-42; Vahed, 1997, p. 11).8 3 Moreover, during the depression years (1929-1932), the implementation of the civilized labor policy involved substituting White for African, Indian, and Coloured laborers, such that the economic brunt of the Depression fell on workers of color, particularly men (Berger, 1992, p. S9).8 4 Although the economy expanded after the Depression, according to a 1943/44 University of Natal report, 70.6% of Durban Indians in Durban were living below the poverty line with four out of ten experiencing 8 3 Arkin (1981) makes the point that the growth of manufacturing in the first two decades of the 20th century was in part intentionally stimulated by the Pact government to create work opportunities for the “poor whites” who had been displaced from agricultural work with the commercialization of farming. Nationally, the labor laws most pertinent to protecting white labor were the Apprenticeship Act (1922), the Industrial Conciliation Act (1924), the Wages Act (1925) and the Mines and Works Amendment Act (1926). The Apprenticeship Act made apprenticeship a requirement for most skilled trades and laid down minimum educational requirements, which at the time few Indians, Africans, or Coloureds could attain. The Industrial Conciliation Act set the terms for collective bargaining and trade union activity excluding Africans but not Indians or Coloureds from joining trade unions. The Wage Act fixed minimum wages for given jobs, so white workers could not be undercut by cheaper labor while the Mine and Works Act establish a clear color bar restricting African workers from certain skilled occupations in the mines (pp. 179-182). 8 4 According to Burrows (1952) the most severe unemployment experienced by Indian men was during the Depression years of 1931-1932 (p. 25). 114 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. destitution (cited in Ginwala, 1987, p. 303). High unemployment and dependency ratios coupled with low pay manifested in the every day as poor health, malnutrition, overcrowded living conditions, and diseases associated with poverty, such as tuberculosis and dysentery (Freund, 1995, p. 40). The large number of Indian families that sought and qualified for family allowances when the welfare scheme came into operation in 1947 and before it was rescinded in 1949 further testifies to the pervasiveness of poverty and struggle for survival in the every day (Naidoo & Naidoo, 1956, p. 43; Burrows, 1952, p. 63). With urbanization and the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, moreover came a significant shift relating to gender relationships, namely an emerging definition of women as “dependents.” With the shift from rural to urban, between 1911 and 1946, the percentage of persons of working age (15-64), principally women, defined as “domestics” and “dependents” in Natal rose from 14% to 49%. Although these statistics likely underestimate the salience of female labor to the family economy as women employed within the context of a family business such market gardening or retail/wholesale trade, as home-workers in garments or food preparation, or in casual employment would likely not have surfaced in census data,8 5 8 5 See McDowell (1999) for a concise and useful discussion of the problems of relying upon labor participation data as a means of assessing the prevalence of female employment, as a great deal of women’s labor is often left unrecorded within statistical accounts (pp. 125-127). Freund’s (1991) article on the critical importance of female labor within the cost structures of Indian market gardening communities that were active around Durban until the 1960s moreover illustrates how female labor becomes effaced within official accounts as well as naturalized as an extension of the domestic sphere. 115 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at the same time it underscores the emerging importance of the categories of “domestic” and “dependent” within the framework of a patriarchal discourse of industrialization that splits home and work in gendered ways. By 1946, 52,246 out of 57,096 of working age Indian women in Natal were defined as “dependents” (Naidoo & Naidoo, 1956, p. 52, table F). Compared with 1904 statistics for Natal, whereby only 13,280 Indian women were defined as “dependent” within a potential female labor force of 37,421,8 6 this marks an important ideological shift.8 7 As people of Indian descent in Natal became increasingly urbanized and industrialized, the association of women with home and domesticity grew more pronounced and waged work became masculinized, associated with Indian manhood. Beall’s (1991) essay on the experiences of indentured Indian women in Natal moreover argues that the gendered structural conditions of indentureship fostered female dependency on males. The sexual division of labor on plantations often consigned women to the most menial and unskilled of tasks such that upon completion of their indentured contracts, women were largely unskilled and 8 6 Of the Indian women employed in Natal in 1904, most were employed as domestic workers (17,700) and in agriculture (6,078) (Arkin, 1981, p. 68). 8 7 Berger (1992) argues that between 1925 and 1940, the “high level” of outsourcing and outwork to women at home, particularly in garment manufacturing, underpins the overwhelming number of women deemed “dependent” and not formally employed in census data. She notes that the comparatively small proportion of African women defined as “dependents” in 1936 census reflects more than anything else the “vagaries of census takers” who designated all rural African women as economically active “peasants.” Moreover, Berger emphasizes the broader political and moral ambivalence to women’s labor outside of the home led to restrictive policies with regard to the employment of married women. In 1927, for example, the Juvenile Affairs Board passed a resolution advising the elimination of married women from paid employment, the assumption being that their husbands would provide for them (pp. 56-57). 116 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “ultimately dependent upon developing relationships with men willing to support them” (p. 103). Moreover, within the first quarter of the 20th century, employment opportunities for women in South Africa were limited. There were few paying jobs outside of domestic service and as Berger (1992) delineates, female employment was subject not only to “ideologies of domesticity and dependency” but also powerfully shaped by regional patterns of urbanization. In Natal, for example, an abundant supply of Indian and African men monopolized most industrial wage labor until the mid-century. In domestic service, one of the two forms of wage labor in which Indian women were concentrated, African males as “houseboys” tended to dominate the market in most white Durban families until they began to take advantage of more lucrative opportunities in industry in the 1930s and 40s (Gaitskell et al., 1983, p. 99; Berger, 1992, pp. 17-23). Outside of agricultural and domestic work, a lack of education and English language literacy coupled with gender and race discrimination would have kept Indian women outside of other kinds of formal wage labor.8 8 Regardless, poor wages for women throughout South Africa in the early decades of ''Although primary and secondary school education became free and compulsory for South African Indians in the 1970s for an approximate period of twenty years, prior to this families had to pay for books and school fees. Although recognized by many as a path to upward mobility with teachers holding high status in the community, for poor and low-income families with limited resources, education was a luxury, especially for girls. Besides the expense of school fees and large families, many Indian families were resistant to sending their daughters to co-educational facilities, staffed by male teachers (Pillay, 1978, p. 27). In 1909, of 3284 students in school, only 324 students were girls, with half of the pupils in classes lower than Standard 2. By the m id-1920s, less than a third of Indian children in Natal could be accommodated in existing facilities and in 1927, with 9477 Indian children enrolled in school in Natal, only 1650 were girls with few studying beyond standard four, six years of schooling. As late as 1936, 65% of Indian females in Natal older than seven could speak neither English nor Afrikaans (Shashikant-Mesthrie, 1991, pp. 3-4). 117 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the 20th century kept working women in an “economically precarious, dependent state” (Berger, 1992, p. 28). In addition, for working class Indian men, wages were poor and there were many racialized obstacles to upward mobility. In the trades, in particular, white exclusionary practices and educational requirements associated with the Apprenticeship Act prevented male Indian workers from gaining both skills and recognition. As Freund (1995) comments, “One of the commonest tales from the memory of working-class Indians in Durban is this one of exclusion from and marginality in craft” (p. 47). In addition, whereas for the first three decades of the 20th century, Indian workers in Durban were principally subject to pressure and exclusion from above (white workers and capital), the dramatic and rapid urbanization of Africans in Durban in the 1930s and 1940s fueled competition for work and space from below, giving capitalist interests the advantage of replacing Indian, particularly the unskilled, with African workers.8 9 In the 1940s the majority of Indian workers in Natal were laborers, and until the 1960s, with the rapid growth of industry, Indian and African workers were frequently employed in similar job categories. It was only in the 1950s that the wage gap between Indian and African 8 9 The 1930s and 1940s are known as a period of working class militancy and trade unionism among Indian workers in Durban. Working class resistance and labor strikes however did not generally materialize gains, as Indian workers were in multiple instances dismissed from factory firms and replaced with cheaper non-unionized African laborers. As Hemson (2002) notes, although this reflects a strategy of capital to replace unorganized for organized labor, in practice it meant supplanting Indian labor with African workers (p. 201). With regard to labor organizing, the 1950s would follow with increasing conservatism on the part of Indian workers. For in depth analysis see Padayachee, Vawda, and Tichmann (1985). 118 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. workers began to widen as Indian workers moved out of lower wage industries (Hemson, 2002, p. 202). Still, despite upward mobility for some workers in the 1950s, many Indian workers found themselves caught in between, on the one hand unable to progress into better-paid and skilled jobs, on the other experiencing competition for limited opportunities from African workers.9 0 Besides manufacturing, others newly urbanized, as early as the turn of the 20th century, engaged in market gardening activities at the urban periphery of Durban, in places like the Springfield Flats, Clairwood, and Cato Manor. Drawing principally on family labor as the central unit for production and as an economic strategy for survival, market gardening reflected a transitional step between indentured labor and the full proletarianization of the work force, offering a large percentage of unemployed within families a social security net and kin-based identity in times of economic struggle (Meer, 1969). A survivalist trade in Natal, market gardening was often one aspect of a more complex household economy defined by the pooling of labor and resources and complemented by the factory wages of its members, principally men (Naidoo & Naidoo, 1957, p. 36). Market gardeners did not 9 0 Naidoo and Naidoo (1956) make a number of important points about economic exclusion and opportunities that deserve mention. On the one hand recognizing that some Indian workers were able to access better paid and skilled industrial employment despite racialized exclusions, they also note that employment in commerce as shop owners, assistants, and hawkers accounted for a large percentage of the gainfully employed in the 1950s. They attribute this concentration in part to the lack of alternative opportunities and limited educational facilities. They call attention to the small number of Indians employed in the public service (police, justice, labor, health), that the Natal Provincial Administration had yet to use Indian labor in its administrative work, that the South African Railways employed 627 Indians as of 1955 compared with 6000 workers in 1910, and that the decline in employment of Indians in municipal service is in part due to Indian workers being replaced by African labor (pp. 36-39). 119 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. as a rule own the small plots of land they cultivated but rather leased them from private landowners, the Durban Corporation, or South Africa Railways and Harbours amplifying their vulnerability when the land began to be cleared for the industrialization of Durban. Due to the lack of affordable land within the limits of the Durban municipality, the preponderance of low-income Indian families lived along the periphery of the Borough. Whereas the central state began to clamp down on African urbanization and movement with the 1923 (Urban Areas) Act, Indians in contrast were not legally restricted in their urban migration within Natal, although prohibitions against inter provincial migration kept them penned within the province. Importantly, because much Indian and African settlement was beyond borough boundaries until 1931, the majority was exempt from the regulatory practices or rate structures of the municipality. In this way, low-income communities were able to settle along the margins of the city economy, and eke out a living through informal sector activity, sometimes illegal (Maylam, 1996, pp. 4-5; Scott, 1992, pp. 88-90). With the extension of the city’s boundaries in 1932, the racial demographics and population of Durban changed significantly, increasing in population and scale. The number of inhabitants jumped from 126,020 in 1932 to 219,830 in 1933, and within a year’s time, there were nearly equal percentages of the three major racialized groups in the city, namely Europeans (36%), Indians (32%) and Africans (30%). Notably, with the physical extension of the city’s boundaries from 12.5 to 70 square 120 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. miles, it was the Indian population of Durban that most visibly increased from 18,500 to 69,619, tripling in the space-time of one year. The peri-urban areas annexed, often referred to as the “added-areas” in contrast to the “Old Borough” of Durban, were predominantly Indian-occupied, and seen by the local state as the site of uncontrolled and illicit activity (Freund, 1995, p. 35). Importantly, with the extension of physical space came the expansion of municipal authority. Although Durban experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization in the 1930s and 1940s with the growth of its manufacturing sector, the provision of housing for Durban’s proletariat class did not keep pace. With regard to people of Indian descent, a severe shortage of housing was the product of a history of colonial legislation that emphasized the alienness of South African Indians and saw repatriation as the most desirable solution to the “Indian problem.” As late as 1946, the Durban City Council was making arguments with regard to its Indian inhabitants that it was not reasonable to “spend money on an alien population, a large but unknown proportion of which was likely, at any time to be removed to their own country.”9 1 Prior to the implementation of the Group Areas Act in Durban, most low- income and working class households and families removed to Chatsworth were living either in employer-provided barracks accommodation, in city slums, or in the 9 1 The Indian in Natal—Is He the Victim o f Oppression? Pamphlet issued by the DCC and Durban Joints Ward Committee (quoted in Maharaj, 1995, p. 35). 121 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “added-areas” pockets of peri-urban settlement, varying in size and housing quality. The majority lived in self-built wood and iron homes, often in shacks, as tenants, on land either owned or leased from private owners, the Durban Corporation, or the South African Railways and Harbours. According to 1936 census data, a Durban Indian population of 80,384 was dispersed between 8,161 houses and 1,501 flats. Although four of ten homes were two rooms or smaller and constructed from tin and wood, two-thirds of the 8,161 private dwellings were owned rather than rented, a higher proportion than other racialized groups (University of Natal Department of Economics, 1952, pp. 35,43). Often self-built, the high incidence of ownership, however modest the dwelling, reflects the symbolic and material importance of home to its inhabitants. The Durban Housing Survey (1952) described the condition of available housing for Indian residents of the city in 1950 as such: Not only are the available housing sites in the Old Borough being reduced by business development, but there is a large increase in Indian population. Consequently areas in the center of Durban are badly overcrowded.. . . Poverty and lack of accommodation compel many Indians to rent small homes and sublet rooms. Very many families occupy shanties and back yard huts within the city, and in the absence of alternate accommodation the Slums Act cannot be applied. In the “added areas,” where conditions are very varied, thousands of shack dwellings with inadequate water supply and few sanitary facilities have sprung up. (University of Natal Department of Economics, 1952, p. 275) Although by most accounts living conditions for the working class and poor subsisting at Durban’s periphery were often abysmal, a striking feature that emerges 122 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in descriptions and analyses of these smaller settlements is that place mattered fundamentally for residents. It was made to matter through the community spaces, associational life, and kin-like neighborly relations that brought people together, forging a sense of shared identity based in localized places. Meer (1977) indicates that when the Group Areas Act was passed, “there were some fifty or more little Indian communities within a five-mile radius of the city’s center,” with the more established areas having been settled for two or three generations. She notes that while most of the settlements were working class, they also had enough “big people” (defined by class, education, or “community consciousness”) to build community facilities and religious halls or otherwise to take leadership in the community’s life (p. 20). These were facilities, including schools that often took many years to construct and moreover were built through the pooled material contributions and emotional investments of its community members. In her work on Clairwood located in Southern Durban, Scott (1992) similarly points to the centrality of community facilities and institutions such as temples, mosques, churches, schools, cemeteries, and community halls as nurturing a sense of place-based communal identity. With an estimated population of 40,000 at its peak prior to removals in the late 1960s, families of market gardeners began settling in Clairwood at the beginning of the twentieth century. Pooling at the level of household and family as an economic strategy was mirrored, Scott’s work suggests, at the level of community through making of communal places. 123 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Besides Clairwood, another established and perhaps the best-known settlement of Indian people facing removal in the 50s and 60s, was found in Cato Manor or rather Mayville, as most often remembered by its former Indian inhabitants. Named after the first mayor of Durban, George Cato, who initially owned much of the land, many Indian market gardeners settled in Cato Manor after their periods of an indenture were over, either through leasing or purchase. Located just beyond the city’s boundaries until 1932, Cato Manor was close enough to city markets for the hawking of fruits and vegetables while still being outside the jurisdiction and controls of the Durban municipality (Maharaj, 1994, p. 3). Maylam (1996) notes that in 1943, an estimated 15,000 Africans lived in Cato Manor; but, by the end of 1950, the population was estimated to be 50,000 (p. 18). As of the late 1950s, the unofficial Indian population was in the vicinity o f40,000. Cato Manor was one of the few places in Durban where Indian and African residents lived side by side, if not necessarily together. Although the 1949 “riots” can still evoke phantasmagoric fears and anxieties of African violence in the narratives of those recalling those years, the attachment to Mayville as a place was nonetheless enduring for its Indian inhabitants. In objection to the race zoning plans for Durban that defined Cato Manor as a white area, the Mayville Indian Ratepayer’s Association made this plea: People form deep and lasting attachments to the places in which they live and such attachments are rooted in emotional association with homes, temples, churches, mosques, schools, burial places and with neighbours—years of friendship, the 124 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. passing of homes from generation to generation. Such are worthwhile values which cannot be set aside lightly. Is it fair to ask people, now advanced in years, to break up old associations and homes, businesses, etc., and to start afresh. (quoted in Maharaj, 1994, pp. 10-11) The layering of place with emotional potency and sentiment and as a metaphor for identity-forming relationships is made poignant in this plea against the destruction of home and community. By 1959, there were eleven schools, sixteen places of worship, one sports ground, four cemeteries, two crematoriums, one hundred and fifteen businesses, and a hundred and twenty welfare organizations in Cato Manor (SAIRR 1959, quoted in Maharaj, 1994, p. 10). With the zoning of Cato Manor as a white area, all of these community and public facilities were lost as constitutive of former residents’ lives and identities. Ronnie Govender (1996), a well-known anti-apartheid activist and playwright who was raised in Cato Manor, makes the indicative point that most of the achievements of place were realized when “unemployment was endemic and tuberculosis was rife” among residents (p. 11). Still, other working class families lived in barracks housing. Close to the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from the Durban beachfront, municipal and railway workers were housed in the Magazine and Railway Barracks. Located within walking distance of one another, both barracks were known for their poor living conditions. In Maistry’s (1995) documentary, Beyond the Barracks, Satish Juggernaut describes everyday conditions of overcrowding and poverty in the Magazine Barracks. . . . Their living conditions were very appalling. They were crowded into rooms that measured ten feet by ten feet, about 125 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seven people had to occupy single rooms, there was no electricity, people had to share communal taps, communal latrines, the place was vermin infested, there was a high degree of illness, a high degree of malnutrition and poverty. First built in 1880, “condemned” in 1914, and upgraded in 1949, the Magazine Barracks was nonetheless “home” to its nearly 6,000 inhabitants with a strong common identity rooted in place and shared experiences of economic privation (cf. Veeran, 1999; Vahed, 2001). Reflecting back on everyday life in the Magazine Barracks prior to the Group Areas removals, Mrs. Murugan, recalls a strong sense of family among neighbors and disbelief over the realities of removal. The neighbors were also like relatives—there were Moslems, Hindus, Telegus, Tamils, but there was no differentiation. People didn’t think well you’re a Hindi. A Tamil lady would call a Hindi lady Byani, and a Hindi lady would call Tamil ladies, Ani, Aya, Atha.... There was a rumour that they were building houses in Chatsworth and that we had to move. A lot of people didn’t take it seriously, they didn’t realize they had to move. Then suddenly it became a reality. The moving period too you know hit people very hard. You know we Indians believe in the good days and the bad days, you know we have this almanac. Now during the July month you’re not supposed to move and yet the notice came. (Maistry, 1995) Zoning Race The Group Areas Act would not only remove people of Indian descent from the Barracks, freehold land, and self-built homes—both a minority of affluent business families as well as the majority of low income, working class and poor families and communities—but would also displace businesses that were unfortunate to find themselves in residential areas proclaimed for “other” groups. Appointed by the 126 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Durban City Council in November of 1950, a Technical Sub-Committee was enlisted to develop apartheid race-zoning plans and maps for Durban. Guided by the premise that contact between races in residential areas leads to friction or conflict, the Sub- Committee held that residential neighborhoods should be clearly defined racially and borders must serve as barriers, reducing the likelihood of one group “spilling over” into another’s territory. Natural barriers such as valleys, cliffs, rivers, and hills were desirable deterrents and the physical movement of one racialized group through the group area of another was to be avoided. Large-scale pedestrian movement was seen as a particular threat and vehicular travel also potentially problematic (Kuper et al., 1958, pp. 21, 35-37; Maharaj, 1992, p. 77). Importantly, whereas residential interracial contact was thought to generate conflict, contact in industrial and commercial zones was treated as inevitable. Although commercial and industrial areas could be “mixed,” the principle that one race should not travel through the residential areas of other races had marked effects on the implementation of town planning and transportation routes. Through the materialization of these principles, political domination would become normalized through spatial design and the control of movement of racially marked bodies in place. While the race zoning plans attempted to pin racial identity through the construction of isolated and bounded places, in Durban they moreover would empower a distribution of resources away from Indians and toward “Europeans,” reserving the most exclusive land for white Durbanites, simultaneously increasing the 127 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. value of European investments in the city while reducing the share of Indian investments (Kuper et al., 1958, p. 192). Although the majority of South African Indians were low-income, the visible wealth of a minority business class was threatening to white economic hegemony, especially within a context where “poor whites” were still of concern, and in some cases living alongside Indians, illustrating how important class difference can be to maintaining racial boundaries.9 2 Moreover, when group areas were proclaimed in Durban in 1958, it had the effect of depressing land values in areas like Cato Manor, zoned as white, where people of Indian descent had owned land or business premises. With no option but to sell to the Department of Community Development, land was effectively expropriated often for a pittance. Simultaneously, property values in areas designated as “Indian” often increased, making scarce land and homes increasingly valuable and outside of Council built housing, affordable to a decreasing minority (Meer, 1977, pp. 6-11; Southworth, 1991, p. 14). Nationally, South African Indian traders were in significant numbers displaced by the Group Areas Act, with over 50% or 5,058 forced to move between 1950 and 1975 (Arkin et al., 1989, p. 48). With thousands of Indian traders and families displaced by the Act in Natal, many would wait years for resettlement, privileging larger Indian businesses able to afford the costs of 9 2 This provides an important context for understanding the agitation of Durban Whites against “Indian penetration” in the 1940s, at a time when the Durban Town Council and the White working class were strongly allied (Maharaj, 2002, p. 173). On one level, anti-Indianism had the effect of unifying White constituencies. 128 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. relocation, consolidating and centralizing Indian trade into fewer and fewer hands (Meer, 1977, p. 17). Within this context, spatial technologies of removal, zoning, and control especially vis-a-vis residence and movement were integral to apartheid as a modem form of urban racial domination, a way of creating racialized difference and maintaining socio-spatial distance and hierarchies through the regulation of space. Over the long term one of the effects of these and other discursive practices has been to symbolically tie domination with territory and identity. As a form of social and spatial engineering, apartheid legislation materialized in place worked to regulate race (as well as gender and sexuality) through the separation, division, and control of social spaces, expressing and constituting domination through spatial practices. Early Histories Work on this vast scheme—which is tantamount for the creation of a new Indian city—has been so organized that it is already clear that very rapid progress will be made on it. Mayor’s Minutes, 1961-1962, p. 14 Fatimah complained that the person who planned Chatsworth must have bought his license because he didn’t have any skill, that people are on top of each other and know what’s cooking in your pot. I remarked how much more space there is in white areas. Field notes, January 20,2002 Early photographs of Chatsworth suggest a barren landscape, livelihoods razed by bulldozers to clear the way for modernity and its discontents. It has a ghost town quality of mass and anonymous production. Cinder block houses dominate the 129 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. undulating landscape in monotonous and eerie replication and there is a conspicuous lack of tree and green life, defying the suggestion that people actually live in natural environment. Envisioned by its planners and bureaucrats to become a model Indian township embodying new town planning concepts, Chatsworth was designed without concern or consideration for the life-ways of those who would breathe life into their block structures. Soon after the Group Areas Act was proclaimed in Durban (1958), the chairman of the Durban City Council’s special committee for Native housing, A. S. Robinson called for the establishment of an Indian “Kwa Mashu”9 3 in response to the proliferation of shack settlements by Indians in the “added areas,” and concomitant anxieties about public health and sanitation.9 4 Named in 1959 by the all-white Durban City Council presumably after an estate in Derbyshire, England (Raper, 1987, pp. 94-95), Chatsworth was constructed unit by unit between 1960 and 1975, through the modernizing discourses and practices associated with separate development, residential segregation and public health and built through the forced appropriation of 5,000 acres of banana plantations, farming areas known as Cavendish, Welbedacht and Zeekoe Valley. These small farms were owned principally by some 600 Indian farmers and inhabited by a larger 9 3 Located to the north of Durban’s CBD, KwaMashu is an African township that was likewise built after the passage o f the Group Areas Act but fell within the administration of the KwaZulu homeland. 9 4 Daily News, 12 June 1958. 130 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chatsworth Housing Scheme (Source: Local History Museums, Collection, n.d.) rural community of more than 14,000. With more than two hundred banana farmers refusing to sell their land to the Durban Corporation, these plantations were not relinquished without a fight. As the Umhlatuzana/Cavendish Coordinating Council, they argued that land displacement would uproot families that had been settled in the area since the turn of the 20th century, creating unemployment for the 2,000 laborers dependent on the land for their livelihood. Indeed they questioned why the City 131 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Council had targeted the most valuable land outside its boundaries for the new housing scheme.9 5 While the initial goal of the City Council was to complete the “scheme” as quickly as possible, by 1967, with an annual target of between 3,500 and 4,000 homes per year, their efforts were delayed by various factors. First, although the Durban City Council provided the housing, it had to comply with national directives laid down in the housing codes, requiring approval as well as funds in the form of preferential loans from the National Housing Commission under the Department of Community Development. Caught between the bureaucratic red tape of local and national government, during a period whereby the apartheid government was centralizing its authority, the construction of Chatsworth took much longer than originally intended. A building boom in conjunction with a rise in building costs and shortage of white labor in the mid-1960s also slowed down the construction of housing nor and in addition, the land was not well suited for mass housing. Subsoil conditions of hard rock and underground springs increased both cost and building time and the steepness of the hillsides meant that much of the land could not be built upon, leading to concentration in housing development.9 6 To date flooding and 9 $ Daity News, 22 August 1960; 19 September 1960; 30 September 1960; 3 October 1960; Desai (2000, p. 13). 9 6 This information was extracted from the Durban City Council annual reports, namely the Mayor’ s Minutes, 1961-1962, p. 6 ; 1962-1963, pp. 4, 54; 1963-1964, p. 62; 1965-1966, pp. 3-5; and 1966-1967, p. 4. 132 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dampness continue to be problems in the township, and “wheezing” a common complaint among residents. “ V % > -wSk V A - C-U’. ■ . v . . r - . . —. - - f • * ■ ■ ■ & ? ■ * & '> r 4 A • % - V £ x J r ■ £ ' . ‘ ^ /> - v * ‘ - * ■ ^ - 5 ?:"V. if ,»»rw r - . . . fc » i C * <’ <V ’ q J w assi * -% * ■ ■ • * .* *.!W vc:*& -S * - iTF^- ■ - J ‘ ^ C i - * » » '"*L in w Aerial view of Chatsworth 1970 (Source: Survey Department, City Engineer’s Unit, eThekwini Municipality) The planning process was largely driven by a top-down process of state directives and coding regulations followed by the laying down of infrastructure. As suggested by aerial photographs taken by the City Engineer’s Unit in 1970, the road system defined the basic contours and orientation of the township layout, with limited consideration for topography, ecology or land orientation. The standardization and 133 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mass production of block houses meant that residents had very little control over the basic orientation of their dwellings. All of the houses necessarily face the street, with windows at the front, back and side with many homes being semidetached. The small plots sizes and razing of vegetation meant that outdoor activity was often visible to neighbors and subject to commentary. Concepts of public and private were etched into the landscape and housing design, with a movement inwards for privacy, as outdoor spaces were made public. Although today most homeowners have constructed walls, borders, and fences that separate yard space from street space and neighbor from neighbor, privatizing outdoor space, residents have relied on their own resources to create these barriers and spatial separation. Moreover, the cheap quality and structure of council-built homes meant that residents would have had to invest significant resources in their homes over time to transform them into liveable places. When residents first moved into their new dwellings, they were skeletal and spartan structures, with unplastered concrete blocks, exposed electrical wiring and asbestos roofing. Still, all dwellings did have basic facilities such as water, electricity, and flush toilets—an improvement in basic services for many families in comparison to previous living conditions. One of the goals in creating the township was to foster home ownership among residents, ostensibly to minimize the cost bom by the State in providing low-income housing. Although cost, size, and number of rooms varied, state-built housing fell into two broad categories “economic” and “sub-economic.” The “sub-economic” were 134 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. principally flats but also four room “matchbox” houses (living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and bathroom) that were subsidized by the Durban City Council. Two- thirds of the houses, four to six rooms, were deemed “economic” and depending upon income, residents could either place a deposit to buy or rent the dwelling with the possibility of buying at a later date (“letting/selling”). Indeed there was much hope that Chatsworth would be the panacea for Durban’s Indian housing problem. On December 13,1962, an unnamed Daily News Reporter hailed Chatsworth’s transformation from a . . . green, farming district to a thriving busy Indian township within the space of a year. Where only the foliage of the banana plantations extended for miles and miles, now the grayish white asbestos roofs of the hundreds of houses present themselves in a spectacle of neat rows and ribbons of roads. Chatsworth which yesterday was accessible only by a few sandy tracks, now has well laid out tarred roads with electric lighting. It seems as if civilization [italics added] has at last crept upon this little known area. That civility is associated with modernity, order, and clearly demarcated and regulated uses of space, “neat rows and ribbons” should not be lost upon us. Despite such heady proclamations, the lived experiences of Chatsworth residents in its early days suggest anything but arrival at the gates of civilization. The Daily News contains numerous letters to the editor citing these deficits of place and space, raising questions as to whether the Durban City Council was merely replacing old slums with a new and larger version. Throughout the 1960s, residents’ grievances revolved around the poor quality of housing, the inadequate provision of services and 135 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. facilities and the lack as well as expense of public transportation. Residents complained of leaking roofs, water seepage through the walls, damage to furniture and property, and the small size of rooms as inadequate to accommodate family, visitors, and furniture brought from previous homes. They expressed frustration that houses were built on steep precipices or in ditches or in the way of natural watercourses and that houses lacked internal doors and privacy. Sudden water and electricity disconnections as well as the absence of telephones, clinics, shopping facilities, street lighting, pavements, speed limits, post office, police, recreational facilities, sports field, playgrounds all made the list of what the township lacked and needed. Below is a selection of Daily News articles and letters decrying the living conditions in Chatsworth in the late 1960s: July 31,1966, “Town Has No Soul” From its conception Chatsworth has been a problem child. Cradled in controversy, its teething problems are growing pangs. Many residents are dissatisfied and the promise of amenities stays unfulfilled. The township is a huge dormitory. Somehow the builders have negated the forces which make for a mentally healthy community. A vast impersonal anonymity has replaced a feeling of belonging—a sort of community consciousness that gives a place a soul. “It is easy to generalize,” one Indian said this week. “But for all the good intentions behind the scheme, Chatsworth is a failure. There is something sad about Chatsworth.” October 16, 1968, “Poor Conditions are Part of Their Lives” Letter to the Editor Sir, Much has been said and almost nothing has been done to remedy the “faults of man” in the never ending complex of Chatsworth. Behind this mammoth housing scheme is 136 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. obviously a White man, who obviously has no innermost feeling for mankind and brotherhood, especially when dealing with Indians. One wonders whether the architects of Chatsworth ever took the trouble to visit their masterpiece, especially during and just after a rainy day. It is truly amazing and shocking just to wonder how on earth the City Health Department of Durban ever consented to the erection of the type of dwelling that exists in Chatsworth. I had occasion to visit one of these houses on a rainy day. To my horror I was escorted into a cold, damp living room with the walls all wet and muggy. I was told that this was becoming part of their lives. Nothing could be done to prevent the rainwater from seeping through the hollow block structures. This is really a shocking state of affairs. Surely the city health inspectors and other responsible men are aware that to live under such conditions will lead to sickness. This is an ideal situation for the accumulation and spread of germs. I shudder to think of the day when my family or I have to live under such degenerating conditions. “Chatsworth Today” Durban November 5, 1968, “Please Help Us to Make Chatsworth a Green Garden” Letter to Editor Sir, I would like to ask Durban City Councillors (sic) and the other authorities the following questions about Chatsworth. Why has the Higginson Highway not been illuminated for the past seven years? Why are there no proper footpaths for pedestrians in Chatsworth? Why are the roads so dully set? In some cases the burned out globes are not changed for at least two months or more. Why have there been no children’s playgrounds for the past seven years? Why is there no park for the residents of Chatsworth? Why, when a club has sport in the football field, does it have to pay up to R14 for the use of tin shanty toilets to the Durban Corporation? Why is there no proper school patrol sign for school children at the school entrances? Why are all the bus routes so narrow? Why is there no swimming bath for our children? We would like the Mayor and 137 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Councillors (sic) to visit Chatsworth and study it. Please help us try and make it a green garden. (Mrs.) R. S. Go vender November 13, 1968, “What Are These People to Do?” Sir, Many Indians are frustrated by unemployment and the high cost of living. The suicide rate among Indians is the highest in the Republic (if not in the world). Recently Mrs. Meer has taken pains to do a lot of research about this agonizing problem and solutions are hard to find. Improper facilities, lack of sports grounds, unemployment, violent crimes, and assaults on innocent people and many other reasons are to blame. Chatsworth is more prone to suicide as the people there live sub-economic lives, with barely proper food and nourishment. Bus fares are high and inadequate. That place is like a “spooky hollow” (that’s one of the reason why we hear so many spooky stories here) and lighting facilities are so poor. Yet rates go up and up and there is talk of rates going up to over R100 or more. What are these people to do? “For Whom the Bell Tolls” The idea that poor housing conditions and town planning coupled with poverty have enabled the emergence of disease (social, mental, physical) is variously emphasized in each of these letters. The lack of accessible, usable, and safe public space suggests that in a context in which transportation costs were high, lighting was poor, recreational facilities were few, and footpaths had yet to be created, it was difficult to move around the township easily and there was little to do besides stay at home. The planning design of Chatsworth in fact re-inscribed the centrality of house and home in the lives of residents while simultaneously marking it as separate from work. Conceived as a residential zone, most workers had to leave the township itself for wage-earning activities. 138 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Moreover, the increased cost of living associated with paying rentals, transportation costs, and turning council-built matchbox houses into homes was for many families a strain on limited resources. In its 1967 report, for example, the Durban Indian Child Welfare Society (1977) emphasized the hardship residents faced in meeting the new expenses of township living. The pre-occupation with the struggles for survival is one of the major characteristics of the people at Chatsworth. It is so clearly evident in the widespread failure of large numbers of families to meet their monthly rentals and to many families the fear of eviction ever looms large above their heads. Hence parents are too engrossed in the struggle to make ends meet on their relatively meager resources and from this one problem springs a whole trail of other types of anti-social patterns, such as children playing truant from school, parents indulging in devious methods by which to supplement their incomes, strained means of earning a livelihood, discordant relationships in homes, and the like. So that what appears to be the seeming tranquility prevailing over rows and rows of neat little units has within it a great deal of seething human ferment.” ( P - 36) In 1969, the Chatsworth Civic Association likewise associated high rentals with social disease, arguing that as long as the Durban Corporation persisted in raising rents, “shebeens, prostitution and delinquency and moral degeneration and slum condition will prevail.”9 7 The question of how to finance the building and maintenance of the township was a concern from its inception, especially since Chatsworth lacked any 1 7 Daily News, 9 September 1969. 139 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. significant commercial or industrial development as a potential tax base until the early 1980s.9 8 Moreover, the very conditions of displacement and the sudden increased costs of living nurtured underground, informal, and illegal economies in Chatsworth, often based within people’s homes, the “devious methods” noted above. Rooted in the politics of survival, home-based businesses in Chatsworth date from its inception. Although in early 1964, the Durban City Council Housing Committee recommended that trading sites in Chatsworth be allocated to traders displaced by the Group Areas Act,9 9 the Department of Community Development was slow to grant licenses. As late as 1966, with only a dozen shops to serve 70,000 residents, the Department had not built a single new shop in the township. Five of the eight neighborhood units lacked formal shopping facilities altogether, meaning most residents had to either depend on mobile vans for their daily needs, shop in town (Durban) or patronize illegal shops established in people’s homes.1 0 0 Many traders had been displaced by the Group Areas Act and apartheid legislation, and for many years were not allocated alternate sites. With no other options for income generation, they surreptitiously ran 9 8 Through the late 1980s, the Durban City Council’s consistent response has been to raise rents, placing poor households in particularly vulnerable positions. The present day struggles in the flat areas of Chatsworth, particularly Bayview and Westcliff, where households having been living under the threat and actualities of evictions as well as water and light disconnections by the Durban City Council due to long standing arrears trace back historically to the inability of the poor to finance their own displacement. (See Desai, 2000.) "Daily News, 23 January 1964. mDaily News, 31 October 1966. 140 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. businesses from their homes, risking fines and eviction.1 0 1 Within this context and without formal liquor stores in the township through the late 1970s, shebeens also flourished within people’s homes in Chatsworth, providing poor families a source of income, as well as men, a space for male socializing.1 0 2 The increased cost of living in Chatsworth in conjunction with the displacement of some communities from livelihoods of fishing and market gardening meant that fewer and fewer families and households could live off the land, becoming increasingly reliant on a cash economy and wage labor for basic survival.1 0 3 Apartheid Changes During the middle apartheid years, particularly after 1961, there were important political re-configurations of the place of Indian people within the racial and political economy of the South African state. For the first time, a hundred years after the system of indenture was initiated within the British colony of Natal, South African Indians were recognized as permanent residents within the republic of South Africa, although still a voteless minority. mDaily News, 6 October 1978; 5 January 1979. m The Leader, 5 June 1970; Daily News, 2 May 1977. ‘“ Between 1950 and 1980, the percentage of economically active Indian men and women employed in farming and fishery fell from 14% to 3% for men and froml4% to 0.7% for women. With a final push off the land with industrialization and the implementation of the Group Areas Act, the occupational structure for Indian workers shifted towards clerical, sales, and production work (Arkin et al., 1989, pp. 61-62). 141 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Historically, the political responses of South African Indians have volleyed between a politics of accommodation with and politics of resistance against white rule and dominance. The Natal Indian Congress (NIC), founded in 1894 by Mahatma Gandhi was the first political organization meant to represent the interests of Indians in South Africa. While the NIC in its early decades claimed to be voice of the “Indian community,” it narrowly served the class interests of a commercial elite concerned with protecting and securing its interests in the context of colonial racism and exclusion by appealing to the doctrine of Imperial equality (Bhana, 1997, pp. 9-31). Division rather than unity has been the defining feature of “Indian politics” in South African history (Swan, 1985,1987). The two divergent approaches of accommodation and resistance have been particularly pronounced since the 1940s when a vanguard of Natal Indian Congress activists, many of them aligned with the South African Communist Party (SACP) emerged to wrestle leadership of the NIC from a politically conservative elite. This more radical strand of South African Indian political organizing emphasized cross- racial alliances and non-racialism, explicitly rejecting collaboration and accommodation with White rule. Within the broader apartheid policy of “separate development,” however, there was an important political realignment through the creation of the Department of Indian Affairs (1961) and the National Indian Council, renamed the South African Indian Council (SAIC) in 1965. The latter was institutionalized by the apartheid state as the voice of the Indian community, in 142 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. particular to offset the more radical expressions of Indian political activity and non- racial political formations (Desai, 1996, pp. 26-27; Bhana, 1997, p. 116). Appointed from above and establishing a politics of patronage, twenty-one men of Indian descent, primarily of the commercial elite (Desai, 1996, pp. 35-37), were appointed to the Council, which functioned as an advisory organ to the Department of Indian Affairs responsible for the administration of laws affecting South African Indians. While the 1960s were marked by severe political repression including the banning of the ANC and PAC as well as the detention and banning of NIC (and TIC) leaders, in the 1970s the Natal Indian Congress was revived to contest the legitimacy of SAIC and to resume a politics of resistance with apartheid rule. When the Tri-cameral Parliament elections,1 0 4 for example, were held in 1984, the NIC under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front rejected incorporation and rallied against participation. Only an approximate 14% of eligible voters actually participated (Lemon, 1985, P P . 92, 97). 1 0 4 The Tri-cameral Parliament was a three chamber political system formulated by the National Party to signify political reform and to co-opt South African Indians and Coloureds under a parliamentary system comprised of separate race-based political units, namely the House of Delegates (Indian), the House of Representatives (Coloured), and the House of Assembly (White). Africans had no place in the Parliament as their political voices were to be represented in the “homelands.” The Tri-cameral Parliament however was structured to silence dissent from the Indian and Coloured chambers through the number of votes granted to each. Proportionate to population differentials, there were 178 white, 80 Coloured, and 40 Indian members in their respective chambers, a ratio of 4:2:1. While each “group” would have jurisdiction of its “own affairs,” (i.e., welfare, education, culture, recreation, health, housing) in areas of common concern, such as defense or the economy, there would be joint decision-making. However given how votes were allocated, it rather signified a kind of political farce (cf. Maygar, 1984; Lemon, 1985; Bhana, 1997). 143 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Other shifts during the apartheid years include the expansion of employment opportunities as well as educational facilities, with mass education becoming free and compulsory in 1973.1 0 5 In the same year, technically based subjects were introduced in the curriculum of secondary schools, subjects such as technical drawing, metalwork, motor mechanics, woodworking, welding, and plumbing, among others. Geared particularly toward young men, this enabled an entire generation, now in their thirties and forties, to gain access to technical skills long denied previous generations of men, namely their fathers, brothers, and uncles. Whereas during the 1950s, working class men of color were excluded from trade apprenticeships, in the early 1970s, with increasing complaints from business over the lack of skilled labor, Indians, Coloureds, and to a lesser extent, Africans were given greater opportunities to perform both skilled and semiskilled work. The apartheid years also saw the expansion of educational and work opportunities for South African Indian girls and women through state subsidized education in the semi-professional and feminized fields of nursing, teaching, and social work. Although employment opportunities expanded for both Indian men and women during the middle apartheid years, they did I 0 5 Through the early 1960s, the demand for schooling, like housing, could not keep pace with actual provision. As a mean of addressing the supply-demand imbalance, a system of platoon or double-shift classes was introduced. The platoon system involved teaching alternating classes indoors and outdoors to maximize the numbers of children being taught and double-shift involved some students attending class in the morning and others in afternoon. Many schools that were built prior to the mid-1960s were state-aided, meaning that although the government offered some subsidy, the running of the school was highly dependent on community resources and financial contributions. Neither was schooling free, as parents were required to pay for their children’s educational fees, books, and uniforms. Due to the expense of education, many students were unable to continue beyond their primary schooling (Naidoo, 1989). 144 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. so in distinctly gendered ways. Indian female motor mechanics and bus drivers, for example, are rare indeed and this is no accident of nature but rather reflects both the gendering of opportunity as well as socio-cultural expectations as to appropriate occupations for men and women.1 0 6 During the apartheid years, moreover some segments of the Indian community experienced remarkable class mobility through increased access to technical education as well as semiskilled and professional employment not to mention profits from the drug and alcohol trade. Many children of working class parents in Chatsworth, for example, have transitioned into middle class comfort through occupational mobility, employment, for example, as clerks, teachers, managers, and nurses. At the same time, other segments stagnated, magnifying economic stratification as well as competition and rivalry between residents and family members, conflicts that often centered on the house. Within this context, the economic fortunes of siblings could be wildly divergent. One of the most common sources of conflict among siblings and family members is over inheritance of the house with stories of trickery and deception often heard, papers signed unknowingly or while drunk. While on the one hand investment in house and home signifies an investment in family as a lived and l0 6 This racialized gendering of the economy, for example, is apparent in 1990 statistics of labor within semi-professional occupations. Whereas 61,806 Indian men were listed as technicians, only 120 Indian women fell within the same category. 3,525 female nurses compared with 105 male nurses. The only semi-professional occupation that has relative gender parity people of Indian descent is teaching with 5,906 men as compared to 6,157 women (Crankshaw, 1997, pp. 152, 154). 145 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. imagined reality, it also marks important class differences with other families and in Chatsworth has provoked jealousies and competitions among siblings and neighbors. In terms of cultural change, the expansion of English medium education with limited state provision for the teaching of Indian languages facilitated vernacular language loss among future generations, particularly among the working class less able to afford private tuition while simultaneously improving English language literacy on amass scale.1 0 7 Whereas in 1951, English was the home language of 6.3% of the South African Indian community, by 1980, English had become the predominant home language of 85% of South African Indians (Brijlal, 1989, pp. 34-35). Moreover, in 1974, Afrikaans became a compulsory second language throughout South Africa further displacing Indian vernaculars within a hierarchy of language learning. While the removal of South African Indians from the language of their grandparents and ancestors would create breaches between the generations and interrupt the transmission of cultural knowledge, it would also enable upward mobility through the power of English language literacy. 1 0 7 Vemacular education among South African Indians has primarily been organized outside of formal educational structures, through temples, madrasahs, and private language schools. Although prior to the 1930s some religious and vernacular education was provided in the primary school curriculum for the small percentage of students enrolled, it was only in 1977 that Indian language subjects were introduced in the secondary school curriculum (Pillay, 1978, p. 94). 146 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chatsworth Today1 0 8 In its present formation, Chatsworth spatializes the contradictions and dualities of an intermediate, hybridized space. Originally designed to house South Africans of Indian origins in apartheid’s remaking, racial purification, and industrial development of Durban and meant to be an Indian “homeland” of sorts, Chatsworth is now increasingly home to persons of African descent, some who have migrated from the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal or the Eastern Cape, others seeking refuge or economic opportunity from more distant places, north of the Limpopo. It is also home to South Africa’s Zanzibari Muslims who fell between the illogical gaps of apartheid’s racial ideology.1 0 9 Although race and place are no longer coterminous in South Africa, class has emerged as the new divider and only those township dwellers with economic privilege have been able to transition into more affluent areas and better housing conditions. 1 0 8 See photographic insert at the end of Chapter 4. 1 0 9 South Africa’s Zanzibari community traces its history to freed East African slaves who were brought to South Africa in the 1870s after the British intercepted illegal slave ships bound eastward. The ships were re-routed through Zanzibar and thereafter the freed slaves were designated “Zanzibari.” In Natal, they initially worked as indentured laborers and were placed under the jurisdiction of the Protector of Indian Immigrants. After the completion of their contracts, many Zanzibaris settled at King’s Rest, on the Bluff, south of Durban, as market gardeners on land purchased for their settlement by the Juma Masjid Trust, governed by Indian Muslim merchants, who became patrons of Zanzibari Muslims in the late 1890s. Under the Population Registration Act (1950) and after much political debate about how they ought to be classified (i.e., “Native,” “Coloured,” “Other Asiatics”), Zanzibaris were legally classified as “Other Asiatics” partly through the intervention of the Juma Musjid Trust. Of mixed African and Arab descent as well as freed slaves from another part of Africa, Zanzibari Muslims moreover, were not “native” to South Africa. With the passage of the Group Areas Act and the proclamation of King’s Rest as a white area, Zanzibaris were displaced to Chatsworth and resettled in Unit 2/Bayview (Oosthuizen, 1982, pp. 7- 13,19-23). 147 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Located approximately ten to twelve miles south of the heart of Durban, between the Umhlatuzana and Umlaas rivers, to date Chatsworth can be reached through a single major access road reflecting apartheid planning and the injunction to minimize contact between differently racialized groups. Official estimates of Chatsworth’s present day population, based in census data and used by the Durban City Council for planning purposes, are notably low in contrast to estimates given by community leaders, officials, and residents that live in Chatsworth. Whereas the “official” population harbors in the vicinity of 190,000 locals suggest that the predominantly “Indian,” increasingly African township is now home to anywhere between 350,000 and 400,000 people. Densely populated, it bears mentioning that initially Chatsworth was intended to house approximately 160,000 people in 22,000 housing units varying from sub-economic flats to economic homes. Often called a “dormitory suburb,” Chatsworth is both township and suburb, depending upon the speaker and location, for Chatsworth is multi-class. It has informal settlements of shacks built from corrugated iron and found materials, sub- economic council-built block flats and homes, economic homes, as well as palatial homes self-built on purchased plots. Originally units, streets, and homes were identified through the anonymity of numbers, but the clamoring for the “dignity of a name” came early in the history of the township in the late 1960s. According to one senior official of the then Chatsworth Township Association, the use of numbers to identify Chatsworth areas and roads had given the township an “inferior status,” the 148 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. feel of a “concentration camp.”1 1 0 Moreover English rather than Indian names for the township were welcome according to one prominent resident. “The English names give the area a kind of dignity which we wanted for a long time.”1 1 1 In 1969, units were suburbanized with names and in the early 1980s streets themselves were named.1 1 2 Unit 7 is the only unit where street names continue to be identified through numbers (701, 702). Although each unit carries both a place and number name (i.e., Havenside/Unit 1, Bayview/Unit 2, WestclifF/Unit 3, etc.), in everyday discourse the different areas are most often referred to by their number designations. In the unit areas, houses were principally built by the Durban City Council and to a lesser extent privately developed. The privately developed areas carry the status of being identified through names (Kharwastan, Umhlatuzana, Silver Glen, Mobeni Heights) and are often seen and treated as separate from Chatsworth proper. The dominant association with Chatsworth is uniform, council-built working class housing. The informal areas some of which are in the process of being formalized through post apartheid state sponsored housing schemes (Bottlebrush, Lusaka, Welbedacht) are predominantly African, excepting Welbedacht a long established area, that is both 1 1 0 Daily News, 24 December 24 1966. mDaily News, 12 September 1969. mWithin a community in which personal names have historically been evocative of class, caste, and religious differences and status, the Anglicization of the township through naming practices speaks to a strategy of embracing English(ness) as a path to upward mobility within a racially stratified economy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Indian and African. Almost all Council built homes in Chatsworth are now “ownership homes,” while the majority of households in the flat areas continue to rent. Many if not most “ownership homes” in Chatsworth however have erected “outbuildings” behind their main properties so there is significant class of tenants in the township without the material and symbolic capital of housing. Outbuildings range in size from single room converted garages with kitchen and toilet to comfortable one-bedroom homes with lounge, kitchen, and amenities. Some have hot water but others do not, meaning that occupants generally have to boil water for bathing. For newly married couples, outbuildings are often the first step to a nuclear family life. While class differences no doubt mark the spaces between informal housing in Bottlebrush, your standard working class two-bedroom semidetached in Unit 5 and the more privileged suburbanized existence of Umhlatuzana, there is also considerable class diversity within each area, as suggested by the tenant-owner dynamics that structure life in outbuildings, as well as evidenced by the considerable extensions and investments people have made in their homes in formerly low-income areas. Within each unit, the visual topography of homes suggests that some individuals and families have transitioned into middle class economic stability while others continue to scrape by and simply survive. Economic mobility in Chatsworth has been uneven and the coexistence of unaltered and poorly maintained council-built homes alongside others 150 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. extended and embellished bears visual testimony to this “fact.” For many families, a lifetime’s resources have been invested in their homes, symbols of security and status and the main means of transferring wealth across generations. Like class, gendered divisions are also visible in the spaces of the townscape. One of the defining spatial relationships in Chatsworth is that between home/house and street, gendered as female and male respectively. It is principally women— “housewives” and hired domestic workers, mostly African but also Indian women—as well as children who are at home during the weekdays, in and near the house, and in the yard, whether the male members of the household are working or unemployed. And although some men, as sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, and in-laws do “help” with childcare, cooking, and washing, it is primarily women who continue to bear the responsibility for the daily maintenance and upkeep of the house and family through their unpaid domestic labor. The yard, if not converted into a work or living space, is an intermediate zone that serves a multiplicity of functions associated with both female and male tasks and socializing. Often paved into a driveway, it is the space where washing is done and laundry is hung, where men will sit and drink with friends, tinker with cars or catch a welcome breeze in the unremitting summer heat. It is where tents are erected for family events, birthday parties, prayers, festivals, and wedding related events and young children, especially girls can play protected from the hazards of the street. It is where the jhanda flies high and Hindu shrines are erected for house deities. It also 151 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the place where danger threatens the well being of the household, where jealousy is buried in pouches or left outside doors with the intention to harm its inhabitants through witchcraft. It can be a point of union or conflict for homeowner and tenant as well as husbands and wives. Besides reproductive and ritual spaces and places, the house and home are also sites for business and economic activity, both legal and illegal. Residents market an array of services on placards outside their homes, ranging from mechanical services (i.e., exhaust and auto-electrical), to prepared foods (mango pickles, chilies, samosas, betel nut) to ceremonial equipment and accessories for special events (weddings, funerals) to beauty care. Many residences have been extended forward and partly or wholly converted into surgeries, dentistries, and law offices while others operate home-based clothing factories illegally from their homes, namely CMTs (cut, make, trim). Many residents also run small tuck shops either from their homes or containers stationed in the front of properties. While some have game rooms frequented by young boys and men, others double as shebeens. Other households sell alcohol directly and to a lesser extent drugs from their homes, but as a rule only to known customers. In the unit areas of Chatsworth, a tuck shop or shebeen is usually in walking distance, and often there is more than one on a given road. Both drugs and alcohol are easy to obtain, regardless of age, and youth are particularly knowledgeable about drugs—sources, costs, and kind. Dagga, mandrax, ecstasy, 152 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. rock, and roche circulate the township and the willingness with which select police officers accept bribes keeps the trade vibrant and protected. The main artery roads (101,201, 301, 501,601, etc.) that circumambulate the township are narrow and reverberate during the daylight hours with the pulsating boom-boom of hip-hop and gangsta-rap taxi culture.1 1 3 Throughout the day, calls to prayer (azan) issuing from the mosques compete with the overpowering club beats of taxi sound. A cutthroat “survival of the fittest” industry, the taxi business is not for the faint hearted and competition can be fierce. The more financially successful taxis distinguish themselves from one another, competing for youth travelers, namely schoolchildren, through their graffiti graphics and amplified sound systems. Taxi owners often spend large sums of money on graphics and sound, some of which draw from globalized American popular culture.1 1 4 1 1 3 The taxi industry burgeoned in Chatsworth in the late 1980s and is regulated by the Chatsworth Mini-Bus Taxi Association. In January 2002, there were over four hundred taxis vying for commuters in Chatsworth. Usually sixteen-seater mini-vans, taxis and buses to a lesser extent, provide transportation for the majority of residents who do not own cars. Drivers and conductors who work the Chatsworth circuit are predominantly Indian males. Wages vary by taxi owner but in many cases owners expect a given sum per day, encouraging drivers to overload and break rules to maximize the number of trips and passengers in a given day. The conductor is responsible for marshaling commuters (“Aunty, aunty”), collecting fares, and ensuring that passengers are crammed inside to maximize discomfort, sardine-style, and profit. A highly competitive and masculinized industry, it is marked by feuding and violence. A well-known taxi owner with a fleet of taxis and a fancy house is commonly known by residents and the police to be one of the biggest drug lords in Chatsworth. In the more drug soaked areas, residents speak of “living in fear” of drug lords, with the threats of violent intimidation taken seriously in light of police complicity. U 4 Some reference hip-hop and rap music (“Snoop,” “Slim Shady,” “NWA”) as well as localized gang tags (“Still Dre,” “Naughty Boys”) while others refer to films (“Child’s Play,” “Bride of Chucky”) and name brands popular with youth (“Soviet,” “Classic”). Some taxis are unadorned with images or color and rather wear simple religious sayings (“Islam is the Way,” “Jesus Saves,” “The Lord Protects”). Most taxis have names of loved ones such as children, girlfriends, wives, and departed (Keolin, Ashley, Valencia) lettered somewhere on the vehicle. 153 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Some taxis have tinted-windows simulating a club milieu that is popular with youth who will often only commute on particular taxis. To be seen in the right taxi wearing the right clothes is very fashionable. One teenage girl described the experience as, “American ghetto style,” and a young man remarked, “If you’re in a good taxi, it’s happening.” For youth, there is definite sexual allure associated with the taxi scene and taxi drivers. Some schoolgirls spoken of as “taxi queens” have been known to become romantically involved with drivers, often many years senior and married. There have also been a number of local cases of young women violated (raped or murdered) by men working in the taxi industry.1 1 5 Although it is not uncommon to see women driving in Chatsworth, for the majority of women and girls, movement in, out and around the township is accessed through males—either as drivers, male relatives, husbands, boyfriends, or friends. As a woman with a car, I was often chauffeur to many female friends who otherwise had to rely on taxis or husbands for transportation. Without question, cars are hot commodities and a man with an expensive car (BMW, Mercedes) is aptly noted by neighbors and family and considered a desirable mate. Young men devote their time, u5In one instance an 18-year old girl, Pamela Govender, was strangled and her body was dumped in the Silver Glen Nature reserve. She had become romantically involved with a taxi driver and, as rumor had it was murdered her insistence on keeping the child alter falling pregnant. (Matric Pupil Strangled, The Rising Sun, 20-26 November 2001.) In another case, three young women were murdered execution style and their bodies were dumped in a sugar cane field on the South Coast. Men involved in the taxi industry were once again the main suspects (Mystery of Three Women Shot and Dumped in Field, Sunday Times, 20 October 2002.) This last case was particularly upsetting on a personal level, as I knew one of the young women and her family history. 154 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. energy, and resources to talking about, maintaining and stylizing their “cabs” with state of the art sound systems, “mag” wheels and other distinguishing features. Each of the eleven numbered units of Chatsworth has a shopping facility. Some mix both formal commercial premises with informal street hawking of mostly fruits and staple vegetables (onion, potato, tomato, mealie) and less so household goods (plates, cups, brass polish, toilet paper), cigarettes, and clothing. Hawkers also set up their wares on heavily trafficked roads, near the highway and other transportation nodes, and in front of institutional sites such as the local hospital and provincial building (KZNPA). Wherever people gather or pass regularly, there are hawkers. In addition, there are mobile fruit and vegetable vans that circumnavigate the township during the day as well as peddlers who walk door to door in search of customers. In Unit 3, there is thriving informal market, the “Bangladesh market.” Rather than alluding to any national origin, the market is named after the grinding poverty found in the Westcliff flats, which it borders. The traders are mostly Indian men and women, but also African women who travel to the township weekly, bringing fruits and vegetables for sale from the rural areas. Active on Fridays and Saturdays, the market bustles with trading activity and is thronged with buyers on the weekends. For many families in Chatsworth, it continues to be their primary source of fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, and live fowl for the week. As one hawker commented, at the Bangladesh market you can get anything you need from “pin to needle.” 155 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Each of the unit areas has at least one mosque and a Hindu temple, and often many more churches. The majority of mosques are Sunni and although theoretically Islam as the umma does not differentiate according to race or status, Unit 2 has two mosques, one associated with Zanzibari Muslims, the other with Indian Muslims. While the majority of temples are of South Indian origin, the diverse neo-Hindu traditions have also found a home in Chatsworth. The Divine Life Society, the Hare Krishna Center, the Chinmaya Mission, and the Sai Baba movement have opened temples or ashrams in the township, drawing not only local devotees but also worshipers living in other parts of Durban. The churches in Chatsworth however are perhaps the most visible. While many congregations gather in formal church structures, many informal tent churches have also sprung up on empty patches of green on comers and streets. Still, other pastors hold services in school buildings, shop fronts, and even their homes. It would be hard to deny that Christianity in its Pentecostal version has gripped the hearts and souls of many Chatsworth residents. Public space in Chatsworth is often poorly maintained and speckled with litter and broken bottle shards. From time to time garbage is still burned along the side of the road. The township was not designed with street parking in mind, so cars are usually parked on sidewalks and road verges, wearing out pedestrian walkways and green patches. Footpaths serve as shortcuts, cross-secting the inner roads of units otherwise made distant by poor planning. Although there are concentrations of affluence and wealth in Chatsworth, poverty, unemployment, and a scramble for daily 156 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. survival are still visible on the street: Young Indian men loiter on street comers or at pathways smoking and drinking; African casual workers, mostly male, gather at unit centers waiting for potential work; and, at the borders of commercial zones, sex workers service clients and ply their trade. Although there are parks and playing fields in Chatsworth, there is a notable danger associated with green areas, which are often overgrown, inadequately drained, or left unprotected from street traffic. Although boys are sometimes seen playing soccer on the fields after school or on the weekends, it is not common to see girls playing outside or in green spaces. Moreover, there have been a number of murders, hijackings, and bodies dumped in the Silver Glen Nature Reserve located along the southern periphery of the township and so an association in Chatsworth of green spaces with hooliganism, vice, and danger endures. If there is a center unifying the diverse constituencies and inhabitants of Chatsworth, the closest the township approaches to public culture, it is the recreational postmodern mall-marketplace of the Chatsworth Center, first opened in 1989. A site of community surveillance in a township where everybody knows everybody else5 s business, it is hard to leave the Chatsworth Center without being seen or seeing someone you know. It is especially popular with youth as a runway to make the latest fashion statements and as a courtship stage for flirtation and romance. On Friday afternoons, youth as young as ten and twelve come to “The Center” after school, dressed in shimmering style and with girls, often revealing Britney Spears 157 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. style club clothes. Youth parade the mall either as couples or in single-sex clusters, sometimes anxiously, other times with provocative gestures of seduction. In a township with few recreational opportunities and social spaces for young people, going to the Center, like being seen in the right taxi finely dressed, is akin to going out for a night on the town. The Chatsworth Center, surrounded by parking is usually filled to capacity on the weekends, “month’s end” (when workers get paid), and around holidays (Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Diwali, Eid, Easter). Many local residents either unable to find formal employment in post-apartheid South Africa or retrenched by factory closures work as car guards at the Chatsworth Center, relying on tips from customers for their livelihoods. The Chatsworth Center records 1.2 million in foot traffic per month and more than 90% of the shoppers are of Indian descent (Personal Communication, Public Relations Officer, April 2002). There is a strong sense among residents that there is no reason to leave the township, since you can buy everything you need at the Chatsworth Center. A one-stop shopping and entertainment experience, it has nurtured a sense of common identity rooted in place and commerce. Moreover central Durban is increasingly seen as dangerous, as part of a racialized imaginary whereby Africans have taken over the city and claimed the old Indian quarters. The main taxi rank in Chatsworth is located astride the Chatsworth Center and at the borders of the Center, during the day and night there is an active sex trade. The 158 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sex workers are predominantly African women from the informal areas of Chatsworth as well as Indian women who tend moreso to move in and out of the trade. There is much clamoring in the township about “prostitution,” moral decline, and that men driving fine cars are often seen soliciting sex workers. It is indisputable that the clientele is predominantly male and Indian. A group of street children, both Indian and African, also gather at the outskirts of the Center, sometimes begging for food, other times seen sniffing glue or making fires to survive cold days and nights. Both sex workers and street children strive in their own ways to survive at the margins of the Center and have been subject to violent attacks and harassment. Circling the Chatsworth Center are also the main government buildings and institutional sites that serve the residents of the township. These include the main provincial hospital (RK Khan) the Chatsworth and Metro police, the Chatsworth stadium, the Chatsworth Court, as well as KZNPA, the provincial welfare office that discharges grants and pensions. During the apartheid years, all of these institutional sites as well as schools were erected specifically for Indian township residents. Moreover, they required Indian staff—clerks, police officers, nurses, lawyers, social workers, and teachers—to manage their offices and facilities designed solely for people of Indian descent. The opening up of job opportunities and vocational training subsidized by the apartheid state no doubt contributed to the upward mobility of some residents and families in the township. A process of both constriction and stimulation, 159 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with increased state intervention and control came new gendered opportunities within the parameters of racialized places and identities. 160 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV HOUSING, GENDER, AND WORK Chatsworth as the first large scale working-class township for South Africans of Indian descent marked an enhanced relationship of forced submission to the state, which became “landlord” to the majority of residents living and renting in the township. An act of raced domination, the forced removal of most Indian families, despite resistance and pleas testifying to the attachments of place, made clear who was Lord of the Land. In the early years of township life, the raced masculinity of the state in the embodied form of the rational white bureaucrat administering a subjected population, both appropriating and allocating resources of home and land undermined the authority of the “Indian patriarch.” Acts of state violence through the bulldozing of hearth and home both physically and symbolically had the immediate effect, in many contexts, of usurping the patriarchal authority of the father as head of the extended or joint family. With physical and spatial displacement and violence came other forms of dislocation, expressed in uniquely gendered ways. On the one hand, it challenged the authority of an older generation of men vis-a-vis their married sons and brothers who could independently qualify for housing in Chatsworth, outside of the family nexus. On the other hand, it placed greater emphasis and stress on the nuclear 161 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. family to afford the high rental and transportation costs of living in the township environment, making female employment increasingly necessary. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ After the National Party’s election victory in 1948, a number of important pieces of legislation debated and effected within the first few years of apartheid rule were critical to the making of race through the simultaneous and mutually constitutive practices of marking bodies racially and regulating these raced (and sexed) bodies through containment to racially defined places. As Stoler’s (1989) work on race and sexuality has illustrated, the regulation of female sexuality is often critical to the construction and reproduction of racial and class boundaries, identities, and difference. It is significant that Malan’s National Party rose to power in part through playing on the racial and sexual anxieties of white voters, particularly the white working class, whereby the privileges of race were being eroded by urbanization and the exploitation of class relationships.1 1 6 Exploring this intersection, Elder (1998), for example, has argued that the racial and sexual encoding of bodies was central to the “operation of apartheid” and moreover that all bodies produced through apartheid U 6 To the extent that the system of apartheid reflected greater control over the lives and labor of South Africans of color, it was partly realized through popular appeals to both Afrikaner nationalism and whiteness, effacing class disunities and amplifying racialized insecurities. Fears of racial mixing were amplified by rapid urbanization, slum conditions, and the increasingly multi racial character of many inner city residential areas in South Africa where “poor whites” lived among people of color. In the first three decades of the 20th century, there was a significant increase in South African cities of “poor whites” from 106,000 in 1916 to 300,000 in 1933 (Parnell, 1988, p. 120). 162 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. practices were consequently “subject to different types and degrees of State sexual anxiety” (p. 155). It is not incidental that the first law passed relating to practices of racial separation was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949), followed by the Group Areas Act (1950), the Population Registration Act (1950), and the Separate Amenities Act (1953). Collectively these laws policed the borders of racial identity and sexual purity by creating social and sexual hierarchies through distinctly spatial practices, both creating and reflecting social relationships and distance. A politics of gender and hetero-normative sexuality was interwoven with discourses of race and class at a time when the boundaries between persons were being contested and eroded. Veiled in the language of modernity and civilization, township housing came of age within this political context of regulating racial and sexual categories and boundaries through the control of spatial formations. As the work of gay and lesbian scholars, particularly Butler (1990) has emphasized, the “regulatory fiction” of heterosexuality is critical to the creation of binary distinctions between men and women and there is violence in the making of gendered and hetero-normative selves. Within South Africa, besides legislative fiats, township housing whose building block was the heterosexual nuclear family has been critical to maintaining this illusion of gendered difference. Although it is indisputable that state definitions of family made material in the construction and design of township housing have been contested by 163 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the actual lives of residents and households over time, the initial terms of engagement were nonetheless determined by the state’s housing codes. Moreover, the construction of group areas based upon the unit of housing reflected a new system of racial and sexual control through practices of ordering, enclosure and isolation. It was an attempt to create bounded closed places, islands of separation and through the design of the township fostering an inward-looking orientation. With only one way in and one way out, the use of the landscape as buffer zones between racialized groups, and limited public transportation, the population could be effectively contained and patrolled. By defining households and rights to residency through the discourse of the nuclear family, moreover, it enhanced women’s reliance and relationships to men as wives, daughters, and mothers in accessing the resource of formal housing. Moreover, while the ideology of a heterosexual nuclear family was embedded in the design and spatial structure of township housing, few Indian families moving into Chatsworth in the 1960s fit the western ideal of the heterosexual couple plus two, perhaps three children. Although nuclear family life has become increasingly normative over the years, especially with increasing female employment, working class families in the 1950s and 1960s tended to be large with ten children per couple not unheard of. That family planning was an important component in the re-making of the Indian family to conform to “modem” nuclear models is suggested is suggested in the following account. 164 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Writing for the Fiat Lux1 1 1 in 1966, Mrs. K. Lander of the Natal Family Planning Clinics, makes the following case for limiting the size of families. Deploying patriarchal images of man/husband/father as hunter and breadwinner, she builds an evolutionary argument for reproductive rationalism. Long ago, when each man had to grow all the food needed for himself and his family and go hunting for his meat, it was necessary for each father and mother to have many children in their family so that these children as they grew up could help till the fields and take part in the Hunt. Today the father of the family works in an office, a factory, or a mill and with the money he earns all the members of his family must be clothed, fed, and educated; so it is wise for each father and mother to know how to space their children so that each child is bom by choice and not by chance, (vol. 1, p. 156) The article includes photographs of Chatsworth mothers in saris lining up for their “pills” waiting to be assisted by nurses and health care workers. Besides being a potential breeder, the woman/wife/mother is a silent bystander in both the imagery and the narrative. She is the object of administration and dispensation and there is no real acknowledgment of her active presence in the family. It is instead her silent presence that is necessary to maintain a happy but contained hetero-normativity. Her sexuality is clearly encapsulated within a nuclear model of family and marriage through appeals to rational choice and decision-making. Importantly family planning initiatives were undertaken not only in the township but also in the factories, verging H 7 Since discontinued, the Fiat Lux was an apartheid government publication aimed at the South African Indian population. 165 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. on coercion.1 1 8 Whether housewives or working women, the emphasis is on controlling women’s fertility. Not withstanding whether women found the emphasis on their fertility coercive or liberating or both, one important effect of making birth control available was the decoupling of sex with reproduction, substantially mitigating the risks of pregnancy, but also provoking questions, symbolically, about female sexuality. In addition to defining sexuality and gendered identities through the patriarchal discourses of marriage and family, township housing also reflected a new form of socio-political domination and control engineered by an explicitly racialized state but also driven by the labor imperatives of capitalist accumulation and its reliance on a docile workforce for its lifeblood. Within Durban, city officials had to manage, in Freund’s (2002) terms, on the one hand, . . . the powerful political imperative to work for a white city that wanted non-whites classified, marginalized, and reduced to impotence, and the economic imperative to provide the basic necessities for a large working class that included Indians and Africans, (p. 19) Race, class, and gender domination were woven together. “"Both Meer (1990, pp. 136-137) and Berger (1992, pp. 283-284) suggest that the control of female fertility, in contrast to health, was a primary concern for employers of female factory workers. Drawing from her research with female factory workers in Durban, Meer notes that although workers were allowed unpaid maternity leave, it was unclear how long they could be absent from work and still have jobs. Moreover, in Natal, at some factories, birth control was a prerequisite for employment and falling pregnant actively discouraged. 166 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Families and Households As Birdwell-Pheasant and Lawrence-Zuniga (1999) have argued families and households, although analytically distinct, nonetheless overlap and are mutually constituted within the built environment of the house. Defining households as “task- oriented residence units” and families as “kinship groupings” that often extend beyond the house, they nonetheless make the useful point that while family life cannot be contained within the house, at the same time “families must be housed” (p. 3). No doubt, in many contexts, house and family become wedded within both a material and symbolic economy of meaning. This critical focus on families and houses emphasizes their mutual constructed-ness and moreover suggests that houses are coded and layered with meaning, history, sentimentality, and class aspirations through the everyday negotiations of its members, shaping identities of self and concepts of family in the process. As Bourdieu’s (1977) notion of “habitus” emphasizes, it is in part through the everyday materiality of house and home and the relationships actively produced and organized therein that habitus as a “system of dispositions” is reproduced, and I would add, challenged. Moreover it is within the context of family, household, and house that gender is often mapped onto place and appropriate roles for males and females through the discourse of kinship regulated and negotiated. Within the South African Indian community, particularly, concepts of house, home, and family are interlinked and gendered, and over the past fifty years have been significantly shaped by the racial and gender politics of the State. With the transition 167 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to state-built working class housing in Chatsworth, family life and gender relations were impacted in dramatic ways, for a variety of reasons, relating to the traumas of displacement and loss of placed-based social networks, housing policy and township design, as well as the increasing necessity of female wage labor. Extended and joint families were fractured spatially through the housing policies of the apartheid state such that sons and brothers as individual fathers and husbands were suddenly eligible for housing built upon a nuclear family model. Within a broader context of an artificially created and racially demarcated housing shortage and a long history of displacement from house and home in the Indian community, during the apartheid years the house emerged as a highly valued but limited resource and later commodity, a site of conflict and differentiation, a source of pride and clear marker of class difference as well a point of contest between resident and local state. Highly politicized, it became a visual and visible statement of family success or failure. Masculinity, Place, House In her ethnography on the Indian community in Natal, Hilda Kuper wrote about the symbolic significance of the house for South African Indian families as a mark of status and security within a broader context of political change and upheaval. Published in 1960, Kuper’s characterization intimates that concepts of identity and family are interwoven with the making of house and home. Probably among all sections in South Africa, and definitely among Indians, a house is the foremost symbol of security and prestige. It is for a house of his own that an Indian saves, 168 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. works, and plans. With large families, legal restrictions on movement and generally with little money for outside pleasures, the house becomes the main economic and emotional investment. An Englishman’s home is his castle, and Indian’s home is his shrine. In Hindu homes, and Hinduism is the dominant idiom of South African Indian life, the hearth is sacred, ritual plants are grown in the yard, a special room or part of a room is used for regular family prayers. Homes have remained in the same families for two or three generations and most families are not willing to be uprooted, (p. xv) While the masculinization of house and ownership is perhaps simply an indicator of the times and legal associations of manhood with property, there are other suggestions that the removals and appropriations of property associated with the Group Areas Act, likely destabilized notions of self, family, and masculine identity for many of the displaced, with the house standing as a metonymic extension of the self. Analyzing the effects of the Group Areas Act, Meer (1977) writes, It is difficult to assess how much the Group Areas Act has cost the Indian community in material, social, emotional, and cultural terms. Some have committed suicide; some have undergone sudden personality changes; many have gone bankrupt. These more dramatic examples illustrate the extreme response to sudden deprivation and change in fortune. (P-16) Although Meer herself does not address gender specifically, other sources suggest that the violence of removal and sudden displacement provoked a crisis of masculine authority for some men, subjected despite resistance to the raced domination of the state. In his narrative accounts of community life in Cato Manor in the 1950s, Ronnie Govender, for example, tells the tale of Thunga Padayachee, the patriarch of the family resisting the appropriation of his self-built property after Cato Manor was 169 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. declared a white area. With his three children married and moved to separate houses in Chatsworth, Thunga stands his ground repeatedly, defying multiple government notices from the misnamed Department of Community Development ordering removal. Over time even his “devoted wife” Gonum grows frustrated with his stubbornness and calls in the children to intervene. Finding solace in his “bottle of cane spirits,” Thunga nonetheless refuses to relent. “Over my dead body!” he cries. And so it is, that at the end of the story, just days before the Department of Community Development arrives to bulldoze his house, Thunga Padayachee with a pain in his chest collapses and dies (Govender, “Over My Dead Body,” 1996). A similar kind of story is told in the newspaper, The Leader, about a husband who commits suicide after his home was expropriated and he and his wife were moved to Chatsworth in 1970. Having hanged himself in the garden of the home where he and his wife lived for 25 years, the article describes the heartache the couple experienced when they were evicted two months previous. His wife told the reporter, “My husband was so disappointed when we had to leave. He was not really happy living in Chatsworth and often spoke of moving away” (13 March 1970). The suggestion that the mass removals of the Group Areas Act accompanied with the destruction of homes and loss of livelihoods were particularly destabilizing for men, young and old, deserves consideration, especially given the emergence of gangs in the early history of the township and the pervasiveness of alcohol and drug abuse among men. Moreover, established networks for male socializing outside the feminized 170 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. space of the home through place-based sports clubs, drinking, gambling, religious activities, community work, and musical expression were disrupted by displacement, taking many years to reconstitute in the new state built environment of Chatsworth. Gang membership gave some men a place-based masculinized identity defined by control over territory in a context where residents otherwise had little choice over their external environments and unemployment was a dominant feature of some men’s lives.1 1 9 By all accounts, the history of gangsterism in Chatsworth has been part and parcel of the drug trade. Mark, an anti-apartheid activist in Chatsworth in the late 80s, now in his thirties and raised in Unit 2, recalls growing up with gangs in his neighborhood. 1 1 9 Unemployment was fed by racial discrimination and spatial restrictions that barred inter provincial movement by virtue of the Immigrants’ Regulation Act of 1913, meaning that better employment opportunities could not easily be sought beyond the borders of Natal. According to Muller (1968) unemployment among Indian South Africans was 14.9% in 1951 and 21.4% in 1960, with rates likely to be higher in Natal, home to the majority of the descendants of indentured labor. In his analysis of per capita annual incomes by province and racial group in 1960, the per capita for Natal Indians was less than half that of the Transvaal and Cape, indicating that the Indian poor and working class were concentrated in Natal (pp. 32-33). Still by the end of the 1960s South African capitalism had experienced a remarkable decade of rapid and unprecedented growth that continued through the early 1970s. In sharp contrast to the high unemployment rates of the 1950s and early 1960s, various studies cited in Pillay and Ellison (1969) suggest that the unemployment rate among Durban Indians had dropped as low as 6 to 7% by the mid 1960s. Still, Pillay and Ellison underscore that there is a definable sector of casual workers in the Durban Indian population that take on employment on an irregular, part time, or seasonal basis. Moreover in their sample population of nearly six thousand Indian men and women, less than half of the unemployed had registered with the Department of Labor. The highest percentage of unregistered unemployed came from the Southern region, namely Chatsworth and Merebank, a far distance from the registry office located in Central Durban. Moreover, of the casual workers, there were four times more female than male casuals. Pillay and Ellison make clear that official figures are “unacceptable” as a reliable indicator as to the extent of Indian unemployment in Durban (p. 30). 171 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I think a common drug in Chatsworth had always been dagga and I think that has been around for a very long time. And I remember growing up in Unit 2 and Unit 2 is a community of its own. We had gangs where I lived. One was known as the Karriah’s. Karriah’s meaning black or something and another gang by the name of The Raj’s. And the fighting between the two gangs was always over territory, in terms of drugs. And I know the famous drug there used to be dagga.. . . There were lots and lots of gang fights but it was always linked to gangs, never to the people, the ordinary residents. In a strange way as well the gangsters had a lot of respect for the ordinary people in the community. Ordinary people were never caught up in the fights until guns started coming into the picture and then things changed again. People were caught in the crossfire, but that came later. The 207 and 208 comers were pretty notorious comers. As Desai (2000) notes, besides guns, the introduction of mandrax shaped the nature of gang warfare. From the mid-1970s gangsterism thrived. This coincided with the arrival of mandrax on the illicit drug market.. . . “Buttons,” the street name for mandrax, came to replace dagga as the drug of choice. With it came a more lucrative market and violent territorial battles ensued, (p. 31) The brutal violence and murders associated with gang life are apparent in the lead paragraph to the following story in The Chatsworth Times written in 1987. “A former member of the notorious Karriah Gang of Unit 2 Chatsworth died under mysterious circumstances early on Saturday morning. His blood spattered body was found sprawled in the middle of a street with his brains splattered around him.”1 2 0 Although 1 2 0 “Karriah” Man’s Mystery Death, Chatsworth Times, 1987, 1(4). Karriah translates as “black” in Tamil, reflecting an appropriation of that which stigmatized and transforming it into a site of power. 172 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. gangsterism is no longer a dominant feature of street and community life in Chatsworth, drugs continue to circulate through particular drug lords and syndicates and the gangster as a glamourized, masculinized ideal lives through the graphics and globalized musical appropriations of local taxi culture. Men who have been involved in gangsterism in Chatsworth, however, have been a minority, and although women are involved in the drug trade, their participation has been mostly defined by cross-border trafficking, such as smuggling mandrax from India, as well as home-based sales. The far more pervasive site for male socializing in Chatsworth outside of the home has been the shebeen. There is little indication in the literature, in the years prior to the removals of the Group Areas Act, that people of Indian descent were involved in the liquor trade in large numbers. In his stories on Cato Manor, Ronnie Govender mentions that there was only one shebeen in the District and that otherwise Indian men drank at the Mayville Hotel, which had an Indian bar.1 2 1 Yet by the mid-1970s, there were an estimated 500 shebeens operating in Chatsworth,1 2 2 with similar numbers cited for the present day. A columnist in The Leader situates the pervasiveness of alcoholism and shebeens in Chatsworth as product of social, economic, and cultural displacement. Now the readiness with which many people in the “new township” turn to liquor for solace these days is because of the disease from which we are suffering in this country. 1 2 1 See “Lala Phansi” and “Brothers of the Spirit” in Ronnie Govender (1995). l2 2 Shebeen Shenanigans, The Leader, 5 June 1970. 173 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chatsworth has a very large proportion of people living there who never wanted to go there in the first place. They were forced to move there because their homes and hearths were taken from them.. . . In their frustrations, and impotent rage, the people find themselves in many ways adrift.. . . One convenient means of escape is to drown their sorrows in drink.1 2 3 The inward turn, consuming alcohol, as a strategy to deal with “impotent rage,” suggests experiences and feelings of emasculation in a context of raced political domination. The columnist also makes clear the link between poverty and the shebeen business. What about the people who run the shebeens? In Chatsworth they are Indians, and even five years go, it would have been absolutely unthinkable for any Indian in Durban even to consider running a shebeen.. . . I have been told of a case where the only income an Indian family had was less than R30.00 a month. From this the rent had to be paid to the Durban Corporation; the light account had to be paid, and after bus fares, there was no money for food. They only way for them or so they thought to earn the money for food was selling liquor. At first, for many the shebeen was a home-based survivalist trade in a context where there were no local liquor stores (“bottle stores”) or bars. Yet within the township environment, besides providing a much-needed space for male socialization, it became a profitable business built upon and feeding the addictions of men. Although some women in Chatsworth, particular of the younger generations do drink and abuse alcohol, it is usually not within the context of the shebeen, a highly masculinized space. Susan, 30, raised in Unit 5 echoes comments made by other residents: 1 2 3 Shebeen Shenanigans, The Leader, 5 June 1970. 174 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . . . the shebeens that used to be there, they were very poor people and that was their source of income. But now when you look at them they are multi-millionaires because of the shebeens. They have such big fancy houses. They have quite a bit of cars. Now they even dealing with drugs, they have so much of wealth. As Susan makes clear, it is through the sale of drugs and alcohol that some households and families have prospered measured against the culturally inflected and consumer-oriented criteria of home and car ownership. Mark recalls the two shebeens on his block in Unit 2 and their integration within the community. When I was growing up there weren’t so many bottle stores as there were shebeens, illegal shebeens. And there was also a lot of homemade kind of alcohol.. . . The one shebeen we knew as Sweet Aunty’s house. Because they sold sweets, but besides selling sweets they were selling alcohol. And another lady was Fowl Aunty, because she sold fowl, but she realized another way to make money is alcohol. So I remember as a young boy my father would say you need to go buy alcohol for him and come home and those days it was forty-five cents. You ran there with forty-five cents, and you came back with a little nib bottle full of alcohol. Now in this day, that would be child abuse to be doing that but then it was so normal. Throughout the narratives of residents’ family histories in Chatsworth is the recurring theme of alcoholism among men and its effects on family life and the distribution of resources in the household. Both Susan and Mark’s fathers are alcoholics, the latter recovering, and both intimated in their accounts the significance of alcohol in their fathers’ lives, particularly how their fathers’ drinking endangered the viability of the household. Mark emphasizes drinking as a coping mechanism, as 175 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the way his father dealt with the frustrations of a racialized labor market, political domination, and family politics all woven together. Alcohol was a major problem. I think for so many minorities alcohol is a big problem. Where lots of people, I think for those at the end of their hard day’s work drink and it became socially acceptable. And it became a real problem, even in my own family.. . . I always remember my mother having to work very, very hard because my father would be unemployed for long periods of time. He was also being exploited because my father was really, really good at his trade. He was a printer but because he was always at the level of being an artisan and never having sums of monies to start up his own company so he always worked for somebody.. . . I remember times when I was a little boy, I would go with my father on a Saturday to a local printing company where he would work from morning to one o’clock and get nothing but about three or four rand. And before we’d get home that money’d be spent, because he’d stop somewhere in town and get back and there would be nothing at home. It really was very hard times.. . . I see it as systemic in a way. High levels of frustration, even if you could call it a learned helplessness where people believe that society is beyond them, and nothing that they can do as a people can influence or change their society.. . . So lots of people have learned to escape their problems with alcohol. Alcohol is a very easy escape route. When I was growing up, there was alcohol all around. My father’s drinking was in a strange way, was linked to the fact that we were growing up, his family was getting ahead and he was behind. And he was not getting anywhere in his job and because he was drinking, the family now was actually trying to outdo him. For the older generation of Indian working class men in Chatsworth, men now in their fifties and sixties and those with very limited formal education, the frustrations of not being able to progress in the labor market and trying to support a family on meager wages often surfaces in residents’ family narratives. Although during the 1970s significant numbers of skilled Indian workers emerged enabling upward mobility for a 176 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. new generation of workers and their families, the fathers and mothers of these new workers were confronted with a much more hostile and racially divided labor market.1 2 4 Moreover, the concepts of “breadwinner” and “housewife” although ideal forms were difficult for most working class families to sustain in economic terms due to the poor wages earned by working class men.1 2 5 Within this context, the shebeen offered a transitional space for men, an intermediate site, neither home nor work, a place to relax and drink with other men after a hard day’s labor. In a context of 1 2 4 Although new job opportunities for Indian workers did emerge as the South African economy expanded in the 1960s and 70s, the participation of Indians workers in manufacturing and wage work was nonetheless constrained until 1971 by job reservation, particularly after the passing of the revised Industrial Conciliation Act of 1956 which permitted the statutory exclusion of Coloured, Indian, and African workers from semi-skilled positions (Van der Horst, 1976, p. 102; Arkin et al., 1989, p. 48). Although only twenty-seven jobs reservation orders were made between 1956 and 1971, a legislative machinery was set into place legalizing racial barriers to class mobility. Moreover, in the early years of the apartheid regime, there was an increasing racial divide vis-a-vis wages across the color bar, with all workers of color, male and female, earning a decreasing proportion of white wages. Berger (1992) examines the percentage of white men’s wages earned by the various racialized and gendered segments of the working population (i.e., White women, Indian men, African women, etc.) between 1944/45 and 1956/57. Whereas white women’s wages stayed at consistent 45% of white men’s wages, for all other categories of workers the wage percentages across this time frame dropped between 6 and 13% (p. 167). Between 1946 and 1960, in comparison to white income, those of Indian workers dropped from 23.5% to 17.5%. By 1970, the proportion began to creep upwards, to 19.6% and by 1980 had surpassed the 1946 ratio, to 25.5% (Crankshaw, 1997, p. 109). I 2 s ln Meer’s (1990) survey of nearly one thousand working class Indian, Coloured, and African women employed in factories in the Durban-Pinetown region, 81% of the women interviewed were working due to family poverty and saw their income as supplemental (p. 46). Quoting Meer, It is clear that, had the women in general been the sole “breadwinners,” their families would have lived in abject poverty. It is also clear that in 60% of the cases, the women’s contribution to the family economy was essential to combat poverty. The married women earned far less than their husbands, though their educational qualifications and job descriptions were similar. The women’s earnings were about a third of their husbands, (p. 119) 177 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. economic hardship, political exclusion, and displacement, drinking had come to signify a right of masculine entitlement. In talking about how her father would sit at the neighborhood shebeen after work and come home late at night, Susan reflects on the violence that came along with drinking in shebeens. And my dad’s behavior was actually terrible. He used to come home and he used to fight and he tried to get abusive and he used to break couple of windows and it was frightening for us. . . . Like in Chatsworth it’s a problem with the men, it’s always a drinking problem with them. They were always at each other and we had a lot of shebeens and people were always getting into fights. People got killed.. . . I think because of the alcohol, you get a lot of men that don’t know how to behave. I noticed that with Indian men, they really don’t know how to behave when it comes to alcohol. With the shebeens you always get groups of men together and they would drink and somebody would end up fighting and somebody would end up getting killed. In Chatsworth there was always murders, there was always fighting. The sad part is that the police didn’t want to get involved and some of the police were actually very friendly with the people that owned the shebeens so it was a lost cause. Where men drank actually mattered. Susan remarks that although her father now in his early 60s and still drinks, his behavior has become much more manageable over the years since they left Unit 5 to live in more middle class sections of Chatsworth. “It was far away from the shebeen. Even though he would drink, he would get home much earlier and his behavior wasn’t so bad.” Sharon, 40, who struggled with her husband Clive’s alcoholism and physical violence in the first five years of their 178 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. marriage, also drew a distinction between her husband’s drinking at home and outside of the house with others, in particular his family members. I wouldn’t like to go out with him because the only thing his family will get together, his nephews and all, is drink. So you watching them all the time, where there’s going to be a problem.. . . So I preferred staying at home. I used to stay at home, get my things done and stay at home.. . . The weekends I don’t mind as long as he’s drinking at home. I know he’s safe but when he’s out there with his friends, he’s not coming home it’s another worry for me to be up the whole night and worried oh God is he coming safe, whose killing him, is he murdered? Moreover, Clive’s family was soaked in alcohol. For some Chatsworth families, alcoholism and drug abuse has been transmitted across generations. Clive’s mother was an alcoholic and his father began drinking after his wife’s death, as way to deal with the loss. Sharon remarked, “They say when you lose a partner, you either take up alcohol or get another partner.” One of Clive’s brothers ran a shebeen and two of his brothers died “with alcohol. They drank til they died.” Sharon recalls the trouble she had with her in-laws when she tried to keep her husband away from alcohol after he was hospitalized and near death as a result of his excessive drinking. I used to have problems because of that, tell them not to give him drink and everything.. . . So when you talk about that they don’t like it. They say now I’m becoming like a man. For them their husbands can drink. Why can’t I let my husband drink? Within the context of loss and displacement and shaped by the normality of alcoholism and drug abuse, a violent masculinity would seed, root, and sprout in the 179 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. township as family authority structures and controls were being eroded and new worlds were both imposed and being forged. Domesticity and Space In its early history and formation before the development of the Chatsworth mall and light industrial complexes in the 1980s, Chatsworth was primarily constructed as a residential space defined by streets, homes, schools and local shops.1 2 6 Religious and community facilities central to residents’ lives in previous settlements took time and resources to reconstruct and only became visibly part of the township’s tapestry in the 1980s. Far removed from the city without easy access to public or private transportation, Chatsworth as a township was built on the principles of single-use zoning, making particular spatial statements about race, class, gender, and sexuality, making pre-existing distinctions between people and bodies much more pronounced through spatial design. Built on the principal of “race zoning,” and designed specifically for “Indians,” Chatsworth embodied the principle that each “race” must live separately among its “own.” In terms of class, whereas previous settlements were often marked by class diversity, Chatsworth established neighborhoods specifically defined by income, with the poorest households clustered in the flats and sub-economic houses and the most affluent in areas such as Mobeni 1 2 6 Both Sugden (1972, p. 69) and Corbett (1980, p. 63) conducted survey research in Chatsworth with sample sizes of 958 and 663 dwellings, respectively. Among the employed of each sample, approximately 8% actually worked within Chatsworth. Otherwise the largest workforce concentrations were in central Durban and the Southern Industrial Basin. 180 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Heights.1 2 7 Houses of a given type were generally built en masse in a particular part of a unit such that neighbors were frequently of the same economic bracket as housing was allocated and if sub-economic, subsidized based upon income. Class differences then became much more uniformly tied to housing and class mobility visible as some families began to extend and embellish their homes and construct outbuildings.1 2 8 The separation of home from work, reproduction from production, was another important concept inscribed in the spatial making of the township. As a hallmark of industrial capitalism, this spatial separation was an important component in advancing gendered distinctions and the concept that men and women have different spheres of activity. The categories of “breadwinner” and “housewife,” which at first sounded strange and anomalous to my ears, still circulate as articulated gendered identities in Chatsworth, particularly for the older generation of residents. That most “breadwinners” would have to travel some distance (by foot and bus) to commute back and forth to work and that there was little opportunity for employment within in the township itself further entrenched this spatial distinction. Without 1 2 7 Again, according to Sugden’s 1972 sample survey, the highest mean monthly income in Chatsworth was 191 rand in Mobeni Heights. Unit 5 had the lowest at 70 rand per month, which per capita was considered below the poverty line in Durban at the time (p. 70). ,2 8 Even today, houses in Chatsworth are a work-in-progress, and in many cases owners build and transform their homes in bits and pieces as resources become available. In visiting families, even the low income with limited resources, there is ample visual evidence of improving and transforming house space, indoors and outdoors (i.e., painting, tiling, paving) and a strong sense of house pride. 181 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. question, some families used their homes as sites for productive or business activity despite the spatial intention articulated in the layout. Still, the township was built upon the notion that women would stay at home with children and men would go out to work. Moreover, the lack of creche facilities meant that women with children who did wish or choose to work would have to rely on the willingness of family members and neighbors for childcare.1 2 9 Initially, the lack of alternative places, outside of home-spaces, for women to spend time within the township itself further underscored the centrality of home. In any case, childcare responsibilities, cooking, and other household chores, especially prior to the purchase of refrigerators, hot water boilers and washing machines could keep a mother, wife, or daughter-in-law working and busy all day long. Another constraint to mobility was the cost and availability of transportation. The expenses associated with traveling out of the township would likely have been a deterrent for the poorer and larger of families, particularly dependent and unemployed members.1 3 0 The closeness of Cato Manor, for example, to the central business district and the Indian shops of West and Grey Street often described as a “stone’s 1 2 9 Although the “urgent need” for community facilities such as a creche, after school center, nursery school, parks, and recreation hall were recognized in the early 1970s, it was only in the late 1970s that Chatsworth opened its first creche for pre-school children with an intended opening class of twenty pre-school children (Fiat Lux, 1973,p. 14; Fiat Lux, March 1978,p. 21). Many Chatsworth women who worked outside of the home relied on mothers, sisters, female in-laws, and neighbors for childcare. In this sense because so many women were in fact “housewives,” there was a large potential pool of caretakers within the community itself. 1 3 0 Corbett (1980) found that poverty in his Chatsworth sample was inversely related to transportation costs with the highest incidence o f poverty found among those with zero costs, most likely the unemployed (p. 79). 182 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. throw” meant that both men and women could walk to the city with relative ease at little or no cost. Poverty did not foreclose access to the city. Saraswathie, 58, who lived in Mayville (Cato Manor) until her early twenties before removal to Chatsworth, for example, remarked on the loss of the family home in Mayville and its closeness to town, “It was very heart sore for most of us.... From where we lived we could walk from there to town without bus fare.” Chatsworth in contrast when her family moved to Unit 5 in 1965 was not developed. Only Unit 2 and Unit 3 were established then and residents had to walk a long distance to Unit 2 to catch a bus. Saraswathie’s sister Anita, 54, also remarks on the comparative freedom of mobility prior to the implementation of the Group Areas Act. For many years we lived among the Whites, the Africans, the Coloureds, and the Indians. We grew up with them. And when we walked on the road we never used to fright that’s an African guy. We didn’t know what was fear. It was safe, it was very, very safe.... As I told you in my days I was only going to the cinemas, going to shows. We used to travel out at night and it was no fear. Whereas previous settlements were often located near work places and within walking distance to city life, township living associated access to the city and life beyond Chatsworth to a greater extent with wage-earning men and women who had no alternative but to expend resources on transportation for work. It became an unavoidable cost in order to leave the township. Within this context and over time, cars became highly valued and desired as they gave families and individuals the flexibility of movement otherwise limited by bus and train routes and schedules. Even 183 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. today, without access to a car, mobility within and beyond Chatsworth is limited, especially in the evening hours as buses and taxis generally terminate their services by six p.m. It is particularly restrictive for girls and women who are less likely to be permitted to walk outside at night without a male companion or relative. From its inception within the township environment then, access to the city was curtailed by displacement and it effects were experienced in gendered ways. No only did many “housewives” become increasingly housebound but within the everyday built environment of the township, there was little opportunity for women as housewives to develop roles and identities outside of the house, its realm of domesticity and family relationships. With the movement to Chatsworth not only were families made increasingly dependent on wage labor for everyday survival and dependent on the state for the provision of housing, but also women’s economic dependency on men was amplified by gendered inequalities in wage structures, the comparatively higher cost of living and housing, and their distinctly gendered responsibilities as mothers and wives. Housing Families Embedded within the brick and mortar of houses are cultural concepts of what family and home signify. Butler-Adam and Venter (1987) have argued that township housing was culturally inappropriate for transplanted Indian families, suggesting that failures of design and space usage exacerbated family stress, alienation, and discord. Prefaced on the Western norm of the nuclear family, township housing was designed 184 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with a particular ideal of working class family life. The standard household size for which “dwellings” were constructed for “Indian and Coloured communities” was five people (Department of Community Development, 1967, sec. 3.1.2., p. 4) although in practice households were often much larger. The average size of the Indian household in the 1960s varied from 6.1 to 8.8 persons (Meer, 1969, p. 66). In addition, due to the slow pace of housing provision and poverty in the township, houses constructed for single nuclear families were sometimes occupied by multiple families, leading to overcrowding (Sugden, 1972, p. 67). With council-built housing, families who could afford to do so, only began to extend their homes after they came under private ownership in the late 1970s. Until then, many families were forced to live under very congested conditions. Butler-Adam and Venter (1987) attribute overcrowding to “inappropriate house size,” and the fact that although adult children might have preferred with marriage to move out into nuclear households, for many there was simply “nowhere else to go,” due to constraints on Indian residence and the state constructed housing shortage. They also note other important design differences between public housing and previous patterns of house construction. For example, room sizes in public housing were small, lacking the flexibility of larger rooms that were used for multiple purposes in previous homes. Kitchens particularly were considered too small as important sites for family communication and as informal dining rooms. The joining of toilets and bathing facilities into one room, previously separate and often outdoors, 185 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was another cause for concern, especially with large and multiple families sharing a single house. Moreover, for many, living in flats had become an “unthinkable reality,” some of who had previously lived in large houses embedded in family ties. The loss of market gardens, as a source of vegetables and fresh herbs, was another tangible loss, especially as supplemental nutrition in times of adversity (pp. 74-75). Self-built wood and tin houses had at the very least a flexibility of construction and extension with limited cost as the household expanded or conflicts emerged. New wives, for example, could create some independence for themselves by extending into their own kitchens while still remaining part of an extended family household. Larger rooms allowed not only for multiple activities to be ongoing at once but also for large families to spend time together comfortably. The design of a standard two-floor, two-bedroom, semidetached in contrast (see below) illustrates how each room is “zoned” for a particular purpose (kitchen, living/dining, bedroom, toilet/bathroom), despite limited space, and also made separate from other rooms through the building of walls.1 3 1 The parsing up of an already small space made/makes indoor family life a congested experience. 1 3 1 The living/dining designation is misleading suggesting that rooms were actually large enough for separate sitting and eating areas. Although there were over twenty different types of dwellings erected in Chatsworth the C-in-7 or two-bedroom semidetached is the most common type of dwelling erected. Over seven thousand were built in the working class unit areas (excepting Unit 1,4, and 10). The building covers all of 680 square feet (from Chatsworth Indian Housing Scheme, Durban Local History Museum, n.d.). 186 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TYPES C-TC- 7 H O : Sctni K it c h c n/T> i n ir .j T o oir. S e p a r . v .f i T o i l e t , AstiC StO S • 3 a$& cd ( i n t e r i o r - a n d e x t e r i o r ) . Grans - ^ q & O O N D fiC G R ^. 2 5 f * 9 0 ' B uilding - £30 s ; . f t . - C o s t : ^50 E1177 R1627 E 1 2 S B Avftrage Rental: R12.00 to R13.&Q K*U, > ; _U „ 6 Scr.t iyn N.O. 7 [ A l s o j l a r j i e d f o r N'.V. l i ) House Type C-in-7 (Source: Chatsworth Indian Housing Scheme, Local History Museums, Collection, n.d.) Embedded in the design of the house itself then were particular ideas of how space should be used and organized, what size families ought to be, notions clearly dissonant with actual family size and previous settlement patterns, however modest people’s homes. 187 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Two bedroom semi-detached, July 1964 (Source: Local History Museums, Collection) Furthermore, access to housing suddenly became much more intimately tied to the income of the “breadwinner.” Different types of houses were allocated based on the income of the applicant with monthly rentals subsidized by the State up to a certain threshold, using the criterion of no more than 25% of the breadwinner’s income as rental (Corbett, 1983, p. 193). Although marriage was not a criterion for application, practically speaking it was often through marriage as wives and in some cases, widows that adult women had access to housing. According to the Housing Code issued by the Department of Community Development (1967), persons eligible for the selling and letting of dwellings must either be a married male, a single person with dependants residing permanently with him/her, or a married female who is the breadwinner of her family 188 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with dependents residing permanently with her. “Dependant” (sic) was defined as either the wife or husband of the applicant or a relative of the applicant who is by necessity dependant on him/her (p. 56). Although seemingly gender neutral, given that the majority of Indian women did not have independent incomes in the 1960s and 1970s, and those who were formally working were concentrated in low paying jobs (domestic work, factory labor), for most women housing in the new township was accessed through husbands. Young and unmarried or deserted mothers would have been at a particular disadvantage and would find themselves in the most densely populated housing in the township, namely the flats. In addition, it is likely that many marriages previously not legalized with the State and sanctified only by Hindu and Muslim religious ceremonies were quickly registered as a means to qualify for housing. In 1960, for example, the marriage rate for “Asians” (which reflects the number of marriages per thousand people) was 7.5 but by 1963 it had jumped to 13.5, its peak between 1938 and 1974 (Bureau of Statistics, 1974, table Cl). Marriages, previously defined through the idiom of religious and cultural beliefs and practices came much more to be defined within the juridical-legal ambit of the State through the language of property. Through the provision and resource of housing, the patriarchies of cultural and religious norms were supplanted by the gendered legalities of the apartheid state. Township housing also gave new meaning to the concept of “head of household” linking it on a much broader scale with the nuclear head (as opposed to 189 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the head of the patrilineal or joint family), property ownership and the increased responsibilities of paying for monthly rentals and transportation to Town (Durban) and industrial nodes. Although the trend toward nucleation of households predated the Group Areas Act and township housing, it intensified the process and put greater pressure on nucleated households to finance an increased cost of living in a township environment. It also created conflicts and competition within some families as the pace and provision of housing could not keep up with demand. Mark, in talking about his father’s alcoholism, describes how “the house” became a site and source of jealousy for his father’s extended family. My father’s drinking was in a strange way, was linked to the fact that we were growing up, his family was getting ahead and he was behind. And he was not getting anywhere in his job and because he was drinking, the family now was actually trying to outdo him.... He applied for a house and the housing came through. But it never come through for any of his family, the other members of the family, his brothers or sisters. They got it later on, but he got it first. Now he was the envy of everybody else. My father is a person, he’s very sharing, he would sacrifice his own for other people so he said, “No man, don’t worry you all can come stay with us.” So everybody pitched up.... It was two rooms, a lounge and a kitchen, with one toilet. And there must have been about like fifteen or twenty people living there. And my father eventually almost became like a tenant in his own house, after that. Until, my mother, was like a domestic worker for everybody, so they would dirty the place and go away and my mother would have to clean up until she got fed up and put her foot down.... You see at that time as well they were feeding everybody in the family, because they were more of them working, and my father wasn’t in a stable job and so they were helping to keep the house going. So my father was in a situation if he tells them, if he says anything, they would leave the house. So my mother says, it’s either you go or I’m going 190 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to go.... So they all packed and left and there was only one chair left at home. They took all their stuff away and there was only one chair left. And my mother, she said she remembers, sitting in that one chair, in that one room and crying and my father had to go somewhere and find carpet and rugs.... When I look at my family and we visit now and then, the tension and the guilt you can still see, even up til now, among people, because in my own view, there was a genuine consciousness among them to rob my father of his house.... Mark’s story illustrates how the forced transition to township housing created conflict, stress, and jealousy among his paternal kin as his father became the first sibling to be granted a house in Chatsworth. As a house allocated by the government rather than family built and passed through the generations, the Chatsworth house could not be claimed by any of Mark’s father’s siblings as a joint family resource. Mark’s mother and father, however reluctant to exercise their authority, nonetheless had the final say as to occupancy. Their rights as legal tenants gave them power within the extended family, despite age and gender hierarchies, to contest poor and unwanted treatment and define who could and could not live in their house, allocated on the model of nuclear households. Furthermore, with a long waiting list of families1 3 2 seeking housing and the looming possibility of eviction for default or violation,1 3 3 the house became a precious mAs late as 1981, the waiting list for low-income housing among Durban Indians contained 17,000 names (Corbett, 1983, p. 186). 1 3 3 Between 1972 and 1977, eight hundred families in Unit 10/Woodhurst, for example, risked eviction for having allegedly obtained their homes illegally, through bribes involving an Indian estate agent and official at the Department of Community Development. Although by 1977, the implicated households no longer risked evictions, as a penalty was introduced, for five years these same families lived with the threat of upheaval (The Mercury, 1 January 1977). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. commodity to protect and guard, a symbol of spatial security in a context where alternate housing was scarce. This despite the fact that as late as 1975, Chatsworth had only one library and swimming pool for an estimated population of 200,000.1 3 4 A much-needed resource within an artificially constructed housing shortage and an emblem of family investment, the house became layered with family and community desires, conflicts, and meanings. A visual mark of prestige, a source of jealousy, and a place of violence, the house was written with multiple, conflicting, and contradictory meanings, with the state often lingering in the backdrop. In the later 1970s moreover, as tenancy relationships with the Durban City Council gave way to home-ownership, the house became a valuable commodity, sold in some cases for as much as six times what owners originally paid.1 3 5 Survival in the new township, however, was not easy and as the household became nucleated and burdened with payments (rent, water, lights, items purchased on lay away credit), many women sought formal and informal employment to keep the household running. Within the making of the township, although the state spatialized through planning an ideological distinction between women as housewives and men as breadwinners, the economic imperatives of survival and the poor wages earned by working class men meant that many women had to work for wages. 1 3 4 Poverty—“A Way of Life,” The Mercury, 16 April 1975. I 3 5 Big Chatsworth Sales Rise Forecast, Daily News, 26 August 1977; Queue Jumpers Cash in on Home Crises, Daily News, 7 September 1977. 192 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Factory Women Along with the forced transition to state sponsored housing in Chatsworth came a notable increase in the number of South African Indian women formally employed. Between 1960 and 1980, the number of women engaged in wage labor jumped from 10.5% to 25.8% (Arkin et al., 1989, p. 55) with the preponderance of working women concentrated in manufacturing, namely the garment factory.1 3 6 Initially, the visible entry of women into the factory was accompanied, as in other contexts, with cries over the moral breakdown of the family, the loss of traditional values, and the dangers of uncontrolled female sexuality (Freund, 1995, p. 80; Meer, 1969, p. 86).1 3 7 Notably whereas female factory work was considered threatening to the moral order, other forms of female labor were not similarly challenged. In the life and family narratives of women living in Chatsworth, alongside and prior to the large 1 3 6 By 1950, manufacturing had become the largest contributor to South Africa’s domestic economy. For Natal Indians, manufacturing as a source of jobs grew from 19.1% in 1936 to 34.4% in 1951 to 41.9% in 1970, with the key areas of expansion for Indian workers in Durban being the textile and clothing industries. Moreover, a class of Indian industrialists emerged with the expansion of the clothing trade, large enough so that by 1969 they had created their own division of the Natal Chamber of Industries (Freund, 1995, pp. 77-80). l3 7 Meer (1969) quotes a mother from Tin Town as having the following to say about daughters and factory work. Daughters don’t listen. They think you against them. All the time you saying things for their good. No good running here and there. Get bad name. No good going working. Get spoilt. Two girls in this street working by factory, got babies. Nobody to support. Who will marry them now? Big trouble. An association o f female mobility and employment with sexual stigma is illustrated in this account. The way to preserve female honor and purity is to keep girls at home. 193 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. influx of women working in factories, there emerges a history of an older generation of mothers working informally to supplement the family economy, outside the official registers of census data, in homes as domestic workers and washerwomen, and in home-based industries, dealing with food preparation, garments, as well as alcohol, and as hawkers within a family enterprise. Yet because these industries were largely home or family-based, they were incorporated within an ideology of domesticity, as an extension of women’s sphere and responsibility. With the movement into the clothing factory came a large and visible movement of women as daughters and wives out of the house into the spaces of the street and factory, broadly gendered as male. If both in a symbolic and material sense, gender is constituted through a particular relationship to movement and the kind of work that men and women performed in particular places, to transgress those spatial boundaries risks confounding what it means to be male or female. Moreover, as Massey (1994) has argued, limiting women’s mobility in terms of identity and space, as mothers and wives who belong at home or within the family nexus, for example, is often a key component in enforcing patriarchal subordination. Women factory workers, unlike teachers or nurses, for example, were considered especially threatening because they were entering a “zone” broadly defined as male, that of industry. In addition, teaching and nursing as feminized “professions” for women requiring education and training were a sign of upward class mobility and came with an air of respectability. With female factory workers, in contrast, their physical 194 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. movement in and out of the house as part of an industrial labor force, similar to most working class men, challenged their containment within a discourse of womanhood defined by marriage and children, and also opened the possibility that female factory workers might themselves appropriate some of “rights” of their male counterparts, namely drinking, smoking, and sexual relationships outside of marriage. Whereas Freund (1995) has suggested that this movement was largely driven by a paternalistic “family strategy governed by fathers and husbands, rather than by women themselves” (p. 80), conversations with residents, particularly women factory workers, in Chatsworth suggests that in many instances women themselves took the active role in securing employment despite resistance from their families and husbands. Although many women worked because of economic necessity or to support the family economy, it does not by extension mean that the gender order was not challenged in the process. Importantly, factory work enabled some women to renegotiate traditional gender identities and also allowed others to survive without being economically dependent on men. Furthermore, in some situations, women’s earnings were critical in a family economy where male contributions were unreliable and unstable due to death, desertion, and addiction. Because household resources were sometimes siphoned into gambling, alcohol, and drugs, women’s earning although generally less than their husbands, if married, were often the stable source for the family as well as a means of upward economic mobility for the next generation. 195 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A spry wiry Tamil woman, Saraswathie has been working in the garment industry for over thirty years, since the age of twenty. Her father used to work as a tailor and as a young wife, her mother began working in clothing factories, despite her husband’s protests, before the family was displaced from Mayville to Chatsworth. According to Saraswathie, her mother worked because she felt her husband’s income was “too less” and also because she wanted a better life for her children. The eldest of five children, Saraswathie has three sisters and one brother, now deceased. Saraswathie’s father died in his early fifties, a year after the family was moved to Chatsworth. It was as daughters that Saraswathie and her sisters began working in the textile industry. The household for most of its developmental cycle in Chatsworth has been headed and run by its female members and indeed was only able to survive financially through the labor of its female members. Married and widowed twice, Saraswathie’s first husband was murdered within the first year and a half of marriage, after she bore her first child, and her second husband, died of a heart attack when her second child had not yet reached five years of age. At present, Saraswathie lives with her two sisters Anita and Kogi, and her daughter who is studying medicine stays with them during her school holidays. I asked Saraswathie about how men responded in “those days” as women began to work in the factories. She explained that, “at that time only the man must work” and that community consensus was that “a woman’s place was at home . . . for everything we must say yes, yes, yes, and keep quiet.” She added, “Men didn’t feel 196 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. very good about it, but they didn’t have no choice.” Her comments suggest that the strategy of keeping women at home was one means of enforcing compliance and that through factory work some women were able to challenge and leave their husbands and in-laws. In my own family there were so many of them [women]. They left their husbands and went away.... They didn’t have any rights when they lived with their in-laws.... They can’t put a foot wrong. The ladies were feeling too crowded.... If the husband did anything wrong you just had to keep quiet, even if he was having an affair. Saraswathie emphasized that for many women working was seen as a “get-away” and a “chance” to make a better life. It also gave women some economic leverage in the household to speak up rather than simply “keep quiet.” Because they were earning an income, if they returned to their parental home, they would be supplementing the household economy rather than returning as dependents. Although in the post apartheid context the garment and textile industry has faced large scale retrenchments and the erosion of union benefits, and has been replaced to a large extent by overworked and poorly paid casual and non-registered female labor, through the early 1990s employment in the clothing industry work was predominantly unionized and a stable source of income. Saraswathie’s unmarried younger sister, Anita, has also worked in clothing factories much of her adult life. Since 1998, she has been sewing from home as an independent contractor for a clothing hawker. Like Saraswathie, she spoke of family resistance to female wage work in the early days but also of its necessity. 197 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Oh they didn’t want the womens (sic) to work. No the women’s job was to sit at home but so happens from my mum’s side in her family, sisters and all they lived with the White, in Greenwood Park they were mixed. So they lived near Whites, so they worked for Whites. So my mum was the first one in my father’s family to work in a factory. So that’s how they slowly accepted, my father’s family, but no they didn’t allow them to work.... So finally— my mum didn’t wanted us to work, though we were poor. But we the later generation, we said we going to work, there’s nothing you can do. So that’s how we broke up and went to work. So as we did it more families did it. Resistance to women working in factories was experienced not only at the family, but also at the community level. Susan, for example, describes the jealousy among female neighbors as her family progressed economically, particularly through the labor of her mother in the clothing industry. My mum had to work because like also my dad he used to be very much into drinking and gambling, and my mum used to have to work because she felt like she had to keep the house going and that actually encouraged her to become a better person and to want more in life and want better things, and that actually irritated a lot of women in the community. Talking about how her family lost their house in Unit 5 due to witchcraft and jealousy, Susan explains how other women in the community who were principally housewives were threatened by her mother’s drive. When they see that you are progressing in life and that you extending your house—you know my mum bought a car and then we extended the house and we were doing quite ok, and that’s when all the problems started coming in and people were becoming so jealous because they couldn’t afford it and my mum could and my mum was quite.... She wasn’t like the other women in the community, she was a go-getter.... She wanted to learn to drive and she wanted to learn to do 198 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. things. That made a difference on the other women in the community because most of the other women there used to stay at home and their husbands used to support them. My mum was different. In many cases, women’s wage labor in the factories was a means of upward mobility for the family, a stepping-stone, often symbolized through the home and professional status. It was a means to a “better life” out of poverty and with better opportunities for their children. As Anita noted, “Today the majority of women who are owning their own home are factory workers. The childrens [sic] are doctors, lawyers, educators, going on holiday, or leaving the country.” Moreover, it was in fact through Anita’s promotion to a managerial position in a clothing factory, that she and her sisters were able to extend their council built home in Unit 5. Whereas for some women and their families, factory work was a source of stability and upward mobility, for others, particularly those with children, it was a means of bare survival in a context of male desertion and infidelity. Kanagie, 42, began working in the garment industry at the age of fifteen, but left her job after marriage at her husband’s insistence that she be a “housewife.” For six years, she stayed at home during which time she gave birth to three girls. Her husband, a policeman, was physically violent with her both before and after marriage. Possessive over her, he felt she “looked too smart and others mustn’t look at her.” Although the violence stopped after the couple’s conversion to Christianity from Hinduism, her husband was also prone to having affairs, which she kept secret from her family, having married against their will. At one point hospitalized for “depression and 199 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. suicidal tendencies” over the trauma of her husband’s extramarital affairs, soon after release from the hospital Kanagie was given divorce papers by her husband who sought to marry one of his girlfriends. Married for six years and divorced for sixteen, she never received maintenance support post-divorce from her husband, despite attempts through the Chatsworth Court. She raised her daughters through her wages as a machinist, maintenance grants from the apartheid government, and the support of her siblings and mother. Post-divorce she qualified for a one-roomed flat in Unit 10. Kanagie’s story is similar to that of many single mothers in the 1980s who found themselves raising children on their own, reliant on their wages as factory workers to maintain children and households, without any economic support from the fathers of their children. Gendered Generational Shifts Historically, Indian women as a census category have had one of the lowest labor participation rates in comparison with other race/gender groupings in South Africa. Although official statistics tend to elide informal and casual income generating activities, at the same time it suggests that for housewives, access to resource and status has been powerfully shaped by their relationships to men. As the above discussion illustrates, the transition to township housing and the increased availability of economic opportunities for women had contradictory effects on gender relationships. For housewives, it intensified female dependency and limited their mobility, enhancing their reliance upon working husbands and later sons and 200 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. daughters for everyday survival. Due to raced and gendered wage differentials, working class women with children and without husbands would often find themselves in the lowest grade of housing in the township, namely the flats, where female headed households continue to be concentrated. Maintenance grants from the apartheid state, in cases of desertion and non-support, would help these households to survive. With the expansion of education and increased English language literacy during the apartheid years, many daughters of housewives and factory workers in Chatsworth would leverage opportunities unavailable to their mothers, transitioning up the occupational ladder into positions as office clerks, sales workers, teachers, nurses, and social workers. Many of these new workers would labor in the township itself as it developed facilities such as hospitals, schools, government buildings, and later the Chatsworth Center. Although Tables 1 and 2 detail the occupational distribution among South Africa Indian women between 1960 and 1991, the most pronounced occupational shift upwards occurred between 1980 and 1991. Whereas in 1980, the preponderance of working South African Indian women was concentrated in the factories in manufacturing,1 3 8 by 1991 sales and clerical work had emerged as the dominant category. 1 3 8 Although production and transport are grouped together, the number of Indian women working in transportation has always been negligible. 201 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 1 Economically Active South African Indian Women by Industry, 1960- 1991—Percentage of Total 1960 1970 1980 1991 Professional/T echnical 9.15 8.84 7.56 12.19 Administrative (Managerial) 1.19 .17 .425 2.66 Clerical/Sales 13.45 20.44 33.05 39.25 Services 18.8 13.24 7.17 4.86 F arm/F orestry/F ishing 6.18 1.22 .66 .25 Production/Transport 25.60 35.87 39.71 21.94 Not Classifiable 25.5 20.17 7.11 16.39 % Economically Active 10.5 18 25.8 24.9 Source: Population Census, 1960,1970,1980,1991. Table 2 Economically Active South African Indian Women by Industry, 1960- 1991—Actual Numbers 1960 1970 1980 1991 Professional/T echnical 1,215 2,960 7,800 13,302 Administrative (Managerial) 158 60 280 2,911 Clerical/Sales 1,786 6,840 21,760 42,807 Services 2,503 4,430 4,720 5,305 Farm/Forestry/Fishing 820 410 449 274 Production/Transport 3,397 12,000 26,140 26,572 Not Classifiable 3,388 6,750 4,680 17,880 % Economically Active 13,267 33,450 65,820 109,051 Source: Population Census, 1960,1970,1980,1991. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. There is also a noticeable expansion in the percentage of “professional” women and to a lesser extent those in administrative managerial posts between 1980 and 1991. For ambitious and bright working class girls who had completed matriculation, professional work opportunities as teachers and nurses were particularly desirable as training, materials, and books were all subsidized by the state. Training female nurses and teachers to serve “their” communities, be they Indian, Coloured, or African, was part of the ideology of separate development and its bureaucratic race-based parceling. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ As life in the township of Chatsworth unfolded over the apartheid years then, female labor outside of the home became increasingly visible, possible, and desirable, enhancing female economic independence and mobility for some. It meant that women as mothers, daughters, and wives could increasingly contribute to household economies through their wage labor, also making nucleation with marriage more financially viable. As Saraswathie’s comments in the previous section suggested, their increased economic power could sometimes translate into power in the household to leave oppressive circumstances. The movement of some women out of the house challenged the spatial association of home with womanhood, enabling on a larger scale with each passing decade, the development of selves and relationships outside the sphere of home and kin. Finally, this uneven process of enhanced dependency for 203 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. some women and economic power for others unfolded within an inherited cultural framework whereby female independence, desire, and mobility, economic and physical, are seen as threatening, dangerous and laced with sexual innuendo. 204 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C h a t s w o r t h T o d a y The landscape in Chatsworth is dominated by housing. A two-bedroom semi-detached transformed into a castle 205 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bottlebrush settlement Pathway At the tuck shop 206 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. > > «\j » > Selling fruits and vegetables at the Bangladesh market At the center of Chatsworth 207 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission For Sale: Ice Cream, Betel Nut, Clove, and Lime Generating self-employment 208 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SiSCOWfT UQU©8§ Light industry, such as clothing and footwear factories, are concentrated in pockets throughout the township. C*8 fow l M i , Wserratfc « ! j ? » Healing campaign poster 1 Healing campaign poster 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Tent-church at the corner of 501 and 601 New Bethesda C hurch 210 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Westcliff flats playground Boys playing soccer on the road Playground on Havenside Drive Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. m w 0^ ^ ’" ' " W . f \ Wf ' 4 ' Taxis waiting for passengers at the Ayesha Center m E Graphic appeal to attract youth. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND FAMILY Among people of Indian descent in Durban, family continues to be highly valued as the bedrock institution keeping the community afloat, as the central locus of community life. Most often spoken and written about as “close-knit,” the value and ostensible closeness of families often surfaces in everyday conversations and is made visible and performed at family events such as weddings, funerals, and birthday parties as well as family outings at the beach or the mall, two popular pastimes. Blue Lagoon, for example, a Durban beach formerly classified as “Indian” so teems with an intensity of family and youth activity on the weekend days and nights that it is difficult to find room to move. At peak hours, families are everywhere, pitching tents and settling in for the day or night with large pots of biryani, curries and grills to braai with cars transformed into music stations. As an outsider and at the surface, it is hard to deny the power of the family idiom. Newspapers geared toward South Africans of Indian descent recognize the emotional potency of family and community and often play on its discourses as marketing tools. The Post, with a predominantly Indian and Durban readership of over 330,000, for example, defines itself and its market as “a comprehensive bi- 213 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. weekly package of news, views, and entertainment for the family, championing the interests of the Indian community, keeping it fully informed and in touch with its roots” (Independent Newspapers KwaZulu-Natal, 2001, p. 52). The interrelated values of family, community, and tradition (“roots”) are clearly articulated here. Two of The Post’ s more popular marketing promotions are the monthly Bridal Couple of the Year and the Baby of the Year Competitions, affirming heterosexuality and the nuclear family as desirable and ideal. So normative is the family motif that as a visitor and foreigner in the country I was often asked by Durban Indians if I had kin relations in South Africa (why else would I be there?) and more importantly, whether I was married and had children (“how do you stay without your husband!” or the more typical, assuming of course I was single “when are you going to get married and have children?”). There was a noticeable attempt to “place” me within a discourse of family, and my married status was often met with excitement and social approval. Accustomed to being defined through my own personhood rather than my relationship to a male partner and something of a feminist from childhood, it proved to be a source of irritation and internal resistance at times. Still, I clearly recognized the heightened authority it conferred and used it to my advantage. It was particularly helpful in displacing and resisting sexual or romantic overtures from men, many of whom were married—drawing lines in the sand as it were. Although valorized and idealized through a language of cohesion, unity and tradition, the Indian Family nonetheless is also a site of significant duress, often 214 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. marked by conflict, violence, and competition. It is the inside story to the outward projection, the tension between the lived and the ideal. During my time in Durban and Chatsworth, I often found myself dismayed by the prevalence of family conflict and violence and later suicides in the Indian community. Just as the dust settled a new case would emerge in the press and they often seemed to issue from the townships of Chatsworth and Phoenix, suggesting a tangible breakdown in kin relationships, place-specific, within a wider context of dramatic political, social, and economic change and uncertainty. Between January 2000 and March 2002, for example, there were fifty-one suicides among Indian residents in Chatsworth.1 3 9 Only two cases involved women, both of whom were divorced, while the remaining were men, of varying ages (15-73), as well as marriage and employment status. The majority (40) committed suicide by hanging and to a lesser extent fatal gunshot wounds (8) and overdoses (3). The signals of masculine distress these numbers suggest and the strategy of self-annihilation as a coping mechanism are disturbingly real, bespeaking pressure, destruction and a violence turned inwards. It is a crisis of self and identity whereby kin and family relationships, however romanticized, have failed to sustain in important ways.1 4 0 1 3 9 This includes all of the numbered unit areas in addition to Shallcross, Umhlatuzana, Silver Glen, Welbedacht, and Kharwastan. This data was gathered from the Chatsworth police station and their inquest register for accidental deaths in April of 2002. 1 4 0 Suicide among people of Indian descent has an established history in South Africa, tracing back to the early days of indenture under exploitative working and living conditions within the colonial plantation economy (Bhana & Bhana, 1991). In her 1974 publication on race and suicide, Meer reported that South African Indians had the highest suicide rates among all population (continued...) 215 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Family Morals One can read and write The Family in different ways, from a variety of theoretical positions or perspectives. For my purposes here, I am interested in The Family as a conflict zone and moral force. Collier, Rosaldo, and Yanagisako (1997) have argued for analyzing the significance of the Family as a “moral and ideological unit” as opposed to a functional “thing” fulfilling needs as conceptualized within the early history of anthropology. The modem family they argue, as a bounded unit associated with property, emotion, and a space “inside” is linked to the formation of the modem state. It is a way of organizing human relationships in which the “domestic” is set in opposition to the world and politics outside the home. It is also distinctly gendered. Enlivened through the bricks and mortar of place-making, this idea of the modem family resonates within the South African context of township family housing, whereby the distinctions of home and work were etched in the landscape in gendered ways. Working within this framework, I want to suggest that the Indian Family, over time, within the township context of Chatsworth has undergone significant (...continued) groups in Durban, emphasizing a relationship between high suicide rates and privation. More recent studies on suicide and parasuicide emphasize cultural and familial factors. In their article on parasuicide among Indian adolescents, Pillay and Schlebusch (1987) cite parental restrictions and romance related difficulties with boyfriends/girlfriends as the two primary reasons for parasuicide as a “distress” behavior among their female dominated sample. Wood and Wassenaar (1989) emphasize among other things rapid acculturation to Western norms and intergenerational conflict over roles and responsibilities as well as the breakdown of the joint family system into nuclear components facilitated by the Group Areas Act. The more bio-medical studies highlight physical illness, depression and alcoholism as contributing factors (Gangat, Naidoo, & Wessels, 1987; Gangat, Naidoo, & Simpson, 1987). 216 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. breakdown and reconstitution as a moral unit, placing increasing emphasis on the marital or common law relationship and nuclear household outside of the lived everyday authority of the extended and joint family system as a means of regulating kin relationships. The visible breakdown of the family within the township environment abetted by violence, addiction, and poverty and increased visibility of women outside the identity-sphere of house and home has heightened, I argue, broader cultural anxieties about female purity, sexuality and power. At an ideological level, the effective regulation of female sexuality has been critical for the reproduction of the Indian Family in the South African context whereby the strategy of keeping women at home and submissive to the authority of men and elders has been compromised in a context whereby female labor has become increasingly necessary and co-education has been provided on a mass scale, especially after 1973. These economic processes and cultural changes have been accompanied with conceptual ideological shifts as to moral authority of The Family. As the locus point has shifted, from the joint to the nuclear, an emphasis on the collective and its attendant discourses of duty and obligation have met with serious challenge from more “modem” individualistic values such as choice, desire, romantic love, as well as competition. One has not replaced the other. Rather it is a living, breathing tension yet to be resolved, with the family as a site of contest over “tradition” and “modernity.” 217 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. History of the Indian Family We unfortunately know very little about the early history of family lives of people of Indian descent in South Africa. The academic literature is limited and historical records need to be revisited and rummaged with an investigative attention to the effects of family re-constitutions on South African soil. We know that in the early years of migration and indentured labor, planters were averse to including women as part of the labor pool recruited from India and that it was only through the insistence of the colonial government of India that indentured women were included at all. A ratio of forty females to one hundred males was decreed, such that 29% of the indentured population would be female. Swan (1985) however suggests that recruiting women was no easy task. In describing the exploitative conditions under which the majority of agricultural indentured labored and lived, she writes: . . . the Natal indentured labour system offered little room for even such basic comforts as family life. Women, and particularly family women, were so reluctant to emigrate that Natal, like other recruiting colonies, had difficulty in even fulfilling the terms of Government of India legislation which demanded that four women be exported for every ten men. There was thus a serious imbalance in the male: female ratio and the possibility of maintaining a family unit was made even more remote by the prevalent employer practice of refusing to ration or pay any non-working Indian, (p. 25) Bujis (1999) also notes that recruiting agents had a difficult time persuading women to indenture. Moreover she suggests that it was principally women already living at the margins in colonial India that made their way to South Africa. 218 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Of the women who did indenture, some were young widows, condemned to a life of subjection to their in-laws in India with no hope of re-marriage, others were women escaping from an unhappy marriage and a few had illegitimate children or had been deserted by their husbands, (pp. 187-188) The scarcity of indentured women relative to men was therefore a living reality that dramatically shaped gender relations throughout the period of indenture (1860-1911). Gandhi in commenting on indentured domestic formations towards the end of the 19th century, was, as the following quote suggests, disturbed by the transgressions of sexual norms. I have not the space here in the present to narrate how they broke through all the restraints which religion or morality imposes, or to be more accurate, how these restraints gave way and how the very distinction between a married woman and a concubine ceased to exist among these people. (1961, p. 22, cited in Meer, 1969, p. 65) Indeed Gandhi’s tone is one of remonstrance and regret, identifying female bodies and sexuality outside the “restraints” of marriage as the main culprit in the breakdown of social and religious mores. The scholarship of Beall verifies Gandhi’s observation that cohabitation without marriage among the indentured was the norm of the day. Importantly however, she illustrates how gender differentials in the structure of indentureship heightened women’s vulnerability to abuse, subjecting them to physical and sexual abuse and exploitation both by their male counterparts and white planters. Given that indentured women had no control over their living conditions, were in some instances forced to share accommodation with men unknown to them, were subject to coercive 219 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sex, coupled with the lack of legal recognition of Hindu and Muslim marriages, it should hardly surprise us that the indentured could not reproduce female sexuality sanctioned within marriage. It deserves mention that the sex ratio among people of Indian descent did not equalize in South Africa until the 1960s.1 4 1 Kuper (1956) writes that as a result some Indian men took Coloured wives in the early decades of the 20th century (p. 24). While there is little formal indication of Indian-African unions and marriages, namely Indian men and African women, with such an uneven sex ratio, I suspect there is a history of sexual relationships between Indian men and African women that has yet to be explored. Finally, I want to suggest that among the ex-indentured and their descendants re-inscribing female sexuality within confines of family and marriage was critical to the reconstitution of the family as a cultural institution. Gender, Culture, and Family If there is anything scholars of the Indian Family in South Africa agree upon it is that the joint family structure has given way to more nuclear household and family formations. Many scholars have articulated this shift through a linear discourse and narrative of westernization, urbanization, and industrialization, largely ignoring 1 4 1 The masculinity rate of the Indian population or the number of males per one hundred females has historically been lower in Natal than in other provinces (i.e., Transvaal or Cape) given that the majority of the Indian population has been concentrated here and there have historically been restrictions on inter-provincial migration. In 1904, the masculinity rate in Natal was 170.2, dropping incrementally over the decades. By 1970, there were 98.9 Indian males in Natal for every 100 Indian females, tipping the sex ratio in the converse direction (Brijlal, 1989, p. 33). 220 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. political factors and housing policies in shaping domestic composition (Schoombee & Mantzarias, 1987; Jithoo, 1985,1987; Ramphal, 1989, 1993). Others have examined more centrally the effects of apartheid housing policies and design in promoting the nuclear household (Butler-Adam & Venter, 1984) and that poverty coupled with artificially constructed housing shortages and racial discrimination has played a decisive role in shaping family household composition to include tenancy (Singh, 1996). Focused principally on the structure of families and households, most of the literature does not examine what family itself signifies for its members and how in particular it regulates kin relationships. The work of Kuper (1960) and Meer (1969) offers some guidance in this direction. Although both tend to present the Indian family in relatively homogenous and structural-functionalist terms, still their historically located descriptions do articulate an ideal, if class inflected, of how family relationships were conceptualized at a particular historical juncture. Both discuss at length the hierarchical structure of the Indian family (kutum in Hindi) in its ideal sense derived from an extended patrilineal and patriarchal joint family model. A “system” noted for its age and gender gradations, with younger members of the household and wives expected to defer to their elders and husbands, respectively, it vests authority in both men and elders, with women gaining status through marriage, with age, and through children, particularly male children. 221 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Meer (1969) describes the kutum, ranging between fifty and one hundred members, as “an intimate collective conscience which socializes and controls; binds and integrates members into a closely watched system of social interaction”(p. 66), as the communal eyes that monitor and regulate while simultaneously providing support, succor, and a sense of identity based in kinship. “Parents and children, siblings and cousins, paternal uncles and their wives, nephews and nieces all have mutual expectations, and the demands and privileges will overflow without a sense of indebtedness” (p. 66). Both safety net and moral monitor, the kutum as an ideal defines the norms, expectations, and place of kin relationships in the lives of its members. As a moral engine moreover, the kutum relies on distinctly gendered notions and practices for its survival and reproduction, with females of the family and household signifying the body of the family itself. The effective control of female sexuality becomes critical to the reproduction of the family as a moral unit and force. In describing gender relations Kuper (1960) writes, “ . . . a man is recognized as having an independence of worldly experience, whereas a girl is believed to reflect the standards of the family itself, and her actions bring shame on all its members.” The association of shame with womanhood and female behavior requires effective discipline yet male practices and behaviors are not subject to similar control or stigma, but rather accepted as part of the gendered equation of power in the family and community. “Everyone in the neighborhood knows which men drink excessively, bet 222 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. too high, are having love affairs, or beat their wives” (p. 113). Although subject to disapproval, men are not subject to sanction, and it is through such disparate gendered practices that the kutum maintains its hierarchies. Meer (1969) writes similarly of the gendered distinctions between men and women of the household and family and that the control of movement and enforcement of domesticity is one of the primary ways gender differences are constructed and maintained. As Meer’s discussion suggests, a strict distinction between masculine and feminine girded by a discourse of virtue must be maintained as a way of defining what it means to be male or female. Women do not by right make decisions or visits friends and relatives. When a wife operates as a relatively free agent it is by concession, either due to the goodness or weakness of the husband. Women even the educated and relatively emancipated, are heard to speak with pride of their husband’s authority over them. Wives have no such authority over husbands. Those who allow their movement to be questioned by their wives are considered women themselves. Husbands generally adopt an affectionately condescending attitude to their wives. They see them as minors to be protected and corrected.. . . Women must remain virtuous, protected within the domestic confines, and in turn through their isolated and narrow orientation to life, protect the conventions of those confines. Thus, if there is a family scandal, an unregulated love affair, an unmarried pregnancy, the women are blamed, (p. 70) A number of important points about the construction of masculinity and femininity need to be elaborated based upon this passage. The association of masculinity with unquestioned movement and Meer’s observation that manhood itself is compromised by a questioning wife suggests that domination is normalized as a path to manhood. 223 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Meer also makes the analytic point that by confining women to domesticity, women in fact learn to “protect the conventions of those confines.” It is an investment of identity and a source of symbolic capital. Moreover, keeping women within the domestic realm forecloses the possibility of transgression or the expression of desire, and it is through their virtue that women find their appropriate place within the family. Through active practices of making gender and rewarding certain performances of womanhood, female passivity and inequality becomes normalized as part of the moral universe for family identity and preservation. Within this framework female mobility, independence, and authority outside the domestic realm come to signify threats to the gendered moral fibers of the family web. Yet gender is only one component of the ideology of the family and its fashioning always incomplete. For example, in her discussion of elderly and professional women, Meer (1969) illustrates on the one hand how gender identity is crosscut by age, class, and profession, but also that male identity and status is in part constituted by being “breadwinners” in a space outside of the home. Meer emphasizes that the liberties men enjoy and women are denied pivots on the identity of men as breadwinners. She notes that elderly women of the working class have appropriated the historically male right to smoke and drink and also that although educated women have gained status as breadwinners, they are nonetheless expected to demonstrate “domestic prowess” as a means of asserting their femininity (p. 71). 224 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It is through what men and women do and are kept from doing within ideologically laden spaces that gendered identities are shaped and performed. Whereas female labor outside the ideological framework of the domestic sphere challenges the distinctions of gender, in the case of educated and professional women, it can also be a mark of status as it raises the family name. The respectability that comes with “professional” status can offset the negative associations of women moving freely beyond the domestic realm but often requires gendered performances in the home (“domestic prowess”) so the boundaries of male and female are effectively maintained. Whereas age and education can confer status and power within the household and family, it is as new wives and daughter-in-laws, regardless of work status, that women are the most vulnerable, especially in a context where wives are expected to take on their husband’s residences and religious practices within an extended family living situation. If marriage is seen as the ideological unit of family reproduction, its success depends on the effective harnessing of its new members. For new wives, it is often through female in-law relations, notably mother and sister-in-laws, that they are made into proper subjects of the family for without the effective control of the new wife, the family risks fragmentation. To the extent that women as wives and mothers exert power in the household, it is as mothers of grown sons. “The wife’s position in the husband’s family becomes more influential when her children are bom and particularly when her sons grow up 225 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and marry. As mother and mother-in-law she often dominates both her sons and their young wives” (Kuper, 1956, p. 25). As the source of her authority in the family, a mother’s allegiance then is with her sons. As a site of competing interests, many Chatsworth wives still often bemoan close mothers-son relationships, and how mothers cover up for their sons. Kuper’s (1960) discussion of the issue suggests that it is through the denial and violence of personhood that wives are in fact made. In many homes the wife arrives as a total stranger, even to her husband. She must adapt herself completely to his family, learning their way of living, cooking, and worship. If she considers that she is too hard worked too strictly guarded, too frequently abused, her escape lies in a home of her own. (p. 105) Moreover whereas a wife must integrate into a new family, the converse is not expected of husbands. Her complete acceptance as a daughter, however, is rare, and this provides ground for divided loyalties and conflict. By contrast a son-in-law is never expected to integrate himself within his wife’s kutum, and any such integration would be viewed askance. (Meer, 1969, p. 69) Embedded within the practices of patri-locality, but also enlivened without it, is the expectation that with marriage women as wives must mold and re-make themselves in the images of in-laws and husbands for the benefit of the family. At an ideological level then mapped onto the bodies of women is the family, with conflicts over house, home, generation, and place waged on her soil. 226 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Family Discord Although Kuper and Meer without question offer an overly ideal and cohesive sense of the family as a unified moral field, they nonetheless suggest in broad strokes the family landscape from which South Africans of Indian descent would draw in adapting to the township environment of Chatsworth. Records of the Durban Indian Child Welfare Society (1977) and later its Chatsworth version offer a much more compromised and conflicted picture of family life, with a sense from the 1930s onward that family as an institution was failing its most vulnerable members, namely women and children. In 1952, the Society had this to say about its caseload: “Cases of illegitimacy, desertion, non-support, neglect, irresponsible loose unions, dependency due to crime and imprisonment are becoming very common place” (p. 21). By the late 1950s, the Welfare Society began to be consumed with casework that fell under their heading of “domestic difficulties.” In its 1959 report, the Society made the following remarks about the increasing use of the welfare society as a way of dealing with marital conflict. To those who are not aware of the extent to which our people are seeking outside assistance to settle their marital problems, it is difficult to understand that there are so many families who are living in discord and disharmony.. . . Whatever the cause of the disruption in the family, these differences take various forms of reaction and the most common among them is non support. It is evident when a man has trouble with his wife, he withdraws his support to the family as one form of punishment he can inflict upon his wife, without regard to the fact that his children suffer in the process. Even if this withholding of support is not deliberate and calculated, the income is diverted to indulgence in other anti-social forms of activity. It is true 227 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that the number of legal divorces among Indians is not very high, but it is quite evident that large numbers of marriages are disrupted by desertions—the poor man’s divorce, (p. 27) The association of family breakdown, such as desertion, with economic distress, is intimated in this account but also suggests the male economic power, however limited, is leveraged to punish women as wives in contexts of conflict. Although the total number of cases dealt with by the Society in 1959 was only 792, the majority of the cases related to marital problems, suggesting the beginnings of the breakdown in the power of the joint family to effectively regulate the marriage relationship. It is likely that most of the clients at the Welfare Society came from low-income backgrounds suggesting that for the poorest of families the dissolution of extended kin networks as a resource and safety net was especially pronounced. Although the transition from a joint family system to a nuclear family formation pre-dated the Group Areas Act and was related to processes of urbanization, the displacement to the township environment of Chatsworth, expedited the process and also placed additional economic pressure on families to survive. If in previous settlements, extended kin lived in proximity to one another and families had created informal mechanisms of survival through pooling, in the township environment the violence of displacement coupled with the increased importance of the nuclear household, placed increasing pressure on the marital relationship, a pressure in many instances it would not be able to sustain. 228 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A perusal of the Chatsworth Child and Family Welfare Society annual reports from 1979 through the early 1990s offers ample indication of family breakdown, across economic class, but also concentrated among the low-income. Year after year the sheer majority of cases dealt with refer to “marital problems” with drug abuse, alcoholism, extra-marital affairs, overcrowding, and unemployment cited as contributing factors. The first reference to domestic violence surfaces in 1981 and by 1985 there is a sense that violence has become routine. “Violence as a means of problem solving appears to be becoming the order of the day.” The 1985 report even notes the need for a battered women’s shelter (p. 8). By 1990, the Society, noting that some clients came from “third generations of marriage discord” launched two programs aimed at stemming marital conflict. “To Have and To Hold” was meant to strengthen the marriage relationship and “A Good Divorce is Better Than a Bad Marriage” to facilitate separation (pp. 3-4). Another noticeable trend in the Society’s reports is the mention of unmarried motherhood and by the mid 1980s the emergence of the category of single parenthood. In 1979, for example, the Society dealt with 155 cases of unmarried mothers, noting that “many young girls become pregnant because they search for security and stability and the need to feel wanted”(p. 6). Although this is standard social work speak, stories about schoolgirls falling pregnant abound in the history of Chatsworth, with many love affairs having begun in the school environment, unbeknownst and hidden from parents. In many cases, pregnant girls were quickly 229 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. married off to the fathers of their unborn children. Whether accidental or intentional as a way of exercising choice in marriage partner, the story is commonplace. These cases however are less likely to surface in the Society’s caseload. In instances of unmarried motherhood, the issue of paternity itself was often disputed, the relationships were more likely to be casual, with teenage girls apt to be sexually involved with older men, already married. In a sense we need to read Kuper and Meer’s rendition of family life alongside the Society’s reports without reducing family discord to the category of economic struggle. It surpasses class differences and in fact class stratification over time is likely to have enhanced the isolation of the nuclear household. Although the idea of the kutum still endures, the moral authority of the kutum as an effective mechanism for regulating gendered and married relationships has being seriously undermined by changing norms and the social and economic conditions of life in the township. With kin relations beyond the nuclear household spatially dispersed by the Group Areas Act and the violent effects of displacement being experienced at the level of the lived everyday, it would be the marital relationship that would feel the full pressure of the changes ushered in by life in the new township. Marriage, Sexuality, and Place Despite palpable discord and distress, marriage continues to be highly valued among Chatsworth residents across religious communities, as an important source of social status and identity. It is the path to achieving adulthood and respectability, 230 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with all of its class connotations, through the responsibilities of the marital relationship, children and maintaining a home. For the more middle class, marriages are often celebrated with great fanfare, preparation, and celebration and Hindu marriages in particular often resemble staged theatrical productions with rented sets and elaborate religious imagery, and often dance performances. Those with less access to resource are apt to simply “get registered.” Within the context of marriage and at and ideological level, each of the religious traditions (Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam) although diverse and distinct in practice and belief entrench the man, as father and husband, as the head of household. Although often they do not, women are expected within each religious tradition to submit to the marital and paternal authority of their husbands. Although for many, especially those of the older generation and the more orthodox, divorce is considered taboo and disgraceful, at the same time it has become increasingly common across religious communities. Historically the tendency has been to endure in unhappy marriages, until death, for various reasons but including concerns about children, status and standard of living (Ramphal, 1989, p. 88). Among Pentecostal Christians, the religious injunction against divorce is especially strong. While the divorce rate among South African Indians has historically been low, according to a 1980 article a “substantial proportion” solemnized through Hindu and Muslim religious rites were never legally registered such that their dissolution would 231 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not surface in recorded data (Chetty, 1980, p. 11). Judging from interview data, there are also cases of desertion and separation where legal divorce was never sought. According to Statistics South Africa, the crude divorce rate among South African Indians more than doubled between 1980 and 1990, from .63 to 1.46, jumping to 1.9 in 1992 and followed by an uneven pattern of decline to 1.63 in 1998. The modified divorce rate for officially recorded divorces in 1998 was 786 per 100,000 of Indian/Asian couples, the second highest among racialized groups in South Africa.1 4 2 Although rules are both broken and followed, for women and girls, across religious communities, marriage is the only accepted and appropriate site for sexual relationships. While in practice pre-marital and extra-marital sexuality is commonplace, the ideological importance of female purity and chastity endures. Both unmarried and divorced woman can raise questions and eyebrows, especially as to their sexual conduct. Faith, 39, a practicing Christian and anti-apartheid activist home grown in Chatsworth describes the community and family pressure she faced as a young woman in choosing not to marry. The girls must get married. At a certain age you should get proposed. It was a normal thing. When you leave school, you must get proposed, you must get married The next thing it was, you must have a kid. Fortunately now it’s not such a big issue. But the other trend that we finding in the Indian community—the girls are having kids without being married. 1 4 2 Coloured South Africans are not too far behind at 764 per 100,000 couples and white South Africans have the leading divorce rate at 1,416 per 100,000 married couples (Statistics South Africa, 1998, p. viii and table 1.1.3, p. 3). 232 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . . . But during my age group it was seen as an insult not to be married. Although Faith had many proposals, with parents of boys coming home to ask for her, in the eyes of the community not to marry meant that no one had asked which in itself carried a stigma. Faith: It’s sad the reasons for them [women] to want to be married. Upjeet: What are the reasons? Faith: Nobody asked me, one. Two would be I’m getting old and that is the biggest fear with women, therefore I have to marry. They don’t even care what he is and they think they’ll change him later.. . . The other thing is for money and status. He’s got a good job. He’s got a good career. He comes from this family, and we’ve got to live on our own. It’s material things. At Faith points out, besides social approval, with marriage then come other potential markers of status, material benefits and a home of one’s own. To marry moreover resolves questions about female sexual behavior. In telling me about how she was once holding a baby boy in her arms at a party, all snug and close, Faith remarks at the subtext of female sexuality that makes marriage desirable. And then his mother was a Coloured woman, married an Indian guy, and she turned around and said, “I think it’s time you should get married” or she made a nasty comment, “You should have your own.” . . . I flared. I said, “Excuse me do I need to get married to do what you do. Do I need to get married to have a baby?” She said no being married gives you a sense of freedom. It doesn’t make you look over your shoulder. And there was a whole lot of people there. So I said in other words, before you were married you were looking over your shoulder while you were doing it. You 233 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. could have heard a pin drop.. . . In other words, she’s sleeping with a guy and while she sleeps with him, she’s always conscious of people, what people say. Now that’s she married she’s got that freedom. For women then with marriage comes the freedom and pleasure of having children and a sexual life without the worry of “what people will say.”1 4 3 It enables women to experience motherhood legitimately through the marriage relationship. Although some women, especially those with independent incomes, are able to delay or avoid marriage altogether, given family pressure and community approval, the incentives to marry and identify as mother and wife are strong. The concern as to “what people will say” is real and references anxieties about the family name, whereby the female body continues to signify its honor and status. Indeed people do talk and word spreads at remarkable speed. Community gossip about female behavior, movement, and sexuality circulates in Chatsworth through public sightings, with neighborhood aunties chatting at the gates and men at the shebeens and pathways. Other than the neighborhood, the Chatsworth Center has become a main watching ground and observational tower. As Susan put it, “You know when you go to the Chatsworth Center, the whole of Chatsworth is there and they would go back and say you know what I saw Susan with this guy and then the news spread and eventually it does get to you.” 1 4 3 This refrain I recall from my own growing years in New York as a young woman wanting to go out and have male friends. The notion that someone known to my family would see me and talk to others about having seen me was enough of a reason for my parents to keep me at home. 234 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Female sexuality outside of marriage is still seen as a disruptive force, framed in negative terms, and disciplined through stigmatizing language (“bitch,” “rubbish,” “prostitute,” “she’s not a decent girl”) without critique of comparable practices among men. As the following saying puts it, “If a woman goes around and she comes back, she’s a bitch but if a man goes around and he comes back, he’s still a man.” In essence women get “labeled” for sexual practices outside of marriage and men demonstrate manhood. Teenage girls growing up in Chatsworth are often highly cognizant of this double standard and madonna/whore complex that valorizes female sexual passivity. In an informal conversation with women and youth one day, a teenage friend Charlene, 19, self-described as a “decent Indian girl,” suggested that stigmatizing community gossip has regulatory effects, promoting female passivity. Describing Indian girls as “old fashioned,” Charlene, garrulous and social as well as both open- minded and strongly Christian, made the point that she doesn’t “fluke” boys because people notice and word gets around. The issue of being “classed” as “forward” or a “slut” was of grave concern, especially she noted as her mother and “granny” drew similar conclusions about such girls. Indeed her comments suggest that female sexual passivity is part of achieving class status. The sexual politics of street and home are important and indicative in this regard, as there is a noticeable gendered moral coding associated with the street (road) in Chatsworth. The streets and pathways of the township linking house to 235 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. neighborhood have overwhelmingly been appropriated as male. Men and boys occupy the streets and there is a strong sense that women and girls, if not at work or school, belong at home. The street is not a place where women belong and those who come and go as they please risk censure and notice from both family member and neighbors. Their mobility and independence often calls into question their sexual morality. This is not to suggest that women do not walk the streets. They do, but mostly for particular purposes and at specific times. They run errands, wait for taxis, walk to work, pick up children from school. Only they do not linger at comers, tuck shops, shebeens, pathways as do both young and middle aged men—unless they are sex workers. Whereas the street is a social and recreational place for men and boys, it is more instrumental for women and girls. An active sex trade in Chatsworth, largely vilified by residents, involving both African and Indian women and increasingly teenage girls, furthermore feeds an association of sexual license with outdoor street space. Many parents continue to be noticeably stricter with their daughters than their sons when it comes to dating and movement, although the realities of two parent working households and single motherhood also means that some teenagers are left unsupervised in the afternoon hours. “Decent” girls must not be seen on the streets talking to boys as it is considered a veritable route to building a questionable “reputation.” By their mid to late teens, young men are generally given the right of movement, to come and go from the house freely, to spend time with male friends until late hours, whereas young 236 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. women are much more closely monitored and subject to parental controls and permission. Whereas clusters of boys and young men are visible in street-space, often seen walking together around the township or hanging out on comers, similar forms of outdoor female socializing are noticeable absent. Through these disparate practices, male mobility and female containment become normalized with female visibility outside of the home layered with sexual innuendo. The following exchange with Charlene about neighborhood and community gossip illustrates this point. Charlene: If they see you with a boy walking down the road, you’re indecent. They wouldn’t care who the boy is. It’s irrelevant. It could be your brother, your cousin, the fact that you’re walking down the road with him. It’s like you walking down the road with him, so you must be roaming with 101 boys. Roaming with a 101 boys. And if two or three boys phone your house then you’re not a nice girl. Why are there so many boys phoning when there just should only be one? Upjeet: So what’s a decent girl? Charlene: If you stay at home, cook, clean, do everything that your mother tells you, your granny tells you, then you’re decent. But if you go roaming to the Center more than twice a week. That’s why my father stopped us from going to the Center as often. They assume that if you’re going to the Center, you’re going to meet boys. You shouldn’t be standing outside and talking to boys all the time because you’re a girl. Your place is in the kitchen. My granny still nags me to cook, even though I don’t know how. See, if you’re at home and you’re doing girl things then you’re decent___ Charlene continues to explain how double standards normalize and demonize male and female movement and sexuality, respectively. 237 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Charlene: If a guy goes to a club and the neighbors find out about it, it’s acceptable. But if they find the girl went to the same club, it’s like oh my God what a rotten girl she is, she’s going to the clubs and she’s going out so late in the night. That kind of thing and if they find out a boy slept with a girl. It’s like he’s a boy, he’s supposed to do that. But if they find out that a girl slept with a boy, it’s like oh my God how could she do such a thing, she’s so rotten, she must be a rubbish girl. She sleeps with everybody and you know once gossip starts, it gets blown out of proportion. So by the time it comes to the last person, it’s probably something like she slept with a married man, she’s pregnant now. (I laugh) Charlene: I’m serious. It will start off as she slept with her boyfriend. It will end up as she slept with a married man and she’s pregnant. So she broke up a home and now she’s pregnant. Upjeet: How does the community treat her? That girl. Charlene: They’ll see her walking on the road, they’ll be staring at her. They’ll talk behind her back.. . . If somebody’s talking about you, you obviously know, you’re like an outcast. They won’t have any respect for you and neither will the men. She’s free game. She sleeps around with people. They all try their luck. The power of community gossip and social stigma to control female behavior and the easy slippage from “decent” to “indecent” for girls and women shapes spatial practices and plays a significant role in the making of gender. Charlene’s example of clubbing and sexual activity as normalized for boys, but demonized for girls illustrates how disparate moral standards for the same act sustains gender inequalities and re inscribes the home as the appropriate place for girls and women. By marking girls and women who occupy the street as “loose,” the street itself becomes sexualized. I 238 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. noticed this myself as an ethnographer who intentionally walked the streets for purposes of observation. The male hooting, turned heads, and offers of lifts verged on harassment at times and indeed as time passed my dressing became much more veiled (loose pants and shirts with arms and backside covered), verging on frumpy. It was a conscious attempt to de-sexualize myself within a masculinized and decidedly heterosexualized space. Indeed it was difficult to forget that I was a woman. Prevashni, 18, an articulate and politically aware young woman from a middle class suburb of Chatsworth, makes similar points as Charlene about the differing rules governing male and female movement and sexuality and reflects on how she herself has absorbed these norms that involves categorizing women into good and bad. Whereas young women often have to account for the “where and why and what” of their activity outside of the home, their male peers have the privilege of mobility. . . . the boys definitely have a much easier time. It’s so much easier for them to go out and do things and obviously to seek those opportunities that are there whereas for the girls, like today for instance I had to come to this interview. I had to explain where and why and what I was doing.. . . Whereas a boy would just say I’m going to the Center, taking a taxi, and that’s it, it’s not even questionable after that. To go out to a school dance or to a nightclub—it’s I’m going out with the boys. There’s no questions asked. You find very few parents that are strict with the boys. You even find that brothers in the home are very strict with their sisters. It’s just the culture that’s around.. . . With a guy you can go out every Friday night, every Saturday night, it’s not a question at all. Even if he’s hanging out at his friends house Friday, Saturday, Wednesday.. . . For girls, it’s really hard . . . to take a walk down the road to your friend’s house is a problem. Oh I don’t like you walking on the road, I don’t like you standing on the road talking to your friends. It’s just not right. Girls aren’t 239 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. supposed to be like that or behave like that.... And when I see a girlfriend and boyfriend. Ok, if you just walking in the Center and you’re holding hands, that’s fine, that’s acceptable, I don’t have a problem with it. But then when I see them making out and stuff in front of adults, I’d be like what’s this girl’s problem? I mean the guy he can go around and if things end between them, it’s fine for the guy but then later on the girls’ reputation is going to be ruined. Within this context, keeping girls and women at home forecloses the possibility of transgression, sexual and otherwise. One false step, Prevashni, suggests, can “ruin” a girl’s reputation. Whereas the monitoring of female movement and behavior begins with parents and brothers, with marriage it is often a responsibility assumed by husbands. Susan, a young divorcee, for example, described how during her short marriage her husband would often spend his weekend nights (Fridays and Saturdays) drinking with the boys, leaving her at home with her mother-in-law. Although he would “allow” her to go out with her girlfriends during the day, she was not permitted to go out at night without him. Nor was she allowed male friends. “Rajesh was so possessive when we started courting, all my male friends I had to lose them.” Such distrust of male-female friendships is not unique in this instance and has been pointed out by others, but rather is produced within a heterosexualized space whereby male-female relationship outside of family are viewed suspiciously and often difficult to sustain especially within the context of married or boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. As Charlene noted above, it doesn’t matter if you are walking on the road with your brother or cousin, there is an assumption of a romantic or sexual relationship. If a married woman, for example, is seen walking or talking with a man 240 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that is not her husband, tongues start wagging and sooner or later word circulates back, often provoking allegations of sexual infidelity and affairs. The spatialized moral gendering of home and road, whereby female movement outside of the house is subject to community surveillance and stigma but male movement is taken as a right of manhood moreover means that men are able to veil sexual affairs and liaisons much more effectively. The gendering of car ownership and the comparative freedom men enjoy in traveling at night with or without private transportation only supplants this power. Strong male solidarities nurtured from youth, that often revolve around drinking, and increasingly drugs and clubs, means that men often have a strong base of masculine identity that includes an both a dependence and independence from marriage and family. For many men “going out with the boys,” continues through adulthood and marriage while women are at home raising children. Wives do complain but often have little bargaining power, especially when young, financially dependent, and with small children. For Chatsworth women, there is no comparative form of social activity outside the discourse of marriage, family, and domesticity (i.e., ladies cell meetings, women’s craft circles) to serve as a point of leverage. Indeed, I attended the launch of the Silver Glen Women’s Forum in March of 2002 aimed at engaging the predominantly middle and upper class women of Silver Glen to become more involved with their communities. In speaking with one of the founding members prior to the start of the meeting, she underscored the challenge of getting 241 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. women out of the house and involved in community work. The keynote speaker, an executive member of the Kharwastan Women’s Forum, another elite area in the township, devoted much of her talk to the factors that impede women’s regular participation, particularly concerns over neglecting family relationships. Self-defined as a “traditional Indian woman,” she encouraged new members to “get the blessing of your husband and children” in attending the monthly meetings. The importance of family approval and the need to assure husbands and children that female solidarity and community work posed no threat to the gender order was a critical component of the talk with children, marriage, and home as the primary sources of women’s identity taken for granted. As Prevashni’s comments above suggest, the control of female movement begins early, making it more difficult for young women to even get out of the house. One predictable effect is that women and girls, notwithstanding religious injunctions for the more devout, especially those concerned about their “reputation” invest in domesticity and identities revolving around home, children, and husband. While male solidarities are fostered through gendered spatial practices, women and girls are simultaneously divided into “decent” and “indecent,” fostering competition and divisiveness among women, who are socialized to discipline one another. Within a patriarchal economy of meaning, disruptive female bodies are threatening to both men and women. At the same time, cultural rules and actual practices are often at odds. The frequent mention of girls “falling pregnant” in Chatsworth and then marrying their 242 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. boyfriends as a result may not be as common as Faith suggests in the following quote, yet it does surface repeatedly in interviews and conversations. In fact, Faith’s elder sister fell pregnant and married at the young age of seventeen. When I asked about the commonality of pregnancy as a route to marriage when she was a young adult, Faith responded, “Every other girl. Now that you ask the question. But even recently too, even the older girls, they marrying the guy because they pregnant.” And she adds, “But you know what happens to all of them. They divorce those men or they’re having affairs.” With mass education available during the apartheid years for both young men and women, especially after 1973, love relationships often began in the school environment, sometimes resulting in teenage pregnancy and marriage. Abortion was not legalized until the early 1990s so for pregnant unmarried girls, the options were either marriage or illegitimacy.1 4 4 Moreover, it is likely that in some instances bridal pregnancy was a means of exerting choice in marriage partner. Kamini, 39, a health care professional from a working class family who married her teenage sweetheart, Logan, in her mid-thirties, after he had divorced his first wife shed some light on this process as a practice responding to cultural mores and constraints. Highly motivated, Kamini was the first person, male or female, on her road to complete matriculation and go on to higher education at the University of Durban-Westville, specifically meant for Indian students at the time. While Kamini 1 4 4 For 1983, 7.34% of Indian births in Durban were classified as illegitimate (Ramasar, 1987, p. 267). 243 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was busy with her studies at University and political organizing against the tri-cameral system, Logan became involved with another girl. In reference to the Logan’s first wife, Kamini says, So she told him at some point that she was pregnant. So then he had to get married to her.... She was my sister’s friend. Right across. On this whole road everybody knows everybody. But the idea was—she was never pregnant, never got pregnant in their years of marriage. So for me, that crushed me. Speaking of how Logan’s mother neither approved of her (due to her dark complexion) nor her sister-in-law, Kamini suggests that her sister-in-law used pregnancy as a way to marriage. And his mother [Logan’s] didn’t approve of her either so she got pregnant so they can get married. That was another reason girls got pregnant because they weren’t accepted. So they got pregnant so that their parents had no choice but to get them married... and the girl’s parents would put pressure because they need to get their daughter married. They have to confront the issue. While on the one hand marriage was seen as a requirement, “If you weren’t married by 19, you were over the hill,” still, falling pregnant was considered a disgrace. It was taboo. I remember a girl down the street got pregnant and my mother was going on about what kind of parents she’s got and blah, blah, blah. And I was saying to her, “Don’t talk like that you’ve got two daughters.” She said, “Why you planning to do the same.” I said, “No, you never know.” . . . But it used to be disgusting behavior if somebody did that. It was a disgrace to the family. But now.... 244 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As both Eve and Kamini suggest, what was once disgraceful, to get pregnant before marriage or to be an unmarried mother, has over their life times in Chatsworth become less controversial. Sexual practices, if not mores, are shifting. Moral Force of the Extended Family Diminished What emerges from these stories and other narratives of marriage and courtship is the noticeable movement away from marriages governed by the control and validation of elders towards those based in romantic love, desire, and choice, sometimes across religious and linguistics barriers. Although a minority of families continues to practice arranged marriages, courtship strategies in the past forty years have shifted decisively towards young men and women choosing their mates based on companionship and love. In previous generations, women were often married at young ages (13-20), and with few educational and economic opportunities, were groomed in many households for little besides domestic work, marriage and children. Proposals were contingent upon parental scouting or incoming requests for marriage. With the first generation of women raised in Chatsworth, as the norm of the nuclear family took root, it became increasingly acceptable for a young man or woman to have a boyfriend or girlfriend whom they would later marry. While young men were not subject to community criticism or gossip if they showed interest in more than one girl, for a young woman to be seen with more than one boyfriend would immediately raise questions about her sexual character. The transition to 245 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. marriages of love and choice were not without conflict, and if not determined by parental approval, nonetheless powerfully shaped by parental interests. Different forms of family rejection such as isolation and the withholding of emotional and financial support sometimes accompany these unions. For example, Fatimah, 36, describes how she and her husband Junaid faced resistance from both families, but especially his father for marrying across religion. Bom Hindustani and wanting to become a Lord Krishna devotee as a young woman, instead she converted to Islam with marriage at the age of 20 and changed her name. Although she attended religious classes for converts, is quite knowledgeable about Islam, and the children attend madrasah, she has not found acceptance from her husband’s family. Moreover, her father-in-law has withheld resources from his son as a means of punishment. Fatimah recalls when they decided to marry. It’s not only his family that harbored that ill feeling. It was also my mum and dad.... They told me I’m making a mistake. Because this religion [Islam], they will never accept you no matter what you do. It’s true. That’s why they say you must listen to your parents It’s not that I regret marrying him. He’s a wonderful person. He’s a good husband. He loves us a lot. My kids and I. But I think the religion thing is a barrier. I asked Fatimah what led them to marry despite family resistance. We were just too in love. And he said he’s worried about his family. I said no matter what everybody says it’s our life. You know if you put your leg in a fire, you’re going to get burned. Nobody’s going to get burned for you. So we said blow everybody and we got married. 246 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The emphasis on love and the individual represents a significant challenge to the hierarchies of the family, which at an ideological level require deferral and compliance to the will of elders, especially the patriarch of the family. Significantly, the first generation of children raised in Chatsworth had access to educational and economic opportunities long denied or inaccessible to previous generations. Better educated than their parents, more English literate, and contributors to the family economy through their wage labor, many could survive outside the economic logic of an extended or joint family system. In addition, as the first generation raised in Chatsworth came of age in the late 1970s and early 80s, outbuildings had begun to appear in the township landscape and housing was also opening up in the new Indian areas of Phoenix and Newlands West. Although many newly married couples might upon marriage live in a joint family system, the option of living in independent nuclear households made love/choice marriages more feasible. Within the township context and in conjunction with the dispersal of families through the Group Areas Act, the joint/extended family as a moral authority, already somewhat frayed prior to removal, shifted much more decisively towards the nuclear household. Kin metaphors used to describe neighbors and Church as family, among other things, speak to these ruptures as well as everyday efforts to reconstitute a sense of identity through kin-like relationships. For some families that moved into Chatsworth, kin ties were already strained and for others binding ties would weaken 247 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. as nucleation, competition, and physical distance came to shape kin relations and township life. In addition to the marital conflicts referenced in the previous section, the most common themes that emerge in narratives of family conflict revolve around parental and in-law rejection over the choice of marriage partner and sibling rivalries over the transmission of wealth, namely “the house,” the main form of inheritance passed down in working class families. Importantly, prior to removal to Chatsworth, most low-income and working class families had minimal access to capital in the form of housing and its mass transformation into a commodity in the late 1970s and early 1980s, besides providing shelter, would feed competition among siblings over a limited and highly valued resource, especially given the shortage of “Indian housing.” Stories of siblings swindling one another other out of “the house” through artful and surreptitious manipulation of legal documents signed unknowingly by parents and allegations of witchcraft by family members due to jealousy centered on the house are hardly unique. To the extent that the traditional authority of elders (the dictum, for example, that “you must listen to your parents”) was compromised in the township context, the commodity of housing also gave the parental generation something of a bargaining chip to exert influence and power in the family. Rejection and isolation are still common strategies deployed by parents to deal with the rebellion of their children, especially as it pertains to the choice of marriage partner, with the withdrawal of 248 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. emotional and economic support, used a form of punishment. Marriage across religious communities is particularly contentious and the pressure to marry “within” is especially strong among Indian Muslims in Chatsworth. In previous generations the onus has been on women to convert to the religion of their husbands and many wives did and still do as a matter of course. At the same time many young Chatsworth Indian women of today are less likely to make similar compromises and dual religion marriages are beginning to emerge. Significantly nucleated households and family life need to be understood as both imposed through the ideas embedded within township housing but also as desired ideals and strategies especially for young educated women seeking independence from the domination of in-laws that often accompanies marriage and joint family living. Writing in 1980, Chetty remarks that the “ideology of the nuclear family” was particularly attractive to the young, educated, and female (p. 34). Individualism and Family Life Faith, 39, comes from a large working class family of nine children, four of whom are now deceased. Her family lived in Mayville (Cato Manor) prior to their removal to Chatsworth to a two bedroom semidetached. Although both of her parents are living, four of her siblings are now deceased. Two of her brothers died of heart attacks in their forties, another of cancer in his late thirties, and a younger sister in infancy. Before retiring, her father, now in his early seventies, worked for the Durban Railways and her mother has always been a housewife. Conscious of her 249 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. class background and lack of economic privilege, one of the first comments Faith made to me in April o f2001 related to class and family. Somewhat indignantly and perhaps as a way of critiquing my relative privilege as a researcher, she remarked: “I didn’t choose to be bom in this family. I was not bom with a silver spoon in my mouth.” Since both of her parents were “disowned” by their respective families, Faith had very little contact with extended relations and grandparents during her growing years in Chatsworth. Bom in the mid-1920s, Faith’s mother was married twice, first at the age of sixteen. Although both Hindu, her first husband was Hindustani and she was Tamil and Faith’s mother was rejected by her family due to “religious conflict.” After three boys and seven years they separated, and Faith’s mother later met her second husband, Faith’s father, in her late twenties. Both Tamil, Faith’s parents converted to Pentecostal Christianity after the birth of their first son and his recovery from illness. They were not into any religion as such. They were bom from Tamil families so that’s what they knew their background was, but they were not religious freaks. And my brother Wesley was bom and my mum lived with some Christian people. And he was very sick. He was on the verge of dying. He had froth coming out of his mouth and all that. So someone go call the pastor and we pray and that’s what gave them the reason to want to change. The sense of family Faith did not experience with kin relations she developed through the Church and neighbors. “It’s not that we lost out because we have a sense of family unity among our community, among our Church people. We have family with people. It’s not that we lived isolated lives.” At the same time, having grown up 250 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without the active presence and interference of maternal and paternal kin and a keen observer of social relationships, Faith’s offers a telling critique of the Indian Family and its aspects of social control and meddling. It was a blessing in disguise. I think that our so called Indian community has his myth of being close-knit but for me it’s just a myth because you don’t—you’re not respecting people as individual in a huge family circle.. . . This aunty has to know, that aunty has to know this, and you know there’s a prayer here and a function here and why you didn’t come and whoa give me a break—you have a right not to go I think the truth is you don’t really respect each other’s lifestyle. You know she’s marrying a Muslim guy. We’re not going for the wedding and we don’t want to have this and you know we want the family to be in a religious manner, you’re marrying out of the family and all this, what for? They don’t respect that you’re an adult, that you’re over 21. The emphasis on individual choice and rights as being in conflict with the interests of the extended family, especially as it relates to choice of marriage partner, is illustrated here. Clearly, there is some “freedom” with nucleation, to make individual decisions and choose your own “lifestyle” without monitoring, commentary, and punishment (“we’re not going for the wedding”) from extended kin. In contrast, Susan, 30, also Pentecostal Christian from a Tamil background, offers a different interpretation, commenting on the loss of closeness with economic mobility and stratification. When I asked her how family life has changed since she was child, she emphasized atomization and consumer values. We used to see our family quite often because there were always prayers and I just feel like when you were growing up, there’s so many functions to attend and as you get older people just stay away from families.. . . We used to go to a lot 251 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of family functions. Most of my dad’s family were Hindus and we used to go to porridge prayers and there were always weddings and there were always funerals There was lots of communication and interaction between families. Lots of contact compared to now.. . . And even though it was so difficult, they would always make the effort and now it’s like people have cars, and they just don’t bother.. . . They’re so caught up in their own world and their own lives and there too many problems to worry about.. . . I’ve got lots of relatives that have bought houses in white areas and they prefer to live that way. People just want to live that kind of lifestyle, a big house with a swimming pool and the works.. . . And even in the people who are still living in Chatsworth, they also, they lifestyles have changed. If you look at the Chatsworth houses now there like so extended with big fancy extensions and you look at people they have good jobs and they dress well and it’s like a new generation and new breed of people that really don’t give a damn.. . . I remember living in Chatsworth your neighbors are always there for you or the neighbors are the best people ever on earth.. . . Now they so much in competition with each other, they actually quite nasty. To the extent that poverty and economic struggle united the first generation of Chatsworth residents, Susan’s comments suggest that uneven economic mobility has created separation among family and neighbors with jealousies often running high. The shift towards nuclear family consumption through the production and display of the house (big house, swimming pool, fancy extensions) as opposed to community and family pooling is an important aspect of how families have changed over the decades in Chatsworth. Reflecting on her growing years in Chatsworth but emphasizing more the community of neighbors, Faith offers similar critiques as Susan, but makes a pointed link to Westernization. What I see now is a big shift—we had a sense of community, family, and us children, we all grew up playing together. You 252 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. don’t see that around you know. Now we got to Wimpy, we go to the movies, we need to go on holiday. It’s very Western, It’s very America now, but when we were at home, it was playing marbles.. . . The neighbors would get together, it was a community thing—you don’t see that anymore. We shared everything and that was the nice thing about living in Chatsworth. Everybody—they were caring, they were very caring. When I asked Faith to locate this change in time, she pointed to issues of housing, nucleation, and female labor. When the people started leaving—the second generation that came into Chatsworth. When they started marrying and moving out and the families became less, smaller, and also it was being introduced where you go live on your own. You marry and live on your own. You become an independent person, so that made a big difference. While it was good and healthy I think, I think it was important for that change and people started getting educated. . . more women in Chatsworth are working all the time, so that was a big change. At a broader level, this generational shift speaks to a movement away from kin relationships rooted in duty, sacrifice, and collective well being to those defined more so by trends of individualism, personal choice, and desire. Anita, 54, who spent her formative years in Mayville before removal to Chatsworth, like Susan, suggests that even though families were poor they found a way to be together and for the older generation, many still do. We had a happy childhood. We were poor but we had a lot of love and happiness. We didn’t fight over things.. . . If there was a wedding the family was there. If there was a funeral or something the family was there.. . . That time, if somebody dies, now close, you must know the whole family is coming, no matter how they are coming, but they are coming. They will find a way. Now just one goes, that’s enough.. . . But we 253 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. if it’s close now, I’m talking about my father’s brother’s children and sisters’ children, my mother’s brothers children and sisters’ children, we all go, even if it means taking off from work. We make it our duty for the simple reason—when I lost my brother and my mother, each and every family member from my father’s side and mother’s side was there. They made it their duty so now we feel it is our duty. According to Anita, today’s generation treat extended kin relations differently. “They don’t look at it like that. That’s my cousin. I’m not that close, let mum and dad go. It’s all right. It’s one of those things. They don’t take it seriously.” Moreover Anita points to favoritism as having tom some families apart and contributed to kin relations based less in duty, but rather evaluated on their own merit. I feel in our generation our families treated us the same.. . . In today’s generation, I’ve noticed the grandparents pick and choose the grandchildren. They pick and choose the children. They like this son better than that son or they like the daughters better than the sons. So that is where the conflict is caused.. . . The mother likes one son, gives the house to one son, don’t give it to the other children. And yet this is a Corporation house. Either leave it in the family or if you decide you’re going to sell it, give all shares. Whereas the older residents may be apt to turn the other cheek in cases of poor treatment or rejection, according to Anita, the young people of today tend to have different responses. Now they say no. I’ve got no time for you. You’ve got no time for me. Where were you all these years? Even my friend’s son—when she lost her husband, his parents didn’t care about him [the son]. So suddenly when he got married, his mother said no I’ll call, invite them. He says [the son] I don’t know them. Where were they? I don’t need them in my life. 254 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fostered by family rejection and isolation, the hierarchical moral authority of elders has been challenged by equalizing trends in kin relations, where family members are increasingly evaluated on the terms of their individual behavior and emotional responsiveness rather than accepted by virtue of their “place” within the family. Fatimah makes similar comments about her children’s relationship (ranging in age from five to twelve) to their paternal grandfather, who has ignored his grandchildren and withheld an inheritance from his son for marrying a woman both darker-skinned than the rest of the family and out of the religion. Today kids understand everything and kids feel rejection more than anybody else.. . . So my children made a statement last night to their father. They asked their father, if his father dies would he go? So I said them, you can’t put him in a position like that. No matter what that’s his father. You can get children, you can get a wife, you can get ten wives. But your parents, your brother, your sister, your blood, you can never. . . . My kids told their father last night, if their grandfather die, they will never go.. . . They said, if he can’t—what’s the use going to a person when a person is dead. When they’re living you’re not allowed to go to them. They don’t come to you. It doesn’t make sense. Whereas for Fatimah “blood” relationships are insoluble, for the new generation growing and coming of age in Chatsworth the terms for engaging with kin are determined less and less by duty and obligation. Still family ruptures are painful and the eroding authority of elders coupled with the historical violence of displacement and the everyday struggles of township life (poverty, violence, substance abuse) would lead many towards the need for salvation and a new life. 255 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pentecostal Christianity According to national census figures, between 1951 and 1980, Indian Christians showed the highest growth rates as a religious group among South African Indians, jumping from 6.2% to 12.5%, with the largest gains in Pentecostal ministries. Of the over 150,000 indentured laborers brought to South Africa only 1.4% (2,150) came as Christians (Pillay, Naidoo, & Dangor, 1989, pp. 146,151-152). Moreover, despite Roman Catholic and Methodist missionary activity dating from the 1860s, it was only in the 1920s and 1930s with the evangelical Pentecostalism of Bethesda, under the leadership of J. A. Rowlands and Ebenezer Theophilus that South African Indians began to convert to Christianity in noticeable numbers. Over the years, Pentecostal Christianity has largely drawn its membership from the low income and marginalized among Tamil and Telegu Hindus whose practice of Hinduism has been defined principally by ritualism rather than the study of religious scriptures or doctrine (Oosthuizen, 1978, pp. 182, 191).1 4 5 As scholars of religion have noted, the success of Bethesda among South African Indians, which other Pentecostal ministries would learn from, rested in its capacity to emphasize the compatibility of Christianity with Indianness as a cultural identity. Pillay (1994) describes this transitional duality as such: Bethesda’s strength in comparison with the other Pentecostal churches was its ability, often unconsciously, to articulate in 1 4 5 In contrast, Kumar(2000) makes the point that historically Hinduism has survived based upon its ritual orientation rather than doctrinal approach (pp. 42-43). 256 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. its approach this tension between the old, traditional Indian life and culture which was rapidly passing away, and the new Western secularised {sic} life-style and habits this community now confronted, (p. 62) Emphasizing the insecurities of disruption, Oosthuizen (1975) makes similar points: Bethesda, the church which has made the greatest impact on Hindus in Metropolitan Durban, attempts to give a religious answer to the effects of disruption as a result of changes taking place in eastern society deeply involved in a western setting where the old has lost much of its life-blood.. . . Opposition to change, ruptures in change, and often set-backs and regressions, the broken rhythm between school and family life, contributed to the insecurities in which Pentecostalism came to assist in giving security, (p. 72). As intimated above, issues of displacement accompanied with socioeconomic struggle and cultural changes have been important to the emergence and expansion of Pentecostal ministries among South African Indians. Significantly, the growth of Pentecostalism has been facilitated by two major demographic shifts. The first follows urbanizing trends in the 1920s and 30s as South African Indians left rural ways of life and subsistence for work opportunities in an industrializing economy, as unskilled and semi-skilled laborers. The second shift references the late 1950s with the implementation of the Group Areas Act, and the beginning of the removals to the townships of Chatsworth and later Phoenix. During the first expansion, the well- known Pentecostal denominations (Bethesda Full Gospel, Apostolic Faith Mission, and Assemblies of God) founded their Churches. During the second shift, as a result 257 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of secessions from the established Pentecostal Churches, many smaller independent Pentecostal ministries began to emerge (Pillay et al., 1989, p. 152; Pillay, 1994, pp. 7- 12). In Chatsworth, the proliferation of small Pentecostal churches is visible in the townscape as pitched tents on patches of City Council property and the renting of commercial sites for spiritual purposes. In other instances, small ministries operate directly from pastor’s homes with the conversion of outdoor spaces and garages into sacred sites of prayer, fellowship, and healing. Whereas the more established Pentecostal churches such as New Bethesda and Apostolic Faith Mission in Unit 3, Revival Ministries in Unit 5, and the Christian Revival Center in Unit 11, draw large numbers with estimated congregation sizes ranging between 1000 and 2500, the more informal churches are much smaller in scale, usually ranging between fifty and two hundred members. In their survey study of religious life in Chatsworth, Oosthuizen and Hofmeyr (1981) make a number of interesting points about the visible shift towards Pentecostalism in the new township. They emphasize that the acceleration of social and cultural change with forced removal and de-urbanization, the ruptures of family and community life in previous settlements, and the absorption of nearly 250,000 people within fifteen years has turned the soil for Pentecostalism to take root. The breaking and re-making of place is the sub-terrain of their analysis. More generally, they suggest that religious activities had become for many a “substitute for the urban 258 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. milieu” (p. 17). Even today with few public spaces for community involvement and engagement, the appeal of religious festivals and sites in pulling residents together for collective expression cannot be understated. Religion is an important organizing principle in the lives of many (if not most) Chatsworth residents, whatever the variations in practice and interpretation may be. Of the 375 respondents in the Oosthuizen and Hofmeyr (1981) survey, the distribution of religious affiliation was as follows: Hindu (61.6%), Christian (27.5%), Muslim (8.5%), and Heterodox (2.4%).1 4 6 The religious affiliation of Muslims, they note, was the most stable with the largest change being that from Telegu and Tamil Hinduism to Christianity.1 4 7 Whereas a thorough evaluation of the various factors contributing to a turn towards Pentecostalism in Chatsworth is truly beyond the scope of this section, reflecting momentarily on how Pentecostal Christianity has “spoken” l4 6 To what extent this is broadly representative is difficult to ascertain, but in comparison with other studies cited in the survey, the Christian sample is large (40-41). Still according to 1980 census data, 12.5% of Indian South Africans throughout the country identified as Christian (Pillay et al., 1989, p. 150). Given that Pentecostal Christianity has been particularly successful at drawing new adherents from the low-income townships of Chatsworth and Phoenix, Oosthuizen and Hofineyr’s (1981) percentages may not be too far off the mark. I 4 7 lssues of language and religious instruction are relevant in this regard. One of the major losses with removal to Chatsworth was that of religious and cultural facilities, particularly Hindu temples, one of the main sites where the vernaculars historically have been taught. The implementation of the National Education Policy Act of 1967, moreover would establish English as the medium of education. Broadly Christian in character, the Act provided for religious instruction at school for White, African, and Coloured Christian students. In contrast, Indian pupils did not receive comparable instruction at school in their respective faiths. Moreover, Hindu children in Chatsworth, in comparison to Muslim and Christian children, did not and do not generally receive the same formal instruction in religious beliefs and practices through institutions such as Christian Sunday schools and youth groups or Islamic madrasahs. In the Oosthuizen and Hofmeyr (1981) survey, Muslim respondents were comparatively more proficient in their home languages (pp. 26-27, 72-73). Even today, Muslim children, for whom attendance at madrasah is considered compulsory, continue to receive language education in Urdu and Arabic as part of their religious studies. 259 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and continues to speak to the moral ruptures of the family and changing norms towards individualism, choice, and love is useful and necessary. Oosthuizen and Hofmeyr (1981) have argued that with the rapid breakdown of the joint family in the township context, Pentecostalism has cast itself as one large kutum and fostered a sense of belonging and solidarity as the hierarchies of the family were being challenged by democratizing trends. The evocation of church as family (unlike the temple or mosque) that is often deployed in sermons and everyday discourse with Chatsworth Indian Christians supports this contention. The front leaf of a brochure, for example, from one of the largest congregations in the township, Revival Ministries, cites Isaiah 14:10 and depicts the hand of God holding a nuclear family (mother, father, and two children), in an idealized image of patriarchal safety and protection. “This is Your Father’s House” the brochure begins. Where the moral authority of the joint family led by the kutum head is being eroded, God the Father and Jesus His Son who died for the sins of humanity emerge as powerful new sources of paternal authority through the leadership of the Pastor (and often his wife), defining what is right and good for Christian families. The emphasis on house furthermore is not incidental. Pillay’s (1994) characterization of Pentecostalism as a “half-way house” incorporating aspects of both Hindu social institutions and a more Westernized secularized life speaks to the symbolic and material importance of place and home among South African Indians (p. 89). House-to house visitations with prayer and counseling and home-based cell 260 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. meetings are important aspects of how the Church becomes incorporated within the discourse of family and part of everyday life. For the devout, the larger churches generally have some church based activity every day of the week (bible study, home cell, youth group, men and “ladies” fellowship meetings as well as Sunday and mid week services) with opportunities for participation and leadership for men, women, and youth. In addition the larger Pentecostal churches usually offer free transportation to Church services and meetings for its members. For Sunday morning and mid-week services, buses circumambulate the township picking up members from the various units, so that distance and lack of resource is not a deterrent to worship. In contrast, the temple plays a qualitatively different role in the life of practicing Hindus in South Africa, with large attendances related to temple festivals and public prayers, such as Kavady. While Hindu priests officiate ritual practices and can proscribe prayers for specific purposes (ill health, bad luck), they do not generally assume the roles of counselor and father actively assumed by many pastors. In its everydayness, Hinduism is home-based and family oriented, with practices such as the daily lighting of the lamp and weekly fast days, being the most common domestic rituals, the maintenance of which traditionally falls upon women. Moreover, many Hindu families erect shrines in their homes and yards or set aside special rooms made sacred for ritual prayer. Many of the yearly observances such as the Parttassi, Katha and Jhanda, and Hanuman prayers are performed at home after following proscribed periods of fasting and purity (i.e., abstinence from meat, sex, and alcohol) for the 261 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. entire household. In this sense I agree with Oosthuizen’s (1975) claim that “In Hinduism, rituals are performed not merely for the individual but for the whole family” (p. 40). Even to the extent that prayers are individualized, for example in the case of the Kavady festival whereby devotees will take multi-year vows “to carry” for healing purposes, the participation and support of family members is critical in meeting the ritual requirements for the prayer (i.e., keeping a “clean fast,” preparing offerings, and moral support for the devotee) and the responsibility of fulfilling vows is sometimes passed across generations, from parent to child. Preparation for Hindu prayers is often labor intensive with reliance on kin for participation and support an integral component. Within Pentecostalism, the relationship of the individual to family is re-worked such that “salvation” is not contingent upon the actions or support of family members. Moreover, Church becomes family, part of the everyday, though the language of house. To the extent that Pentecostalism has attracted many of its members from the poor, it has addressed adherents’ marginal place in society while at the same time presenting members, both male and female, with the potential for healing, change, and transformation. Two posters of Christian healing campaigns in Chatsworth in 2001 speak to these dual aspects. “Break The Shackles Of Poverty . . . The Bondage Of Poverty Will Be Broken! Come And Be Healed From This Plague”1 4 8 and “Peace. “ “Sponsored by the Grace Worship Tabernacle, 29 June 2001 to 1 July 2001. 262 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Transform Your Life From Pieces To Peace . . . Jesus Is The Prince Of Peace.”1 4 9 Holding open the possibility of personal transformation through God’s love, forgiveness, and redemption, in a context where violence, substance abuse, and economic struggle are common, it allows for a re-making of the self with the support of a religious community. New Bethesda in Chatsworth, for example, offers counseling services for drug/alcohol abuse and recently opened a shelter for abused women and children. One can be an alcoholic, wife-beater, drug-addict, prostitute, gambler, gangster, or infidel and still be saved through repentance. There is a sense of equality before God and the path of deliverance from “evil” and “sin” through God’s love and submission to His will is a common theme in sermons and services. Lydia, 19, who in her own words has “sinned” through drinking, smoking, and clubbing as well as becoming romantically involved with a married man, articulates this dynamic in the interchange that follows about Church and Christ. When I first met Lydia, she was alternately bubbly, initiating conversation and contact, and distant, withholding, evasive, and nervous. In our initial casual conversation, she alluded to conflicts with her parents, that she had had a “difficult life” and of economic struggle in the household where her financial contributions were important in keeping the house viable. Lydia lives with her parents and two brothers in an outbuilding, her family always having rented, never owned. Her mother works as a CMT service hand and her father is self-employed as a hawker for lack of alternate work. Over the year 1 4 9 Sponsored by Turning Point Ministries, 28 October 2001 to 4 November 2001. 263 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and a half that I knew Lydia, she went through a noticeable healing transformation through Christianity, visibly more open, happy, and loving. It was in fact the last day we spoke that she finally disclosed to me the heart of her early family difficulties. Upjeet: Why is going to Church important for you? Lydia: Because I want my walk with Christ to be a straight one. I’ve sinned a lot. I tell you—all the things a young person would do. I drank. I smoked. I did practically everything under the sun that a young person can do, except for taking drugs, but it doesn’t feel right And to me God has been speaking to me. He’s always been urging me and telling me how much He loves me and I just keep quiet. He’s the only right thing for me and only if I go to Him will I find true happiness. Jesus died for me. Jesus died for our sins and I really believe that.... Upjeet: So when did you go through this change of saying that I don’t want to “sin” anymore and I want to embrace Christ? Lydia: It first happened when I found my first love for God and I found that when I was in Standard 8. And I got all these young girls and young boys at school and I got them all to fast on a Tuesday and we all used to sing praises. And eventually that all died off because we got back into the world and I lost my love for Christ. And I hated myself so much for doing that. When I first found my love for Christ, it is something that you cannot explain. There was just so much of excitement. Lydia goes on to describe the intensity of love and fellowship she experienced at a Christian camp she had attended the previous weekend (at no cost) for young people struggling with emotional pain. On Saturday night we had a breakthrough at our camp and it was through praise and worship. And I thought that God really spoke to all the young people and there was just so 264 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. much of love. Love that I have never seen like in my entire life. And it was young people that came and they were total strangers to each another. They just got to know each other for a couple of hours or so but there was so much of love. And so much of hugging and so much of compassion. So much of feeling. It was unbelievable.. . . The overwhelming emphasis on God as Love as speaking to, calling, and healing the individual but also unifying and bringing people together is expressed in Lydia’s rendition of her spiritual experience. A sense of ecstatic pleasure reverberates throughout her recollection and importantly the iterated value of love as the basis for relationship to God, self, and others allows for new definitions of self to emerge. As a proselytizing force, I want to suggest, Pentecostalism in contrast to Hinduism and Islam, through the language of love and prayer speaks directly to the ruptures of family life in the township context and presents a Higher moral authority, based in the Bible to govern and guide the conduct of Christian people. Drawing from conversations I have had with families and individuals who have converted, that Pentecostalism has helped some converts “heal” both physically and emotionally and others renounce debilitating addictions is incontestable. At the same time, although transformative and equalizing in certain senses, Pentecostalism more generally but also in Chatsworth has been associated with social and political conservatism, and in the realms of gender and family supportive of traditional hierarchies of man and wife, whereby the man is the head of the household and the wife’s duty to submit to his authority, as Pentecostal Christians more generally must submit to the will of God. Within this context, divorce is considered “unbiblical,” and at an ideological level the 265 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. structure of authority and husband-wife relationships within the family parallels that of “traditional” Hinduism. In her article on the role of South African Indian women in the Full Gospel Church, Nadar (2001) likewise draws attention to the gender parallels between Hinduism and Pentecostalism in emphasizing female submission and subordination. In her interviews with female Church members occupying leadership positions, she probed the issue of wife beating and found this response. Almost all the women, except one said they would first find the reason for the beating, since in most cases, “when a man hits his wife it is because of something that she has done.” . . . All the women, except two ordained ministers said they would never encourage a woman to leave—because, firstly, divorce is wrong according to the Bible; and secondly, the Church’s constitution does not permit divorce.. . . Almost all the women I spoke to believed in the submission of a woman to a man. The way that was explained was that a woman was supposed, lovingly and willingly, to submit to a man’s will and do what made him happy, (pp. 79-80) 266 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI MASCULINITY AND GENDER VIOLENCE In May of 2002, The Post ran a front-page article on a Chatsworth woman who had been stabbed to death by her husband. The headline proclaimed, “Slain Over Mutton Curry,” and the article reads as follows1 5 0 : After the horror of seeing their mother viciously stabbed in a domestic dispute (my italics), two children in blood stained clothing, held each other’s hand and ran for about two kilometers to a relative’s home to seek help. When they returned they saw their mother, Mrs. Shashikala “Rosemary” Solomon, 34, a machinist of Road 727 Montford, Chatsworth, being taken to hospital where she later died. The children, Caroline 8, and Clinton, 14 are devastated. Soloman, who was under police guard at the RK Khan hospital after the incident, appeared in the Magistrate’s Court, Chatsworth yesterday, charged with his wife’s murder.. . . Now Solomon’s family want to know why she was not protected by the police and the justice system despite several protection orders against him. Three months ago Mrs. Soloman ran out of her home with a knife stuck in her back after allegedly being stabbed by her husband. Self-employed Mr. Philip Khedun, 30, of Capota Street, Arena Park, Chatsworth, a brother of the slain woman, said when his brother-in-law had arrived home on Saturday, he had demanded that his wife prepare mutton curry for supper instead of the tin-fished meal she had cooked. It is alleged that as a result an argument broke out and Mrs. Soloman fled the kitchen when her husband allegedly grabbed a bread knife from the sink and chased after her onto the road. Witnesses said Soloman was then stabbed continuously as she rolled down an embankment. Khedun said when his nephew Clinton tried to help his mother, he was stabbed on his leg. i5 0 The Post, 22-24 May 2002. 267 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “As she lay bleeding, my sister told Clinton to run for help. My niece Caroline embraced her mother, kissed her cheek and ran off also to get help.” Mr. Soloman then fled to his home and allegedly attempted to end his life by stabbing himself on his head and face. Khedun, who accompanied his sister in an ambulance to hospital and will now care for the two traumatised children, said her last words were “my children” before she died. Two photographs accompany the article. In one, the couple stands side by side formally dressed in evening attire, outfits matching. She is wearing a blue and silver sari with pearl-like beads around her neck complemented by her husband donned in a blue-striped suit with white shirt and bow tie. A deceptive projection of marital harmony and respectability, the conjugal couple is enshrined. Beneath this display of domestic partnership, as formed by two people rather than two families, and flanking the main article, is a much larger photograph of the two bereaved children being consoled by their maternal uncle, one child in each arm. The patriarchal family tom apart by violence is now being reconstituted with a surrogate father at its helm. Mothers, sisters, female friends and neighbors are nowhere pictured or given voice in the account. The slain mother-wife in fact now only speaks through her brother, her protector in death. With sensationalist flourish, this article reproduces a familiar telling of brutal victimization. It deploys the image of the dutiful mother-wife trying to make ends meet (tin fish versus mutton curry)1 5 1 set in contrast with the abusive, unemployed, 1 5 1 Tin fish curry is standard working class fare. It is low cost, can be quite tasty, and a source of protein. Mutton, in contrast, would be significantly more expensive. 268 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and ungrateful husband. Indeed the article is meant to horrify and upset us, induce outrage and foster sympathy for a victimized wife and the innocents left behind. With mythic qualities, it is not accidental that the story opens with an image of two bloodied children seeking help for their dying mother. A compelling visualization, it plays with our emotions, reproduces an ideal of womanhood, and in the process evades any substantive discussion about context, meaning, power, or process—be it historical, spatial, socioeconomic, cultural, gendered, familial, or institutional. In fact, the article appears to intentionally evade meaning or context, pathologizing and individualizing what is rather a community affair. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Gender violence as marital or intimate violence is a pervasive phenomenon in Chatsworth. The Chatsworth Court consistently ranks among the top magisterial courts in KwaZulu-Natal in terms of processing and issuing protection orders.1 5 2 According to Department of Justice statistics for 2001, the Chatsworth Court was third to the Durban and Pietermaritzburg Courts, both of which represent much larger jurisdictions, in terms of the number of protection orders granted. Moreover, the majority of reported cases at the Chatsworth police station relate to common assault and gross bodily harm (GBH), most often in the context of household and l5 2 The protection order is a legal injunction that prohibits an alleged perpetrator of “domestic violence” from specific acts of violation. An abrogation of the protection order is a criminal act and enables state prosecution. It will be discussed more fully later in this chapter. 269 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. neighborhood either among/between family members or neighbors.1 5 3 For many Chatsworth residents, violence is a part of everyday life, either as a lived experience or as witnessed. I did not initiate research in Chatsworth with the intention of unraveling the gendered significance of violence. However, it emerged time and time again as a salient feature of everyday life. Ms. Naidoo,1 5 4 a seasoned and committed social worker at the Chatsworth Child and Family Welfare Association and my first official entry into the world of the township, introduced me to the complexities of marital and intimate violence. In discussing practices of territoriality and the control of female movement through stalking and confinement to home, she pointed towards themes of masculine domination whereby the control of women as wives and girlfriends can be read as constitutive features of masculine identity formation. The normality of gender violence in Chatsworth, I want to suggest, is a sign of masculinity in distress, an expression of violent rage that has precedent in the early formation of the township but has also become amplified with the uncertainties and insecurities of political 1 5 3 The Chatsworth police station is the larger of two police stations in the township. The Bayview station in Unit 2 is much smaller in terms of size and scale of police force and jurisdiction. In 2000, for example, at the Chatsworth police station, there were 1,405 reported cases of common assault and GBH. In 2001, the combined total dropped slightly to 1,358, with the number of reported common assaults increasing, and GBH declining. The conviction rate for both common assault and GBH during both years is abysmal, hovering between 2% and 4 %. This data was derived from the Crime Analysis Unit at the Chatsworth police station in November of 2001 and January of 2003. 1 5 4 Not her real name. 270 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. transformation and the new rights women are entitled to and exercising as gendered citizens of the state. Violence against women and wives in Chatsworth is too common to be dismissed as anomalous. It is rather embedded within a continuum of cultural, historical, and spatial beliefs and practices that define female movement, voicing, power, desire, and sexuality as essentially threatening and needing to be contained. At the heart of gender violence in Chatsworth is gender inequality and the preservation of male privilege within a broader political context of change. It is a defensive stance whereby men threaten and feel threatened. Masculinity and the State While the apartheid regime was known throughout the world for its repressive state apparatus and its modem system of racial domination and legalized inequalities, less analyzed and understood, however, is the degree to which the apartheid state, was also a gendered and a masculinized state, a state that upheld gendered inequalities and male domination throughout a variety of institutionalized practices and discourses. Connell (1990) has argued that each state has a “gender regime,” meaning that the state is both constituted by specific deployments of gendered power and meanings as well as generative of gender categories. Understanding gendered violence in part involves interrogating the construction of masculinity and femininity within specific political and cultural contexts, to probe, as Heise (1999) advocates the structures of power that enable violence (p. 424). Within South Africa, formations of 271 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. masculine power are also intrinsically implicated in the politics of race and class. Indeed we need to speak in the plural form of masculinities and femininities, and ask how violent masculinities have been normalized within specific sites. Along these lines Morrell (2001) has argued that across race and class South African history has produced “brittle masculinities—defensive and prone to violence” and until recently South Africa has been a country ruled and governed by men both in terms of political and family life (p. 18). While South African men marginalized by race, class, and sexuality have historically been at a disadvantage in relation to the hegemonic white masculinity buttressed by the apartheid state, in the sphere of family, house, and home, married men across race and class have benefitted from the patriarchal gender order of apartheid. Laws relating to marriage and family defined men and women as husbands and wives, as well as fathers and mothers, in unequal terms, enforcing female dependency and submission. Until 1993, for example, South African civil law1 5 5 enshrined the man as head of household, supporting his symbolic cultural power with legal force. Within the context of the household and the family, men as husbands and patriarchs have had enormous legal authority, power, and decision-making over women and children. 1 S 5 In South Africa, two systems o f law, civil and customary, continue to operate. Civil law is based on Roman-Dutch and English common law. Amended by statute, it primarily affects White, Indian, Coloured, as well as African women married under the civil system. Within the context of customary law, a hybridized form of African “tradition” and colonial inscription, only African women married under its provisions are subject to its restrictions. Since the early 1990s, the gendered inequities of the civil marriage system have to a great extent been equalized while many women married under customary law continue to be defined as minors in relation to their husbands (Human Rights Watch/Africa, 1995, p. 14). 272 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. More specifically, the law associated men as fathers and husbands with the ownership and guardianship of property, wives, and children.1 5 6 It was only when the Guardianship Act 192 of 1993 came into force in March of 1994, that mothers and fathers were first granted equal guardianship of minor children. Prior to this, the common law position held that the father’s guardianship and custodial authority was superior to that of the mother’s. In addition, before the implementation of the Domicile Act of 1992, common law held that upon marriage a wife acquired the domicile of her husband giving the husband as head of the family the legal authority to make final decisions in shared family life, such as choosing where and how spouses lived. A wife who refused to follow or live with her husband, without getting a divorce, risked the loss of maintenance support while the marriage 1 5 S Until 1984, a man was unambiguously considered the head of household entrusted with the guardianship of his wife and children. Couples were automatically married in “community of property” unless then specifically signed an “ante-nuptial contract.” Marrying in community of property meant that the property of the husband and wife were merged with the husband as the sole administrator of the estate, with women subject to the “marital power” of their husbands. Considered a “minor” in relationship to her husband, a wife was subject to his guardianship over her person and joint property. Under this property regime, a wife required her husband’s consent to enter into contracts binding the joint household. In contrast, a husband could enter into contracts freely, including the sale of the marital home, without spousal consent. In contrast, the ante-nuptial system excluded the “marital power” provision, with each spouse retaining his or her own estate. “Marital power” was abolished for those marriages that came into effect after the implementation of the Matrimonial Property Act 88 of 1984, beginning November 1,1984. While the Matrimonial Property Act improved the legal rights of White, Indian, and Coloured women married under civil law after November 1, 1984, it did not apply to civil marriages between Africans, which were governed by the Black Administration Act of 1927. Only after the implementation of the Marriage and Matrimonial Property Laws Amendment of 1988 was the marital power abolished for African civil marriages but again only prospectively. Importantly, both of these property laws left intact the marital power of husbands in marriages contracted before 1984 and 1988, respectively. It was only in December of 1993 when the General Law Fourth Amendment Act 132 of 1993 came into operation that marital power was abolished from all marriages and the legal reference to the husband as head of the family was deleted (Sinclair, 1995, pp. 540-544). 273 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. subsisted. Moreover, until 1993, with the passage of the Prevention of Family Violence Act, husbands were exempt from prosecution for rape and family violence was not recognized as a state concern (Sinclair, 1995, p. 545). In a context where men despite being marginalized by race or class have historically benefitted from gender inequalities, the new discourse of gender equality, emphasis on women’s rights, and state intervention through the granting of protection orders represents a source of contest to the masculine rights/rites of men as husbands. It is a threat to the unquestioned masculine power that men have traditionally and legally commanded as husbands and fathers and demonstrates how masculine formations are inherently relational, unstable, and processual, constituted in relationship to femininities as well as other constructions of masculine identity.1 5 7 Within this context, violence, as an identity constituting process, directed at vulnerable others is one means of asserting manhood when faced with challenge and uncertainty. In teasing out the intersections of identity, subjectivity, power, and violence, Moore (1994) describes this process as “thwarting” the inability to effectively take up particular gendered subjectivities, with gendered violence resulting. A masculine identity that privileges dominance, for example, relies in part on female complicity, passivity, and silence for sustenance. When conversely met with female resistance, verbal contest, desire, and active volition, masculine identity is 1 5 7 For discussions on masculinity, see Connell (1995), Gutmann (1997), Cheng (1999) and the introduction to Morrell (2001). 274 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. destabilized. In this way, masculinities and femininities hang in a tenuous and dialectical balance within a broader matrix of unequal and shifting power dynamics. In contexts of challenge then, masculine violence is one way that dominance is asserted, aggression expressed, identities negotiated, and arguments settled. Often, it has both silencing and disciplinary effects. No doubt there are multiple masculinities or constructs of manhood that circulate in Chatsworth, shaped differently by the materiality and discourses of class, religion, and generation. To name but a few, there is the new man of Pentecostal Christianity who forsakes a life of sin (drugs, alcohol, gambling, and womanizing) embraces family values, and assumes his rightful role as head of household and family. There is the successful middle class provider who owns a nice car and home, make sacrifices for his family and children, and is active in community life. There is the glorified gangster-pop masculinity of male youth that draws from globalized hip-hop, rap, and R&B where drugs, alcohol, and an aggressive sexual persona are important ingredients. While each of these idealized versions, by no means mutually exclusive, speaks to different expressions and interpretations of manhood and its rites/rights, the association of manhood with dominance is a unifying theme. Engendering Justice In my efforts to better understand the meanings and contexts associated with gender violence in Chatsworth, I conducted field observations and data collection at the Chatsworth Court and Chatsworth police station. Fieldwork and observations at 275 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Court and police station were central in shaping my analysis and understanding, as I observed the reporting of cases as well as the long lines at the Court’s Domestic Violence Unit and listened silently to stories of violation. There were many days I returned home sighing, with a heavy heart. The Domestic Violence Unit was formed at the Chatsworth Court in 1994, following the passage of the Prevention of Family Violence Act 133, which came into operation in December of 1993. It was the first time South Africa specifically recognized family violence as a phenomenon requiring state intervention. The Act stipulated the process of applying for a protection order against a violent spouse, common-law partner or parent, the violation of which would enable criminal proceedings. The Domestic Violence Act of 1998, its successor, improved on various problems with the 1993 Act, most glaringly the violation of the audi alteram partum principle meaning that the Court was granting final protection orders without having heard from the “respondent.”1 5 8 The 1998 Act also marked a shift from “family violence” to “domestic violence,” extending the right of application to any member of a shared household as well as all relationships of birth, marriage, and adoption as well as romantic or sexual relationships, both same and cross-sex, regardless of residency. Through the protection order, the State has emerged as a visible player within many Chatsworth households and families, the final battleground for “domestic” 1 5 8 The “respondent” references the alleged perpetrator of violence and the “complainant,” the person bringing forth the application and request for a protection order. 276 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. relationships when other mechanisms have failed to stem or regulate violence. The protection order legally prohibits the respondent from engaging in particular acts of violence or abuse—physical, sexual, emotional/verbal/psychological, and economic— detailed in the application and granting of the order. The respondent who is summoned to court before the final granting of the order is subject to mandatory police arrest and criminal prosecution in cases of violation. In many, if not most instances, “respondents” and “complainants” continue to share homes and households. Although by virtue of the 1998 Act, the Court has the power to expel the respondent from the shared household and impose an obligation on the respondent to pay rent or mortgage, in practice magistrates often hesitate to expel an alleged perpetrator of violence if he is signatory to the property. In terms of marital relationships, the effect is that many husbands and wives continue to live together with the protection order representing an object of state power and challenge to masculine authority within the household. Importantly, I have heard the protection order defined by male institutional actors at the Chatsworth Court and police station as both a “weapon” and “power” that women can leverage but also that they manipulate. It is worth noting that nearly every institutional actor I spoke with about gender violence and the protection order mentioned the abuse of the order by women, pointing to a certain kind of woman who imprisons her husband for the weekend so she can go to nightclubs and have affairs without her husband’s control or intervention (“jolling”). No doubt she exists in 277 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. some version but the attention she gamers far outweighs her significance. Within a context where male extramarital sexual activity is often treated as a right of manhood and far more commonplace than female infidelity given the structure of power in households, the exaggerated emphasis on an active female sexuality and desire speaks to a broader cultural emphasis on female passivity as a necessary counterpart to masculine dominance. A wife’s challenge to her husband’s authority through the intervention of the State on a broader symbolic level constitutes a sexual threat and an act of emasculation. Dining my data collection at the Chatsworth Court, I analyzed and coded one month’s batch of applications at the Chatsworth Court. Of eighty-one applications analyzed, more than 75% of the total complainants were female and more than 80% of the total respondents listed were male.1 5 9 In total nineteen different romantic, kin and in-law relationships emerged in the applications.1 6 0 By relationship, women as wives filed the largest number of applications. The most common themes that emerge in the protection orders filed by women as wives are substance abuse, a husband’s threat to kill his wife with a knife 1 5 9 Of the total, two were adjourned, five were dismissed, six were incomplete, seven were struck off the roll, eleven were withdrawn, and fifty-one were granted. Regardless of whether the order was granted I analyzed all applications, especially since of the total, only five were explicitly rejected by the state. '“Applications were sought by brothers (2), brother-in-law (1), daughters-in-law (3), daughter’s father-in-law (1), ex-brother-in-law (1), ex-wife (1), fathers (2), father-in-law (1), future- father-in-law (1), girlfriends (6), mothers (5), mothers-in-law (3), sisters (5), sisters-in-law (2), son- in-law (2), nephews (2), niece (1), husbands (6), and wives (36). 278 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. or gun, that the husband is having an affair, sexual violence, wives overdosing, husbands threatening to kill the whole family, and the sexually defamatory name calling of women (i.e., whore, prostitute, mardhar chood,m rubbish, bitch). Of the applications submitted by women as wives, half mention drugs or alcohol as contextual or contributing factors and many of the applications describe how women “live in fear” of their husbands. Judging from the age of the eldest son or daughter living with them, most wives likely first became mothers between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, with violence usually beginning with marriage and in some cases during the courtship period. The majority of wives in the sample had been living with violent husbands between two and forty years. Withholding and scrambling details that would identify the parties, a selective and abbreviated sampling of six applications that were granted to wives follows. • She is 25. He is 29. She is working. He is an unemployed textile worker. They have one small child and live with his parents. He has throttled her before and threatens to kill her. He forces her to have sex and on one occasion when he demanded to have sex and she refused, he assaulted her. • She is 28 years of age and he is a few years her senior. She is self-employed and he is an unemployed clothing designer. They live with her parents and son. He has a drug addiction and has been abusing her for seven years. She was beaten after confronting her husband over an affair he was having. Both of the complainant’s parents are “sickly” and little able to intervene. 1 6 1 Sexually charged Hindi curse, along the same lines as the others. 279 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. • She is 42 and he is 44. He runs a business. They have been married for more than 20 years. The abuse began after she confronted her husband about an affair he was having with a married woman. Besides physical and emotional abuse, the wife complains that her husband does not give her money to run the house and pay the bills, that whenever she asks him for “bread money” he tells her to go sell herself. • Both husband and wife are in their mid-fifties. They live with his sister and mother. She is a housewife and he is retired. He is an alcoholic and has been abusing her since they married 40 years ago. He beat her after she found out he was having an affair. • She is 43. He is 50. She is a housewife and he is a driver. They have three children between the ages of 17 and 22. He has a firearm and has threatened to shoot her. The abuse began 25 years ago with marriage. He accuses her of having affairs and forces himself on her. She has been treated at the local hospital for injuries relating to sexual force. • She is 20 and he is 22. They are not legally married but she calls him her “common law husband.” They are no longer living together. She is unemployed and has a baby. He works as a driver and has been giving her “problems” since they were courting. He has threatened to kill himself, her, and their children. She overdosed because of the abuse and has been hospitalized. In contrast, of the six applications brought by husbands against their wives, verbal abuse was the common denominator with only one mention of being threatened with a knife. In these six applications, there was no mention of drug or alcohol abuse, no attempts at suicide, no threats to kill the partner and the whole family, and no mention of hospitalization or sexual force. Only in one application did a husband complain of his wife’s adultery. It is fair to say that the violence directed at women as 280 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. wives as deduced from an analysis of court data reveals a severity of violation unparalleled in the applications of husbands. Moreover, the violence directed at women is layered with sexual anxiety, violation, and defamation as well as male entitlement to extramarital affairs. The transgressions of sex and violence are interspersed. Finally, while seeking the protection order reflects acts of rebellion and resistance to domination and violation, the process is nonetheless marked by inconsistency, conflict and contradiction as many women withdraw charges at the police station and Court. For many, the economic hurdles are substantial as they depend on their partners for “bread and milk” and the support of children. Regardless of economic power or dependency, after filing a complaint, women are often intimidated and harassed by their husbands and family members to withdraw their cases. Reporting a case at the police station or applying for a protection order can also intensify the violence at home, especially since many to most women who apply for the protection order continue to share a household with their partners. Moreover, across religious communities, and despite the growing acceptance and commonality of divorce and separation, marriage, family and children continue to be highly valued as the weave that binds social, cultural and family life. Indeed, despite violence, women are invested in their socially approved identities as mothers and wives. Even in the context of longstanding conflicts within the marital relationship, relating to issues such as violence, infidelity, and substance abuse, the dominant ethos across 281 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. religious, institutional, and CBO sites is one of family preservation. For the older generation of Chatsworth residents, the notion of marriage as a nonnegotiable and lifelong is particularly entrenched and many Pentecostal ministries are actively opposed to women using the Courts and police for protection. The biblical injunction of “what God has put together let no man put asunder” coupled with a belief in the healing power of prayer is thought to be in direct conflict with the Court process. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ As I made my way around the township speaking with residents and friends about the significance of gender violence, I sometimes met with hesitance, resistance, and discomfort. Even though I was careful to structure my queries in general rather than particular terms, some residents expressed skepticism that women would be willing to share their stories and experiences, so dominated and fearful are wives of their husbands. While there is some truth to this characterization, I was also impressed by how vocal, articulate, and pointed many women were in their critiques of how gender inequalities have shaped their lives. Over time as I developed relationships with families and organizations, and even when I was not looking, the normality of violence became increasingly apparent. In everyday discussions in the spheres of family and community, women speak of marital discord and violence euphemistically as “my husband is giving me problems.” This descriptive most often signals violence of a recurring nature. With 282 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. many women in Chatsworth experiencing violence in their marital, domestic, and romantic relationships, the preponderance of violent acts are privatized. This is not to say that violent acts are unseen or unheard. The density of population and close living quarters in Chatsworth make secrets hard to keep and neighbors and friends usually know which wives are being beaten. Although there are exceptions, family and neighbors in Chatsworth are often complicit in the perpetuation of gendered violence through their silence and a cultural tendency of blaming women for marital conflicts and expecting them to make marriages work, irrespective of male behavior. While an analysis of court data sketches the common themes that emerge in the applications of wives for protection orders, the emphasis within the criminal justice system on proving or disproving given incidents of violence compartmentalizes women’s lives and isolates the normality of violence from the broader structure of power within communities. As I aim to illustrate in the following narratives, gender violence in Chatsworth is part of a broader system of gender inequality fueled by cultural and religious beliefs that valorize female submission and characterize female movement, vocality, sexuality, and subjectivity as dangerous while at the same time male violation and sexual expression meets with few controls or public sanction. The violence perpetrated by husbands against their wives is bom of a cultural violence that represses female desire and subjectivity in the interests of family preservation. It is through the complicity of family members and in-law relations in the making of gender identities that gender violence has become normalized. 283 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Looking at the history and contexts for violence in the following narratives, it becomes apparent that marital violence in Chatsworth is often a means of asserting manhood and dominance in contexts where masculine authority is being challenged, often through the simple act of female speech. It is a way of enforcing submission and silence and disciplining women. Marital violence stems from a sense of masculine entitlement and privilege within marriage, family, and households that is being challenged and eroded by a new culture of rights, the protection order, and the refusal of wives to simply submit, obey, and be quiet. As two male friends noted during our conversations, it relates fundamentally to the notion that “I’m the man of the house,” a concept that until recently has been buttressed by both cultural and legal force as well as township housing policies. The violence is a symptom of masculinity in distress, perpetrated on the bodies of women as wives. It is a masculinity able to assert its right of dominance and unqualified authority only through violence. In the narratives that follow, I explore these themes in the lives of three women living in Chatsworth: Diane, Subashni, and Shamila. All three are married with children, and incidentally, each has two boys. Both Subashni and Shamila sought protection orders and have had their husbands imprisoned for breaches. In both instances the State prosecuted the cases. Subashni’s case was dismissed for “insufficient evidence,” a decision that left her emotionally raw as her husband claimed victory. Shamila’s husband admitted guilt and was fined. Diane has considered seeking a protection order but without a housing alternative has thus far 284 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. refrained from legal recourse. All three women continue to live with their husbands. These are pieces of their family histories and narratives of violence. Diane Raised in Chatsworth, Diane left home at the age of seventeen, a year after she matriculated from secondary school. Now thirty-one years of age and a housewife, Diane has two boys in their early teens, and has been married to Dhevan for nearly thirteen years. A gruff character with a history of verbally harassing Diane’s friends (myself included), Dhevan works at a factory in the Southern Industrial Basin. Diane’s older son lives with her and her husband in a flats-complex while her younger son stays with her maternal relations in a two- bedroom semidetached house. Every day after school, both boys go to her grandmother’s home and Diane and her husband “fetch” the children from there. As they do not own a car, both travel either by taxi, bus, or by getting “lifts.” Raised by her maternal grandparents, Diane knew little of her father growing up. As an infant, she was left in the care of her grandparents who were eager to have a baby in the house again. A “drug addict” who consumed dagga daily and later began using mandrax, Diane’s father worked for a shoe company and died young, in his late thirties. He was also physically abusive with his wife. Diane recalls how he would “bash” her mother and that he “would tie her up to the bed and she mustn’t go nowhere.” After a particularly violent episode, Diane’s mother finally left him and returned to the home of her parents in the mid 1970s. “He used to beat my mother up 285 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. bad and my mother even had a miscarriage after my brother was bom. She was pregnant with another child. It would have been the fifth child so that’s how they separated.” Although they parted ways, Diane’s parents never legally divorced. Diane’s mother worked as a dispatch clerk for various clothing factories and also received a maintenance grant from the state for two of the four children. Both Diane and her sister lived with her maternal relations whereas her other sister and brother lived with her father and his relations in another unit of Chatsworth. As a child, Diane spent much of her time with her grandmother since her mother was occupied with her own life and boyfriends. Diane became involved with her husband when she was in Standard 8, around the age of fourteen, but they broke up and she spent time with another boy named Johnny. Diane and Dhevan later “got serious” during her final year of secondary school, when they began a sexual relationship, stealing moments in her backyard or kitchen when everyone was asleep in the middle of the night. Soon after, however, while she was still living with her family of birth, the violence began. It was OK like when we used to see each other, make love and be with each other but he never took me out for lunch or to the cinema or anything of that sort, but we used to be together all of the time. I don’t know how it really started. The problems. Like then he used to hit me. He bust my nose once. He used to give me blue eyes. He used to bash me up bad 1 don’t know what was his reason. Now you can see I’m a good-looking person. That time I was quite good looking. Maybe because of jealousy. I don’t know why he did it. 286 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For despite the bashings, Diane says that after completing matriculation she wasn’t interested in studying further because she had met her husband. She was in love. “I thought he was the best thing that ever happened to me at that time. But when you’re a teenager now and things happen like that, you think everything is a bed of roses.” Moreover despite the bruises and black eyes, her natal family did not question the violent marks on her body and Diane herself would also tell lies to cover up the abuse. “And what I used to tell the next morning. No I walked into the door. I walked into this. I walked into that. My family kept quiet.” While she was living with her in-laws as a young mother with her first child, she describes how she attempted to return home but was continually sent back to her in-laws. “When I went away there, my family sent me back. They didn’t want to keep me, because I ran away from home. That’s why they actually sent me back. They carried on sending me back when I kept running back home.” Although they live in close proximity, to this day, Diane’s natal family has warned her that if she leaves her husband, she will not be permitted to live with them. “They don’t tell him a thing. They don’t even ask Dhevan why you did certain things.” Diane cannot remember why she fled home at such a young age to live with her husband, then boyfriend. For two years, Diane lived with Dhevan and his family without getting married. During this time she “fell pregnant” and her first son was bom out of wedlock. Diane and Dhevan did not rush to marry partly because Dhevan’s family did not approve of her. They thought Diane flirted with men, was 287 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “loose” and thereby “classed her.” While they were living together and after the birth of their first child, Diane’s mother-in-law tried to separate the couple and even tried to arrange Dhevan’s marriage to another girl. Diane and Dhevan finally decided to “get registered” due to her aunt’s insistence. She told Diane, “We Indians, we not Whites. Indians, if you’re not married and living together, people start talking.” In the early years of courtship and marriage, living with her in-laws did not offer Diane much protection. Her mother-in-law would in fact exercise her disciplinary authority through her son. My in-laws used to give me a hard time. My mother-in-law she would actually make trouble for my husband and I.... I used to talk to my big sister-in-law. It’s a problem because they didn’t like her. So because I used to talk to her, then my mother-in-law would tell my husband. She would just make a problem for no reason. And then he will swear me f s and b’s. Sometimes he will just come and clap me. Although Dhevan refrained from beating her while she was pregnant with her first child, the violence intensified after her son’s birth. Diane even called the police once in the late 80s. There was one incident when he hit me and I ran out of the house through the back door. They didn’t know {her in laws}. I went away. I phoned the police and everything. The police came. They didn’t want me to take my child out of the house til the next day. Said no, if the child is living there, then I must leave the child there and come and pick him up the next day, which I didn’t want to do because I couldn’t leave my child with them. Surrounded by people that could have potentially intervened and offered protection (natal family, in-laws, the police) but chose not to, Diane was isolated in the early 288 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. years of marriage and motherhood and internalized her suffering through numerous suicide attempts. Her first suicide attempt was at the age of seventeen. She tried to tie her throat and wrists and do other “funny things,” and also attempted overdosing on pills. She even swallowed a needle hoping it would cause internal damage. “Enough times I tried to kill myself. Enough times . . . I used to think that being dead was best than actually living.” Raised Tamil Hindu, Diane turned to Pentecostal Christianity as way of dealing with the violence in her everyday life, after she and her husband began living as a nuclear household in an outbuilding. It was in fact Diane’s landlady with whom she shared a yard who persistently invited Diane to church. At first Diane was uninterested, but then one night her landlady had a home cell meeting and Diane’s priorities changed. She invited me so when the cell leader came he picked it up that I was having problems and suicidal and everything. He actually told me word for word what was going on in my life. I sat there crying and then I said him yeah that’s true. That’s how I started going and I haven’t stopped. Whereas others denied the violence or blamed Diane for it, the cell leader named her suffering. He spoke “truth” and presented salvation as a balm. Although Dhevan now attends Church together with Diane, in those early days he resisted her spiritual transformation and subjected her to additional beatings for this newfound release. When I newly started going to Church, he actually used to hit me. There was one incident actually I had to use his sister’s glasses because my eyes were blue here. And at that particular time, there was a three-day fasting and praying. We 289 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. had three days of meetings, fasting and praying, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night meetings. And I’ll tell you what a beautiful time I had. But still when I’m getting ready to go to Church, he’ll fight with me but I’ll still go. In leaving the house to attend Church, Diane challenged her husband’s authority, acted on her own desire and risked a violent response. Moreover that Diane began attending Church after leaving the home of her in-laws is part of a larger shift in her everyday life. While still subject to the disciplinary violence of her husband, she was nonetheless “free” from the scrutiny of her in-laws while he was away at work during the day. No longer sharing a household with her husband’s family, Diane was not subject to their daily surveillance, commentary, or restrictions on her movement. While living with her in-laws, she was not permitted to leave the house alone or visit friends or family. Hence she speaks of “running back” to her grandmother’s when the marital violence became unbearable. In a narrative otherwise punctuated by violence, the Church as the House of God or the Father’s House, as it is commonly known within Pentecostalism, comes to signify a place of stability, safety, salvation, and love within an undeniably patriarchal idiom. Significantly, it is when Diane begins attending Church without family supervision that the sexual accusations begin. I got accused of having an affair with the Pastor. I got accused with having an affair with this man, that man and every other person. Yet I knew nobody in the Church. Because ok we got this habit in the Churches. We hug people, even with the Pastors. Not all the men. Maybe certain men like you go and hug them. You just want to hold them tight. 290 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Despite Dhevan’s accusations, Diane insists that affairs were the farthest thing from her mind at the time. In fact, God as love and lover, with Diane as the faithful and devoted wife emerges powerfully in her telling. And that time I was so faithful to God, that you can tell me the worst of the thing—I’ll say thank you very much. I’ll walk away. You can swear me. I’ll walk away.... The thought never even crossed my mind because at that time when I used to be in Church, my only focus was on God. Not my family, not my kids, not my husband. I used to be in Church you could say five days a week. From Sunday to Thursday, I used to be in church. That’s how faithful I was. Dining this time, while Diane was pursuing Bible Studies, she met up with Johnny, one of her first boyfriends when she was a teenager. The first time Diane and Johnny saw each other again. They met at a Christian prayer meeting. Afterwards they went to the Bangladesh market in Unit 3, sat in his car, and talked. I just sat there talking to him and I asked him how is his life and whether he’s married and whether he’s got kids and we were talking about our present lives. I never did anything wrong. I never touched the guy. I actually had my head down. I felt too embarrassed to look at him. Still, Johnny stimulated some interest, perhaps for another life, and they began to talk on the phone every day. However, Diane’s phone relationship with Johnny came to an end after her husband requested a detailed printout of the outgoing calls from the telephone company. Convinced that she had had an affair, Dhevan continued with his accusations. In the fourth and final year of bible study in the late 1990s, Diane however began spending time with Desmond. As she tells it, after years and years of accusations, she actually began having an extramarital relationship. 291 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Having been raised in the same unit, Diane and Desmond knew each other from childhood. One day, they met on the road and Desmond told Diane about his marital difficulties, that he and his wife were getting a divorce and that he’d caught her having an affair. What began as a friendship between them later developed into a romance. Once he offered to take me out to lunch so then I went. And I actually started telling him about my life and we started talking about both of our lives, where we come from and things like that.... And I told you I never thought of doing anything wrong, the thought never crossed my mind until I had gotten serious with Desmond. At some point Diane finally told Dhevan about Desmond. I got fed up of talking lies and then finally I spoke the truth. I told him I had an affair with Desmond but I told him, it only happened once, which I lied. And then finally he started getting suspicious because when Desmond and I be together the only thing Desmond knows to do is to bite me, give me love bites. The day Diane and I first met she had “love bites” on her neck and I couldn’t help but ask who had marked her body in this way. It was in fact her husband who sometimes also subjects her to body inspections. “Like every time he’ll accuse me, when the days I don’t even sleep with Desmond, he’ll actually tell he wants to check me.” For although much of the physical abuse has diminished over the years, the aggressiveness and controlling behavior has continued. For Diane the lack of expressed love is another main complaint. If I’m not at home certain times, he wants me to be at home. He starts fighting with me and gets all aggressive and things 292 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. like that. And then I said you know what, it’s no use me wasting my time with a man like this whereas I can get somebody who can give me that love because he stopped doing that. And then generally with a lot of women they want that love and attention. It’s not like they just want for a man to sleep with them and it’s finished. Like with my husband, he’s got a don’t care attitude towards me.... He talks to me like he talking to somebody on the street. That’s how he talks, with no respect. Even if I want to have friends too, I mustn’t have friends. Diane wants her husband to be a different kind of man, one who performs romantic love, spends time with her, and speaks to her with respect. She has tried to get Dhevan to change and even enlisted the help of her brother-in-law. “The man refused to change and I’m giving him chances from the year before last. Gave him the whole of last year. He doesn’t want to change.” She also suspects Dhevan of having an affair, especially after a “Christian lady” who prayed over her last year, told Diane that there is another woman in Dhevan’s life. Whereas Dhevan believes that Diane spends time with Desmond for sex and has even argued that Desmond must pay Diane for their sexual relations, Diane disputes this reading. So my husband will tell me because Desmond has slept with me so he must give me money. If he sleeps with me, he can’t sleep with me for nothing. He’s gotta pay me. My husband will tell me like that. So I asked him straight, what you think I’m a prostitute? And he won’t give me an answer. Diane, however, insists that her attraction to Desmond is of a different nature. He always thought it was sex. It’s not sex. It’s just that like when I’m with Desmond, I have so much of peace. You know my husband won’t even hug me, won’t even kiss me. 293 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The first thing Desmond will do is say come here, let me hold you. He’ll hold me there for a good couple of minutes, not even seconds, minutes. He’ll hold me. He’ll kiss me on my cheeks. He’ll kiss me on my lips. He’ll make me feel so loved. When I first met Diane she was spending her days with Desmond, who was working as a driver for a local firm. She would ride alongside him during the weekdays as he made his stops. She describes this time with him in otherworldly terms, as a respite from her daily struggles. Whenever I used to be with him, I won’t think of Dhevan. I won’t think of my problems. It’s like I’m in heaven. That’s how peaceful it is when he’s driving around. I just look at all the different places, the buildings, the cars, and things and just forget that I ever had problems. Despite the sense of “heaven” and “peace” he brings, Desmond is no angel himself, having gotten a young woman pregnant while he had been seeing Diane. Also an alcoholic, he now has children with three different women. Given his penchant for “fluking” women, Diane knows that she cannot trust Desmond to be loyal. “I know the way he lives his life. You see today he never picked me up. He could be on the road somewhere. He could be with some woman.” Diane has considered leaving Dhevan for Desmond but is confronted with the hurdles of place, resource, and safety. She is also concerned about losing her children but feels that the Court will generally grant the mother custody, even if she is having an affair. With little work experience, the issue of financial support is a key variable and Diane makes her decisions keeping in mind her economic dependency. Diane 294 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. worked in a factory for a short period of time before marriage, and recently, tired of Dhevan’s abuse, Diane found factory work again. She, however, only worked for one week as Dhevan sabotaged her attempt at economic independence by calling her employer and harassing him. Moreover, working full time she was earning less per week than the “allowance” Dhevan gives her. Despite trying to monitor her spending, demanding receipts, and questioning her if she attempts to save money, Dhevan does in fact give her a generous “allowance” for her personal expenses, approximately a fourth of his take-home income. He also pays all of the household and living expenses (food, lights, water, and rent). She explicitly regards this money as her wage, refuting any characterization of her domestic labor as a simple extension of her roles as wife and mother. So when I tell him, that’s my money. I worked for it. He says no, what work I did? I said I’m doing your housework. I’m doing work for you at home by cleaning the house. If you’ve got a maid, you’ve got to pay her. Whereas Dhevan gives Diane a weekly allowance, she does not regularly receive money from Desmond. Diane clearly strategizes the economic implications of choosing one over the other. Although he gives when he has, Desmond earns less than Dhevan and is also paying maintenance support for two daughters. Now Desmond he’s got two girls to think of. He pays maintenance and what about this girl whose son he’s got? What if she claims for maintenance? What is left for me? What am I going to have? . . . Never mind what problems 295 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dhevan put me through, at the end of the day, the accounts are paid, food is on the table, I get my allowance. Furthermore, Diane lives in fear for her safety. Speaking of a recent confrontation, she says, “He always threatens me with this muthi thing. He’s always threatening, threatening my life or Desmond’s life. That’s why I’m even so scared to leave him and go live with Desmond.” Dhevan has already caught them together twice. The second time Dhevan assaulted Desmond, and publicly humiliated Diane for her transgression. Dhevan was swearing me on the road and he embarrassed me bad, bad. F’s and B’s calling all the people and saying see look at this woman. She’s selling herself and she’s got two big children and people are all watching. Since then Dhevan was also trying to get Desmond fired from work and has been looking for hit men to either kill or rough him up. “He says if I leave him and go stay with Desmond, he’ll make Desmond lose his job and then he’ll divorce me. So I will be like penniless.” With two children and without a source of income, where can Diane go? Her grandmother has made it clear she is not welcome to live with her. Desmond lives with his mother and sister, but they too have refused to offer shelter to Diane and the children. The lack of housing alternatives coupled with her economic dependency is the main reason why Diane did not seek a protection order after her husband had pounded her in the ribs over the affair. I could have went to the police and did this thing and then where do I go and live? If that protection order came home, 296 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. what would have happened to me because my husband could have done anything to me. And so I had to just leave it.... If I had a job, I would have walked out years back. Years back I would have been out of this place. Subashni1 6 2 Thirty-seven years of age, Subashni is married, has two boys, aged ten and twelve, and works as a health professional in Chatsworth. Vocal and outspoken, she does not generally hesitate to speak her mind. Her husband, Naven, personable and gregarious, works in central Durban as a bank manager. Married in community of property, Subashni and Naven jointly own a three-bedroom house and live a middle class professional existence in one of the better units of Chatsworth. They have a small well-maintained garden, a paved driveway, a dog, a towering mango tree in the backyard, and tenants living in the outbuilding. The youngest of five siblings, Subashni was raised in a Tamil Hindu household. All of Subashni’s siblings like her are married with children, have their own homes, and practice Hinduism to varying degrees. Her father, now deceased, was the eldest son of an orthodox and well-to-do family that owned small businesses ,S 2 Of all the narratives I gathered, Subashni’s story is the most complex, contradictory, and subject to diverse interpretations. Often imprecise with time and dates, her story is laden with superlatives (never, always) and she easily can lapse into speaking of her husband’s abuse as part of a timeless present, as if the violence has been one big episode continually repeating itself. Yet, when focused on specific events, issues, and experiences, she “remembers” with remarkable clarity and vivid detail. Throughout her narrative is a tension between a more rational recounting of events and responding to questions with the emotional upheaval of re-living the violence through its re-telling. During our first formal interview with pen and tape recorder, Subashni erupted into tears a few times. 297 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in central Durban. A “disgrace” to his family, he was rejected for his choice of bride and married against his parents’ will. For a short time after marriage, Subashni’s mother lived with her husband and in-laws but was subjected to ill treatment and within a few years, the couple left to live as a nucleated household in Clairwood. Disowned, Subashni’s father had to find work outside of the family nexus, and the couple’s early married years were defined by economic struggle and poverty. By the time Subashni’s parents were allocated a council house in Chatsworth, her mother had already given birth to all of her children. Although the economic situation improved after relocation, Subashni’s eldest sister left school in her mid-teens and worked in a clothing factory to help supplement the family income and meet household expenses. As each of the children matured and acquired formal employment, the household grew in strength economically. Subashni has a complex relationship to her father, now deceased. Although she emphasizes that he was a good provider and father, she also describes him as an alcoholic and “womanizer.” When I asked about the tenor of her parents’ relationship, she replied, “I wouldn’t say that they were close.... He was the provider. She was the housewife.” Her father, however, also had a mistress, and a double life. With this “other woman,” Subashni’s father had two daughters as well as another house in Unit 7. Well loved and cared for by her adult children, Subashni’s mother has always been a housewife and due to her economic dependence despite her efforts had little power to challenge her husband’s infidelity. 298 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Subashni works full-time, mostly day but also night shifts. It is therefore important that someone is at home with the children at night when she is working. Subashni’s mother lives with her during the weekdays, minding the children after school, cooking supper for the family, and keeping their weekly fast day as Hindus. While there is a car in the household, Subashni does not know how to drive. Although Naven does at times agree to drive his wife around for errands or to see family, he is often unreliable. The car is unequivocally his and he has the flexibility of movement at all hours that comes with car ownership in Chatsworth. Subashni travels mostly by taxi for work and errands. A domestic worker does much of the weekly domestic labor (washing, ironing, sweeping, etc.). Subashni organizes the food shopping and with her mother’s assistance is the primary caretaker for the children. She ensures that the children are properly clothed and that their school needs are met (i.e., homework, supplies, and snacks). Subashni was first “bashed” by Naven during their courtship when she was eighteen for, despite his protests, choosing to compete in a local beauty competition. I won the competition and then I started getting a lot of congratulations. A lot of people started coming and kissing me and stuff and he didn’t like the idea. Then he took me to the car and he bashed me up. He was angry that she didn’t listen to him that “despite him saying no I went through with it. He wanted me to listen, do as he says.” After this, for some time Subashni left Naven and through a sibling met another potential suitor. 299 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Naven, however, was not deterred by her rejection and began to stalk her at work and otherwise watch her movement. Naven used to monitor all my behavior. You know whatever I used to do. He never used to leave me in peace. One day he came and actually wanted to attack this guy. He came home at the residence {where she was studying} and they both wanted to fight with one another. Subashni managed to dissipate the conflict, telling both suitors to leave her alone and go their own ways. Naven however did not listen and succeeded in forcing his will and desire to marry her. One day while she was absent, Naven visited Subashni’s parents and fabricated a story that “we having an affair and we need to get married when I never even spoke about marriage to him. I didn’t.” Moreover he mobilized his family to orchestrate a formal proposal, artfully manipulating the social and cultural meanings associated with female modesty and family honor. Then in a week’s time so quickly he goes and brings his grannies and aunties, his mother, and everyone to my house. His whole family now. All these big people are sitting in my house and I’ve got no choice now [but] to carry on with all that’s happening I couldn’t say no. I had no choice but to say yes. By staging the scene of proposal and bringing all the necessary actors eager to play their parts, Naven publicly pronounced Subashni as his girlfriend, such that a refusal would have stigmatized both her and her family. Later, after the proposal, Subashni tried to resist the marriage but her family was “charmed” by Naven. And she was consistently reminded of the “disgrace” that 300 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. her refusal to marry would bring. Her feelings or desires were not considered a priority as the family name and her reputation were at stake. Speaking of her family’s response, she says, “It was about what people think. It’s not about how I feel. It’s about what the people are going to think about me as a person.” For although at that time it was permissible to have a boyfriend whom you then married, to have more than one boyfriend could create scandal. “You see in our society here, if you had one boyfriend and if people knew you had him as a boyfriend, you cannot leave him and go marry someone else. It’s a taboo. It was like a disgrace.” Moreover, when Subashni actually informed her parents that she didn’t want to marry Naven, her older brother became aggressive. “My brother said how many boyfriends do you want to have and he slapped me.” Her sexuality a potential source of disruption for the family needed to be contained and controlled. For, at that time, in the early 1980s, in her “society,” there was little space for experimentation or choice. “Sometimes when you’re young, you just go out with someone because they’re there. I went out with him not because I wanted to marry him. And we weren’t going out for long.” Moreover, her family made matters worse. I was trapped. There was too much family pressure. It was extreme family pressure, so I had no choice.... I’d listen to the family, listen to my parents, and they always say you must listen to your parents. I did. Although Subashni’s marriage was not arranged in any conventional sense of the term, neither can it be defined as a marriage of love or choice. It has components of both world views, whereby the family still plays a pivotal role in the selection of 301 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. marriage partners. In addition, within a broader context, whereby sons and daughters were often outcast for their choice of marriage partners, the risk of family and social disapproval served to foster compliance. The subtle aspects of social coercion routed Subashni toward eventual capitulation. In the early years of marriage, there were a few incidents of violence and abusiveness as Subashni navigated the responsibilities of motherhood on her own. These early incidents Subashni recalled as being minor, what she then wrote off as “a one off thing” compared with the intensity and regularity of the beatings after 1996. Subashni also withheld her early struggles with marital violence from her natal family. Because of her resistance to marrying Naven, her family tended to blame her for any conflicts in the relationship after marriage. Initially, they never used to take my part or believe me. They said that maybe I was the one who was at fault in the marriage because I never wanted to marry him. They should say you are the fault. You are the cause of the fights. They’ll always take his part and not mine.... Christmas Day 1996 stands out in Subashni’s mind as the onset for the current wave of violence. Having had to work that day, she returned home in the late afternoon, thinking Naven would have prepared a “nice Christmas dinner.” Instead, she was met with a drunken husband and two small hungry children. When questioned about his day and behavior, 302 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. He hit me from the bedroom and he dragged me right through the passageway and he banged me on this wall here [pointing behind her]. I’ll never forget this wall. My head was banged about six times on this wall. Indescribably. On Christmas Day. Subashni told her natal family about this incident and they began to see that Naven has his “faults.” From this point onward, however, the beatings also became more regular. In 1999, Subashni went to the Chatsworth Court and submitted an application for a protection order. When I first met Subashni in March of 2001, Naven was not living at home. She had summoned him with divorce papers but he kept resisting the idea. Conflicts over appropriate maintenance for the children, disputes over housing, and the economic expense of lawyer’s fees had stalled the process. Previously, the children were also upset about the potential of divorce, and this impacted Subashni’s decision-making. For most of the time that I knew Subashni, however, she and her husband lived in one household, although in separate bedrooms. At the heart of the recent and continuing conflict between Subashni and Naven is her anger over his alcoholism and its effects on their family life, her suspicions that he is having an affair and his “married bachelor” lifestyle. When she raises her voice and objections, violence is often the outcome. In January of 2000, the problems between them reached a crescendo and she threw him out of the house. Although he left, he would return periodically in states of drunkenness and break into the house in the middle of the night. That same month, she reported his assault at her 303 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. local police station. One month later, she reported another incident of violence. The Chatsworth Court prosecuted both charges as contraventions of the protection order. The court proceedings dragged on for 15 months and were ultimately dismissed for “insufficient evidence.” I asked Subashni about this time in her life. We just didn’t have a family life. He was living his own life and I was living my own. He would just come home late in the night, 1-2 in the morning and be paralytic drunk . . . and even when he came home early in the afternoons, he still wouldn’t come inside the house or sit with us and be with the family. He never used to even spend time with the children. He would sit outside drinking til late and if not, we used to have tenants in the back, he’d go at the back sitting with the tenants there. He’ll sit with them until eleven-twelve at night just sitting and chatting and he’ll only come home when we’re all out fast asleep. So we never had sort of a family life. I could never say I could have a husband where I could come home and really chat and tell him look these are the problems, the children needed this or anything. He just never was there and he never was even sober to confront him.... We never were like husband and wife anymore. The children never could even speak to their father because he never used to communicate with them... it went on for days and months and months and I found that no there is something wrong here. I need to look into it. And I found that probably he must have been seeing another woman. I didn’t catch him red-handed but there were clues and symptoms that this man was having an affair. Importantly, Subashni does not begin with the violence but underlying conflicts about her husband’s drinking and behavior and his lack of participation in family life. She did not initially want a divorce, but rather was trying to redefine the structure of power within her married and family life. She wants her husband to embody a different kind of masculinity, to be a “family man,” spend time with her and the 304 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. children, help with schoolwork, and otherwise be present at home and in the house as opposed to outside and drinking. Moreover, part of the problem as intimated in her account was the lack of sexual relations between her and Naven. “We were never like husband and wife anymore.” When I interviewed her they had not been intimate for a few years, making her suspect he was having an affair. Naven would also demean her through sexual insults and call into question her desirability. Feelings of sexual rejection are interwoven in the conflict between them with attacks on her womanhood and sexuality. He’ll actually pick on me like this, oh you’re a surfboard, like I don’t have any breasts. You’re just a surfboard. You don’t have any curves. You’re knees are jutting out. You’re so thin.... He’ll say he’d rather go out with other women. He’s always talking about other women. After Subashni told Naven to leave, the violence however intensified and there was little protection from the law. Made a “prisoner” in her home, she recalls how he repeatedly tried breaking into the house in the middle of the night, locking her inside, and cutting off the phone line to prevent her from calling the police. I found that sending him out of the house would cause more problems for me because then he’d be out on his own and after work he’d know he doesn’t have to come home. He’d be out with his friends and I think they, he used to drink even more and coming late in the night and getting himself in the house He’d keep me prisoner inside and at the same time he will be threatening me. He’ll say you make one move, you move and he’ll tell me you go there, you sit there or you sleep there and you don’t move. And if I have to make the slightest of moves, he’ll come back and he will bash me even worse. 305 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . . . He’ll be drinking and walking up and down and picking on me and picking on this and why did I phone the police on him the last time and why did I get the police to take him away ... Why did I take him to Court? Why does he have to go to Court because of me? And he’ll continue saying the same things over and over again.. . . So I said to him you realize why I did it, I didn’t do it because I wanted to do it. I did it because you know you just wasn’t listening to me. You just wanted to live like a married bachelor. You wanted to be a bachelor in a married home.. . . And the moment I ask him about it, that’s when he wants to beat me up, when he’s aggressive, when he wants to abuse me. Of the stories Subashni recounted to me, the most violent episodes, including this one, took place while she and Naven were embroiled in various Court processes between January 2000 and June 2001. One case dealt with the contravention of the protection order, another with maintenance support for the children, and the last with divorce. Every turn, he resisted. For example, when she tried to extract child support from him through the Maintenance Court, he repeatedly didn’t show up, furnished sick letters and generally “made me run in circles.” Ultimately Subashni gave up. She was taking too many days off work, putting her job at risk. Considering that at the time of interview, Naven had not been supporting Subashni or his children for two and some half years, the loss of her job would have been a significant setback. I had to cover the whole household on my own, see to the kids, see to their school fees, and schooling, their clothes, food, maintain me, the home.. . . He doesn’t give me anything. I mean if the tap has to break I’m fixing it. If the toilet something’s wrong, I have to fix it. If the house needs to be painted, I have to paint it. I have to pay the maid. I have to do all the telephone, the lights, water, groceries. Very 306 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. expensive. I have to buy meat, groceries, frozen foods, lunch stuff, plus clothe the children. In July of 2000, Naven terrorized her while they went on a birthday shopping trip for their sons at the Pavilion. Subashni and Naven weren’t living together at the time, but she asked him to take the family to the mall. After purchasing clothing and shoes for the children, Subashni wanted Naven to also “give them a gift,” as their father, an attempt no doubt to extract some child support and make him into a “family man.” He refused, claiming she was “demanding” and that he had no money. She argued with him. I said to him you do have money because I’ve seen you, you’re spending so much of money on alcohol because the day before you was with friends and right in front me I saw how he was buying alcohol.. . . I said to him it upsets me so much that you have money for other people and your friends and yet you’re actually mean towards your two little boys, they are so little . . . so that pissed him off because I picked on his alcohol and stuff. I mustn’t ever pick on his alcoholism. So he beat me up in front of the children that day in the car. As punishment, he also threatened to desert Subashni and the children on the road in an unfamiliar place. He parked off on the comer of a street you know on the way out to Pavilion. There’s a big area where there’s a lot of African taxis. It’s quite a dangerous area in our town. It’s quite dangerous. You wouldn’t want to get out of the car there and he forced me to get out of the car I said to myself, goodness if I jump off here, I don’t even know how to get out of that place, because that place is not very familiar to me you know. And now with two children, it’s so dangerous, anything could happen if I get out of this car. I’m going to get myself into a situation out there if I think I’m going to get away from him. If I stay in this car, he’s going to continue 307 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. abuse me. It’s a choice I have to make. I can go out there and die at the hands of a total stranger or I stay in this car and I die in the hands of my husband. It’s a choice I have to make. And I got the kids here.. . . Eventually I said to him please just take us home and leave us home. And so that day luckily I stayed in the car, and he said okay he’ll bring the children and come home. So as soon as he came home he dropped us off and he went away that day and he never came home for another few weeks. Despite this experience, Naven’s absence was difficult on the boys who continually asked their mother about their father’s absence. “Why doesn’t dad ever talk to us or want to be near us?” This same month July of 2000, the court case was scheduled for trial but Naven never showed up. In his absence, Subashni attempted to have the charges withdrawn but the matter was referred for a decision from the Senior Public Prosecutor. The children’s desire for their father, the frustrations of safeguarding the house from his forced intrusions, and the incident at the Pavilion were all contextual factors that shaped her decision-making. I was getting fed up of buying locks. I was getting fed up of fixing the doors, you know. It seemed like I couldn’t even have peace in my own home. I was actually trapped here because the kids needed to go to school here and they were so used to their school, their teachers, their friends. They didn’t even want to—although I wanted to move, I wanted to go to another place, and the kids said mum no we love our school. All my friends are here, mum. Please don’t take us away. And I was trapped I didn’t know what to do you know. I didn’t want to stay in this home because I know he’s going to come back and abuse me. Although I got police protection it never really helped. It just didn’t help. The man was above everything. 308 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. By September of 2000, Naven was back at home living with Subashni and the children, and she was waiting for the decision of the Court about whether the charges could be withdrawn. They could not. One month before the trial finally commenced in March of 2001, there was yet another violent episode. This time Naven broke Subashni’s nose. Again the violence unfolded in the car, with the children present and Naven drunk. Subashni took sick leave from work and sought psychiatric care. Subashni describes her husband as confused, someone caught between worlds and desires, unable to make a decision, but also invested in his masculine authority. At the end of it I didn’t know what this man really wanted. One time he wanted his freedom. Next time we gave him his freedom, he didn’t want it. He used to still come by and you know still do his old trip. So it was difficult, difficult to live with him because you never knew what he wanted. He seemed to be so confused. At one time he’ll say he wants his family. The next time he’ll say he doesn’t want us. The next time he’ll say I’m using the children as a bait in the marriage. The next time he’ll say he wants his family and his children. . . . He’s still like I’m the man, I wear the pants, and if I say you sit there, you sit there. I’m the man. You say you’re the man of this house but you can’t even care for the home. You can’t even provide for your family. Now he wants to say he’s the man of the house but he’s not worthy enough to provide for his wife and his children. Now I don’t call himself a man, yet he’s earning. Different case, if he was unemployed. Now I wouldn’t be barking down his throat. Importantly, Subashni makes no claim to perfection. She admits to “nagging” her husband but argues it is justified. “I’m no ornament or something to say well I’m sitting and I can take everything. That I’m deaf. I have to retaliate now and then. I’m only human.” Without apology, Subashni refuses to simply be an object. Rather 309 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. she is fighting for the emergence of her own subjective personhood and greater voice in her married and family life. Her resistance and retaliation are produced within this context. Knowing that violence lurks beneath the surface, she nonetheless gets angry, talks back, and swears. I once witnessed a performance of Subashni’s rage and upset at a Parattassi family prayer. It was pouring rain that day, a cold bitter to the bone. Both Subashni’s mother and mother-in-law were at the house and had spent the morning cleaning and otherwise preparing for the prayer. Needing to go to the market to purchase food and ritual items, Subashni asked Naven to drive her to the Bangladesh market in Unit 3. Claiming that his car was not working, he refused and did not offer any assistance. Without any other option, Subashni traveled by taxi alone and shopped in the rain to buy what was needed for the family prayer. When I arrived later that morning, there was a palpable tension between the couple, simmering and unspoken. Naven avoided making eye contact with me. Later, while Subashni was dressing in one of the bedrooms, an argument flared between them. Naven was accusing Subashni of taking his bankcard and identity book, symbols of his financial freedom, identity, and independence. In part she was taking what he refused to give, financial support and his person. I hadn’t expected such volatility but realized with reflection that the presence of others offers a kind of protection and space to publicize what has historically been both unquestioned and privatized. Her efforts to prove his abuse and marshal witnesses in 310 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the following account must be seen in light of the criminal court case she lost against him. Shaken and trying to “make sense” of what happened, I wrote the following in my field diary in October of 2001. Both mums were talking about their parents and how they were treated by the white man. Subashni’s mum said that the recruiting agents told her father that “money grew on trees” in South Africa, but that Indians were “slave” to the white man. Naven’s mum mentioned the high suicide rate on the plantations, and gave an example of how men would take big boulders and put them on their bodies as a way of killing themselves. Naven’s mum also talked about living in the extended family system. They had to do everything by hand, didn’t have all the modem conveniences that women today have, and the daughter-in-law would get a “hiding” from everyone (father- in-law, mother-in-law, husband). There was nothing they could do. They would just stay quiet. Nowadays girls/women are much different. “They don’t know how to listen.” When they were growing up, children respected their elders and listened to them. Subashni’s mum chimed in similarly, that now children don’t take advice from their parents. They take the parents’ land, money, houses and then throw the old away. She said that when she was married there was no conflict in the house. Married couples didn’t fight the way they do now. Strangely enough, as we were talking, we heard some activity and yelling from the back. Subashni was calling us so we could all see that Naven was abusing her. The mothers and I went to the back room. As she tells it, she was in her bedroom changing into her “Punjabi” when Naven entered, closed the door behind him and started threatening her. She had taken his bank card and he was demanding that she give it back. There was a suitcase of clothes open on the floor that had been rummaged through. 311 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Subashni was livid, refusing to give back the card. I stayed on the outskirts because I felt like a voyeur and didn’t know how or if to get involved. Should I be watching? After observing Subashni and Naven argue for a minute or so, I retreated to the kitchen and let the mothers deal with the issue. Naven’s mum soon followed and said something about “that girl” and then motioned with her hand to the head that Subashni has mental problems—that is why there is so much screaming in the house. Subashni’s mum trailed behind us, leaving the two to argue among themselves and talked about how Naven was “rotten,” that Naven’s parents were such “decent” people, that their other children were good, but that Naven was the “black sheep” of the family. Naven’s mum conceded that Naven had a drinking problem and that was part of the reason for such conflict but still each of the mothers tended to side with their respective children. Shamila Shamila is thirty-three years of age, comes from a Pentecostal Christian family and was raised in a small town in KwaZulu Natal. She moved to Chatsworth to live with her husband, Ravi, and her in-laws after marriage at the age of sixteen. Shamila is a housewife and Ravi, a recovering alcoholic, works as a clerk in Durban. They have two teenage sons. When Shamila was a child, both of her parents worked full-time, her mother as a cook in a tearoom and her father, a clerk at a poultry farm. In her early years she lived with her parents, brother, and maternal aunt. She did not know her father very well as he died when she was three. After her father’s death, they lived with her maternal grandparents until her mother remarried when Shamila was ten. Shamila’s 312 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. stepfather, now deceased, was then a widower. He “was very, very wonderful. He was like my own father.” Shamila grew up in “a very close community. We were like all family.” There is something refreshing and idyllic about her description of her childhood with kin living all around her. My mum comes from a big family where we have nine children and they also have children.. . . So we’d always meet at my grandparents and we all used to have a good time. Like weekends used to be a party for us because we’d all be together.. . . We had big space to play and we had an orchard where we were little crooks. We used to climb on the trees and cut fruit and eat and we really used to enjoy ourselves.. . . Very, very free upbringing and nonviolent place where we lived. Although close to her mother’s family, Shamila’s relations with her paternal side have been more strained. Due to his choice of marriage partner, Shamila’s father was outcast and made to be the “black sheep” of the family. Of North Indian Hindustani descent, he chose to marry a South Indian Tamil woman, a boundary not meant to be crossed in many families. Whereas both of Shamila’s parents were raised as Hindus, it was her mother that led a chain conversion process in the family after Shamila’s father died. After converting to Pentecostalism upon being healed from an illness through prayer, other family members soon followed. Shamila first met her husband Ravi at the age of fifteen. Part of the family network, he was her uncle’s brother-in-law. Her uncle and his wife lived nearby and Ravi used to come visit his sister. On one occasion while Shamila was visiting, Ravi’s 313 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sister asked her to make “bread,” or roti. “I was busy making bread and he was in the room. I didn’t even know and he was watching me and then he liked me.” Through watching Shamila enact female domesticity, Ravi’s interest was piqued. Then, Shamila’s cousins became involved and one of them asked her to write a love letter to Ravi. “I don’t know if this cousin liked him and she wanted me to write a letter because she liked my handwriting.. . . I had no idea it was from me at the time.” Empowered by this epistle of love, Ravi spoke to one of Shamila’s maternal uncles about marriage who in turn spoke with her mother and the request then filtered to Shamila. Her mother however did not approve of the match or Ravi’s family, but Shamila was insistent. “I said I want to get married to him. I love him but she really tried so hard to talk me out of it. She brought people to come and talk to me but my mind was made up.” Given that Shamila knew little of her husband before marriage, she now wonders if it was “just infatuation.” Despite her mother’s resistance, Shamila married Ravi, moved to Chatsworth, and began a new life. For the first two years of marriage, Shamila and Ravi lived in a joint family context and shared the main house with Ravi’s mother, brother, sister-in-law and nephew. Ravi’s elder brother plus wife and children lived in the outbuilding on the same property, cooking and otherwise living separately. Unlike other new daughter- in-laws, Shamila had a comparatively conflict-free relationship with her mother-in- law. The dynamics in the household however changed dramatically when Ravi’s 314 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. younger sister was widowed and returned home. She took over the household and began dominating the daughter-in-laws. She was . . . very, very bossy and always being in charge. I couldn’t take that and at that time he was still consuming alcohol and he used to allow anyone to take advantage over me.... They would just talk to me anyhow and push me around. I was like their maid in the house. She would go to work and I must do everything She would just want me to do this and boss me around. Say anything she wants and call me names. It was that kind of thing and with him being drunk, it was like work. They would take his side and when he hits me, they would just allow him to do whatever.. . . They would say that I have a big mouth and pin the blame on me. As the newest and youngest daughter-in-law in the household, Shamila was particularly vulnerable to domination from her elders. Her husband’s drinking and mistreatment of her only exacerbated the situation, giving other household members license to “take advantage” as well. Moreover drinking was woven into the family’s social life and gatherings, whenever the men came together or for social functions. Coming from a large family of five brothers and three sisters, Ravi had ample male drinking company. In those days, all of his brothers drank. “None of them were exempt from alcohol,” and their father was also an alcoholic. Today two of the brothers including Ravi, struggle with alcoholism and one is a drug addict. Shamila said that Ravi’s uncles “gave their wives a very hard time” and suspects that Ravi’s father was also abusive as there is a silence that pervades his mention. Although Shamila knew before marriage that her husband 315 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was a drinker, she had no lived understanding of what that would mean. Within the first week of marriage, she had a blue eye. He took me to his sister’s house that week and he told me he wanted to take me on a train ride.... I didn’t know the family so well and had I known I wouldn’t have went and my mother in law accompanied us. She came with us and when we went there I didn’t know his sister’s husband also consumed alcohol and then both of them were having a good time. And like I said my husband’s very, very boisterous and very, very vocal, even if he’s a little drunk, even if he has a little. He will talk and talk out of turn and say the wrong things. He doesn’t bother what he speaks. It’s like that and I didn’t know what to do because you took me there for the first time and I don’t even know your family so well and you were drinking and I couldn’t handle it. And then I poured the drink because I took the drink and I dropped it down that is the reason why... and it so happened that, that same week that my grandfather had passed on and I had to go home for the funeral and I had a blue eye. I still have a mark under my eye but that was the ring that he was wearing. It cut me and they didn’t know what to do because the call came for me to go back home and I refused to go home because I knew now my mother would know and my uncles would see and it’s going to be a problem but I had to go because it was my grandfather and these people were telling me you know what tell them you fell in the sugar cane you slipped and fell and you got hurt. Upon her in-laws’ advice, Shamila lied to her natal family. Beginning with the first week of marriage, the violence continued throughout the years Shamila lived with her in-laws. Intermittently, her brothers-in-law would try to intervene. She recalls one incident when she was eight months pregnant. He was kicking me like a football. It was a Sunday and we both went to church. After church his brother came and picked him up. They would go to the tot and watch soccer matches and I think they would drink and smoke and do whatever and when they would come home they were so 316 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. intoxicated.. . . My brother-in-laws they sent me to go and call him because he was on the road. He didn’t come back in and when I went to call him, he was actually hitting me from the road. For the infraction of calling him to come inside the house from the street, Ravi began beating his wife. Concerned that Shamila might miscarry, one of Ravi’s brothers then retaliated, beat him so badly he was unable to go to work for a week. Despite the fact that Ravi instigated the violence that led to his own “hiding,” other family members placed the blame squarely on Shamila. “Whenever he did this to me, they always blamed me.” In the first five years of marriage, Shamila returned home to her mother a few times when the situation with her in-laws and husband became too difficult. At one point, she instigated divorce proceedings. Although Shamila and Ravi were separated for six months, he kept “tormenting” her. He would stalk her at her mother’s place and if she went to stay with other relations in the area as means of escape, he would track her wherever she went. Once he even brought a policeman relation of his to threaten and harass her back to Chatsworth. “Young and vulnerable,” she said, “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know my rights.” Moreover, his alcoholism was worsening. He couldn’t do without it. He would even go into the bathroom, and say he was having a bath but he would get drunk and sleep over there. And at that time he was staying with his sister that married my uncle . . . she phoned her brother and told him you know what you have to come and take him, I can’t take care of him... so they came and they 317 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. took him away and they put him in a rehab, a Christian rehab actually. After rehabilitation, Ravi did stop drinking and Shamila gave him another chance because of the children. For nine years Ravi relinquished alcohol, but the violence, fear and intimidation were still defining features of their relationship. Sometimes we would just speak, and even if I didn’t intend saying it the wrong way, he would take it in the wrong way. And then he would get angry and become violent and aggressive. There were times where I won’t even talk to him because I would be so scared what if I say the wrong thing and what kind of reaction am I going to expect so I would just keep quiet and I would just suppress my feelings and you know live like that... It was like you know I was a prisoner because I would be so scared to go anywhere without telling him. In addition to controlling her speech and movement, Ravi also monitored her dressing. “I couldn’t dress the way I wanted to, and he would tell me you know, you cannot wear that.” Pants and jeans in particular were unacceptable. Still without alcohol, Ravi is a different, more controlled kind of person, less inclined to talk. Generally he’s very quiet when he’s sober. He’s a very withdrawn person.... He’s not a person that talks about things. He bottles it up. He keeps it and keeps it and keeps it and the when he can’t keep it anymore he explodes. After giving up alcohol for nearly a decade, Ravi started drinking again in late 1999. He justified his return to alcoholism on the basis that Shamila would not have sex with him. 318 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. We had a relationship where he would just want to have sex. You know when he felt good and whether I liked it or not, whether I was ready or not.... He would just want it and if I don’t, he would like hit me or he would get angry and he would walk out, stuff like that... and I actually started hating sex. I refused to have sex because it wasn’t something I was enjoying. It was like I was forced to. Then in early 2000, within a couple of months of drinking again, Ravi beat Shamila black and blue. He came home after work and he was drunk and that morning my son asked him to give him his school fees and like he didn’t bother. And that day when he came from work I asked him, did you give the school fees, and then he didn’t answer me and he irritated me. And then I told him I said you rather drink the money than pay the child’s school fees and that pissed him off you know and he came to me. I was sitting with my boys, both my boys, and we were watching TV and he came and picked up his foot and he started kicking me, stamping on me, where I was sitting... he’s quite a big size guy, and there was my salt container there and I got irritated to I took the container and I flung it at him. And then he got more aggressive because I did that and then he ran after me and he caught me. He started booting me, he had me on the floor.... I was just screaming cause I only know he was kicking and booting me and I think the way I screamed my neighbors came and they saw the state I was in and he stopped there.... I just managed that night and the next morning when I got up and went to the bath I couldn’t believe what I saw. My body was blue.... All over, my breasts were blue black, I couldn’t even carry myself because it was so big and heavy and I just had a bathe and I went down to Deborah and I asked her husband what should I do and he told me, “It’s not for me to say don’t go the police, don’t go. You have a right. As a woman you shouldn’t go through this.” And I went to Court. After she was granted the protection order, the physical violence subsided but the verbal assaults continued. 319 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. He would say nasty things like you’re a black bitch. You’re a roti bitch. Horrible things and he would pick on my mother. Call me a slut, things like that. He would just continue abusing me verbally, and on numerous occasions when I told him not to, I spoke with the police. He’ll actually ask me are you sleeping with the police, are they your husband. He would turn around and say things like that to me and I’d just keep quiet. Indeed going to the police, appealing to authority outside of the home and family, becomes constituted as a sexual transgression. Finally, in April o f2000, Shamila actually used the protection order against her husband. Ravi had come home about two o’clock in the morning after a Thanksgiving at his brother’s place. Boisterous and too drunk to open the door, he began swearing his wife. I opened the door and told him you know what, please shut your mouth and stop abusing me because I refuse to take your abuse anymore. If you’re not going to stop I’m going to phone the police. And he refused to and he kept on swearing me and calling me all these things and accusing me with the policeman and so I had no choice. And before that he came towards me in contempt of—physically attacking me. The door was threw open, and so I ran out. And when I ran out he closed the door against me and he told me get F.O.1 6 3 And I didn’t know what to do standing outside you know, and it was raining that morning and I had my nightdress, no shoes. Locked out of their home, Shamila then went to her friend’s house down the road and decided to call the police. He didn’t want to be arrested. He tried to convince me he wasn’t abusive. He tried to talk me out of it. And he actually pleaded and he became so loving. “Babe” at that time “babe.” And he changed his whole act altogether. He was like '“ Fucking out. 320 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pleading, how can you do this to me? I didn’t do anything, why are you doing this to me? And the police asked what do you want to do? Do you really want to have him [arrested]? And I told them yes that’s what I called you here for, and I expect you to do what I called you here for. For Shamila to call the police and act on her rights reflected remarkable resistance not only in relation to her husband but also in terms of her socialization as a Christian woman. For much of her married life, Shamila rationalized the violence through the discourse of a gendered Christianity. It’s like we are supposed to be submissive. Our bible tells us we must submit to our husbands, and I think that’s the way I thought. That in submission I have to go through all this. I have to just shut my mouth and get all the hiding and all the horrible things said about me. I just have to take it, but then it was out of control. It was too much, and it was like at that time we got rights, women’s rights. And then you know I realized, I don’t need to live in this, I had enough. In responding to why she waited so long to seek a protection order, she explained, “Because all along I thought I’m a Christian, I don’t behave like that, a Christian doesn’t do those things.... Go to court and have their husbands locked up.” Exercising her rights as a gendered citizen of the state was not only at odds with her valued identity as a Christian woman, but she was subject to intimidation from Ravi’s family and even her uncle for enacting her rights. All of them pressed her to take him out of jail. “Because I refused they were so angry with me. They were very angry with me.” Released on bail the day after he was arrested, Ravi stayed with his kin for a few days before he returned home. At that point Ravi and Shamila began sleeping in separate rooms and she also decided she wanted a divorce. “It’s like sixteen years 321 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of my marriage and I hadn’t had any happiness.” For approximately sixteen months thereafter, Ravi and Shamila lived in the same household with little to no communication between them. Both quietly initiated divorce proceedings against each other. Financially dependant on her husband and without any earnings or savings of her own, Shamila was able to access free legal assistance through Legal Aid. Still she had to scramble to find taxi fare to travel to downtown Durban as Ravi withheld money from her. Although she does not know how much her husband earns, Shamila approximates that it is in the vicinity of seven to eight thousand rand per month. He covers the house, food, and children’s expenses and gives Shamila one hundred rand per month for her personal needs (clothing, personal care, transportation). While they were sleeping separately, however, he withheld the one hundred rand and also “cut down drastically on certain things,” like stocks of food. On a few occasions, when her boys needed clothing or other items, and her husband refused, she threaten Court action for maintenance. Once the divorce papers had been completed, Shamila encountered another hurdle. Without personal resources, she could not afford to pay the sheriff’s fee to deliver the papers to her husband. In the meantime, Ravi, who could afford to hire his own attorney, summoned Shamila with divorce papers. Shamila then took those divorce papers back to Legal Aid to contest certain terms. She left her papers with Legal Aid but they never followed up. “I had to keep running and phoning and 322 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. finding out. And it was like my file was mislaid and lost and they didn’t know who was handling my case....” Had Legal Aid done its work, Shamila and her husband might be divorced today. Still, divorce would have created other dilemmas such as where to live, how to survive, and what it means to be a divorced Christian woman. Although Shamila can return to her mother’s home, she must also consider the needs, schooling, and desires of her boys. In addition, her mother would not accept a divorce. Though unhappy with the physical abuse her daughter has suffered, Shamila’s mother nonetheless refrains from getting involved. Shamila describes her mother’s response as: You made your bed, you lie on it She backs off when there is a problem because she knows that husbands and wives will fight and get back together. She would not take my part in any way, no ways. She will always say I’m wrong. Moreover, within the context of Pentecostalism, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation are the keys to Christian living, even if your husband is continually violent and unrepentant. It’s like you have to forgive them all the time.... The disciples asked Jesus, Lord but how many times must I forgive my brother. Seven times? And then Jesus answered no seventy times seven. So you have to keep forgiving. Christianity is all about forgiving. Jesus forgave us for our sins, so how can we not forgive those that sin against us? A potent ideology, it moreover provides a recipe for healing in a township otherwise ridden by conflict, violence, and substance abuse. 323 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In August of 2001, during a two-week Church crusade of tent services Shamila had a change of heart. Through Shamila’s initiative and God’s intervention, after sixteen months of separate lives and bedrooms, husband and wife came back together. The transformation in her heart through God’s active intervention deserves quoting at length. I was very, very touched and the word of God really allowed me to soften up. And there’s been healing through the word, you know. There were hurts that were there, that God had brought healing to. And even when this one night, this lady that we had, she was preaching to the family and I felt very hurt because I felt guilty that I wanted a divorce . . . and then the word of God like convicted me. I felt I needed to do something. I needed to make a change. I mean men are stubborn. If I’m going to wait for him to say sorry I know it’s never going to be. So I took the initiative to say sorry and be a family again and I prayed about it and it was like divine intervention. God just came through, and it was like a miracle that God has really healed me of all my broken wounds and that I could ask him to forgive me and for me to forgive him for all the pain and hurt he’s caused me.... I told him I’m sorry if I—because initially he blamed me for him drinking so I went and I told him I’m sorry if I caused you to do all this. You know, let’s make this work and the first time around when I did, he refused. He didn’t want to even talk to me. So I just kept quiet and carried on and I’ve been praying about it and everyone else has been praying. And just before Women’s Day, I plucked up courage again. I prayed and I said Lord You help me even as I want to do this. You have to do something because I know that this is not what You want for me because You are a God who brought families together. And the bible says what God’s put together, let no man put asunder. And at the time I realized that I made a vow in the presence of God that I would keep him for better or for worse, and the Lord was bringing that back to me, you know that you are not supposed to divorce your husband. Unless because of death.... At that time I was sleeping in the boys’ room and I went to the backroom to lie down and the spirit of 324 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. God didn’t want me to sleep there. And it was like the spirit of God was saying, I don’t want you there, I want you to go back into your room. So I was obedient and I picked up my pillows and my duvet and I went into the front room and I was praying and I was on my bed. I was sleeping on the bed and reading the bible and I fell off to sleep. When I got up, the spirit of God wanted to write me a letter... so I took a page from his bible and I wrote him a letter and I said I’m very sorry, please forgive me and let’s make a fresh start, let’s put the past behind us. Let’s start afresh, let us do it because we have family, and our children are also involved in this. And I put it back in his bible because I knew that evening he’s going to take the bible and read at the crusade . . . and I went to Church that evening and she preached to the men that evening, and it was like so direct. She spoke about abuse and all that. She spoke about everything that you could speak about to a man concerning his wife, finances and everything. . . . And that evening when I went home I was waiting now for my boys to go to bed and because I had made up my mind and the spirit of God already had done a work in me. He had like changed me.... And then I sat for a while, I prayed and everything and then I went upstairs, I went back to the boys' room but there was something saying no, you cannot. This is not where you belong. You go back to your room. So I took my pillows and I went back and I was standing at the bed and saying Lord what do I do? I'm scared because I don't know how this man is going to react whether he's going to get violent... but I said Lord You're going to be there for me and I'm doing this because of you. And I went into the bed and I held him and I said I'm sorry for everything. And he got up and what is wrong with you and what are you doing here, what happened? He was all startled, I had to calm him down, and tell him “shhh, don't make a noise the boys are sleeping,” and I held him. And I said I'm so sorry for everything that I've done please forgive me and I told him, I wrote you a letter and I don't know if you read it but I did and it is only because of the Lord, that God has changed my heart and it's not me. And I want to give our marriage another chance. I want to work at it and he like accepted it but I don't know inside of him how he felt and then we are together. 325 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It is a powerful stoiy of transformation and re-inscription of Christian womanhood through the embodied practices and discourses of the Word. Listening to the preacher, Shamila’s heart softens, her wounds begin to heal, and the power of forgiveness and prayer work through her body. “Convicted” by the word of God, she is made both guilty and resolute. Guilty of wanting a divorce and having disobeyed the will of God who brings families together, she is resolved to seek forgiveness from her husband. Through divine intervention, she acts with the knowledge that “men are stubborn.” She obeys God’s will and using her body as His vehicle to keep the family together, she returns to the marital bedroom. The letter she writes Ravi and inserts in his Bible recalls the first letter she wrote him as a teenage girl. Once again, it is a letter of desire but not one she will call her own. God writes through her, he directs her. It is through her submission that her transformation of self and body are realized. Contained within a discourse of gendered Christianity, through her relationship to God, she enacts her role as the obedient wife. The very beliefs and practices that liberate her simultaneously re-inscribe her place in the family and household as dutiful wife. Through a spiritual transformation of self, shaped by a gendered discourse of submission, Shamila attempts to change her marriage relationship. Initially, there seemed to be an improvement. For five months, her husband stopped drinking. When I conducted my first interview with Shamila in November of 2001, however, 326 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ravi had begun drinking again, and with that the verbal abuse and intimidation also followed. Discussion In exploring the significance of gendered violence in given localities, there is a risk of promoting the notion that violence is an inevitable aspect of male and female relations the world round, that male aggression is driven by some biological impetus or that it is pathological. This is a real temptation especially in contexts where male violence is pervasive. Violent acts however do not unfold in a vacuum; violence has its histories and situated meanings and can vary over time and place. Certain contexts exacerbate its expression while others can mitigate its effects. An anthropological collection of essays, for example, that examines “wife beating” cross-culturally arrives at some interesting conclusions about societies and contexts where spousal violence is and is not a significant feature of marital relations. Using the concepts of “sanctions and sanctuary,” one of the principal arguments forwarded is that the extent of wife beating in a particular context is partly predicated on the “certainty, immediacy, and severity” of sanctions and the availability of sanctuaries for wives. Both, it is argued, are shaped by customary post-marital residence and the degree to which women have close kin living nearby.1 6 4 Structural opportunities and constraints are no doubt important variables and have a dramatic l6 4 The main theoretical arguments are elaborated in the introduction (Counts, Brown, & Campbell, 1999, pp. 3-26). 327 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. effect on the shape of gendered power in given places. Spousal violence then is exacerbated within certain contexts and as this chapter seeks to demonstrate linked to broader everyday enactments of gender inequality, particularly within the family, that are normalized. It is my contention that battered female bodies in Chatsworth function as a battlefield for a gender struggle over competing discourses of masculinity and femininity as female volition and desire challenge the historical and traditional authority of men as heads of household. With female bodies functioning as a metonym for the family itself, the gender struggle that generally but not exclusively unfolds within house and home speaks to an ideological conflict over what family as a gendering institution signifies. The feelings of being trapped and imprisoned that emerge in the narratives of violence rendered above, I want to emphasize, are fundamentally about place and the various strategies men as husbands deploy to keep their wives “in place.” For when women step “out of place,” they challenge gendered hierarchies and simultaneously call into question the masculine authority of their partners. In each of these narratives, the first incident of violence began either before the marital relationship, during the courtship phase, or soon thereafter. In all three instances, Diane, Subashni, and Shamila were young women between the ages of sixteen and eighteen when first slapped or beaten by their partners. The violence, though varying in intensity over time, has been a consistent feature of the marital 328 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. relationship. Moreover, as wives and girlfriends, sex and violence, although not necessarily as sexual violence, came packaged together for all three women. For both Diane and Shamila, the violence was particularly intense early in their married lives as they simultaneously assumed their gendered identities and responsibilities as wives, daughters-in-law, sisters-in-law, and mothers in new households. They were subject not only to the surveillance, discipline, and dominance of their husbands but also their in-laws. Although both Diane and Shamila did however attempt to access safety by returning to their respective families, without the presence or support of their own kin, their vulnerability as young wives and mothers was magnified. In Diane’s case, her family refused to take her back despite knowing that she was being beaten and her in-laws only fomented the violence. Although surrounded by people who saw her bruised body, there was a refusal to speak the “truth.” It was in fact through their silence that the violence was denied, normalized, and perpetuated. Shamila had the option of returning to her mother’s home but her husband stalked and harassed her, attempting to force her back partly through the authority of the state (police). Ultimately, because she wanted her boys to have a father and Ravi had given up drinking, she returned to the marital home in Chatsworth. While living with her mother offered protection, without a car the distance between Chatsworth and her hometown is hours away. Back in the township and in relation to her in-laws, conflicts between her and Ravi were invariably blamed on her. Although displeased with the violence, even Shamila’s mother would not take 329 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. her side or accept divorce. All three women in fact were blamed for the conflicts in their marital relationships. The unspoken expectation is that women must make marriages and families work, regardless of their husband’s behavior. Family unity relies on their compliance, silence, and unquestioned acceptance of male authority. For it is when they speak or challenge their husband’s authority that violence often ensues. In these instances, violence has disciplinary and silencing effects. In the early years of marriage, Dhevan would beat Diane because she spoke to her sister-in- law or because she went to Church regardless of his resistance. Naven first hit Subashni while they were courting and she acted on her own desire, entering the beauty contest rather than obey his will. In every violent incident Subashni describes, she is beaten when she speaks up and questions her husband. Ravi kicked Shamila like a football simply because she “called” him from the road. If she says something the “wrong way,” he can get violent and aggressive. Women’s vocality and desire threaten the status quo, reflecting moments of refusal and resistance, but also provoking questions about female sexuality. Wives are not supposed to question their husbands and violence is a way to enforce silence and complicity within a gender order that expects female submission. It is a way of keeping wives in their place, for by challenging their husbands they call into question their rights to masculine domination and their identities as men and heads of household. By labeling a woman who speaks up or challenges her husband as a “nag” 330 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. or as having a “big mouth,” the physical violence finds justification within a broader context where female vocality is largely defined in negative terms. The need to silence female speech mirrors other forms of regulatory practices aimed at controlling female behavior and volition, namely movement. Naven began to stalk Subashni after she broke off their relationship prior to marriage. He monitored her movements, fought over her body, and claimed her as his wife, foreclosing the expression of her own desire and preference. In describing the beatings in her home and his anger over her attempts to seek protection through the courts and police, Subashni speaks of how Naven locked her inside and controlled her micro movements. To quote, He’ll say you make one move, you move, and he’ll tell me you go there you sit there or you sleep there and you don’t move. And if I have to make the slightest of moves, he’ll come back and he’ll bash me even worse [italics added]. The obsessive control over her physical movement and forced enclosure within the home reflects an attempt to settle the question of his masculine authority as well as her place as a woman and wife in the home. As the “man of the house,” violence is his way of enforcing female submission and reinstating masculine dominance. Female movement outside of the home without male or family accompaniment moreover is associated with a transgressive sexuality and embedded within a cultural, historical, and spatial fabric that defines a woman’s place as the home. Female desire beyond the parameters and duties of marriage and family is consistently associated with sexual license and this symbolic nesting is also mapped spatially onto home and 331 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. street. In the case of Diane, as a young wife and daughter-in-law she was not permitted to leave the house without supervision. After she and her husband moved to live in a nucleated household and Diane began to venture out of the house on her own, the sexual accusations started flowing. Although now during the day while Dhevan is working, he has no control over Diane’s movement, he, nonetheless, deploys other methods of control. He monitors her finances; he inspects her body; he demands to know what she has done for the day; he fact-checks with neighbors. With Shamila, her husband gives her such little money, he effectively bars from going very far. He refuses to let her wear pants and also accuses her of affairs when she extends beyond the parameters of the house (church, police, work). These examples illuminate how manhood and masculinity are placed and relational concepts. They rely upon certain spatialized concepts of womanhood and femininity for their lifeblood, whereby the spatial and symbolic control of women as wives affirms and constitutes masculine power. When Naven beat Subashni in the car after their Pavilion shopping trip, it was because she challenged him over how much money he spends on alcohol in comparison to the children. Contesting the basis of his power as a husband and father by exposing his refusal to fulfill the traditional definition of man as provider, it reflects her attempt to negotiate the meaning of masculinity. On one level Subashni challenges Naven’s manhood through words, which he reasserts through physical violence. Recalling Subashni’s narrative, he taunts her with “You’re just a surfboard. 332 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. You don’t have any curves. You’re knees are jutting out. You’re so thin.” That he attacks her sexual attractiveness and womanhood further illustrates the power struggle at stake. If he is not really a man, neither is she a real woman. Furthermore, conflicts relating to sexuality are an important component in each of these narratives. These sexual conflicts are produced within a broader system of gender inequality, whereby the concept that women may themselves have sexual needs and desires is only slowly emerging. Moreover, sexual tensions between husbands and wives enliven fears that their spouses are having their sexual desires met in other ways as evidenced by the all the talk of affairs in Chatsworth. With Subashni, there are feelings of sexual rejection and a sudden cessation of sexual relations along with an intensification of drinking and violence. With Diane, years of violence, sexual accusations and controlling behavior help create conditions whereby love and sex outside marriage become meaningful. For Shamila, sex within the marriage relationship had become a hated thing, defined by her husband’s needs and pleasure with her refusal and avoidance of sexual relations sometimes leading to violence and force. The gender struggle at stake once again reflects to interrelated constructs of masculinity, femininity, power, and desire. For a husband, it is his right and responsibility to control and direct his wife’s sexuality through the institutions of family and marriage. Through his argument that Desmond ought to pay Diane because she has sex with him, Ravi constructs his wife as a “prostitute,” a woman who is demonized for her sexuality. After Ravi catches 333 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Diane and Desmond together, he parades, swears, and insults her on the street as a woman “selling her body.” Unable to control her behavior in other ways, he resorts to public shaming. Yet wives do not have similar rights over their husband’s sexual practices nor does public shaming have comparative symbolic weight. Whereas a husband can call into question his wife’s integrity, honor and name, and mobilize his and her family and community against her, wives have considerably less power. Often the only tool they have is their voice. On some level, all three wives suspect or suspected that their husbands were having affairs. Indeed since men have the freedom of movement to come and go as they please day or night without comment on their character, it is harder to catch a man having an affair and also easier for men to have additional lovers. As men, they generally exempt themselves from childcare and household responsibilities and are not usually reliant on their wives for finances. If husbands disappear for days or repeatedly return home late at night drunk, wives can do little besides object. Alcohol addiction is another main character in these narratives of violence. When wives challenge their husband’s drinking, it is in part a challenge to their masculine identity. Speaking generally about men’s relationship to alcohol in Chatsworth, Shamila once commented that it gives them “manpower, makes them macho.” Although not a requirement for abuse, violence often ensues after husbands have spent hours drinking outside of the home at shebeens or pubs, such that men otherwise quiet or reserved can become quite boisterous under the influence. 334 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Most often, wives living with violence are also mothers. In each woman’s narrative comes the weighing of her needs and desires with those of her children. For both Shamila and Subashni, violent episodes ensued after they complained about money spent on alcohol rather than on children (school fees, clothing). While having children gives women status in the community, it also limits their ability to leave violent households. Because children are broadly seen as women’s responsibilities, they are also in the position of advocating for their children and trying to extract resources from their husbands to meet their children’s needs. Within the South African Indian community, successful manhood often requires a wife and children, and the risk of losing these constitutive elements can create considerable conflict. With the three marriages having teetered on dissolution, the resistance of all three husbands to separation and divorce illustrates this point. Demanding obedience from their wives and using different mechanisms to enforce compliance, all three husbands have also resisted their wives’ efforts geared toward improving their marriages, be it through counseling, family intervention, or religious prayer. Both Shamila and Subashni applied for divorces and protection orders as last straw mechanisms, after years of violence and attempts to make their marriages work. For these acts of resistance, both were punished by their husbands through practices of economic manipulation and the withholding of resources. Shamila’s meager allowance was rescinded entirely and Subashni was confronted with maintaining the household and children on her own. 335 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In all three cases and to varying degrees, each of the wives depends on her husband for economic support and meeting her housing needs. For many wives living with violence in Chatsworth, the socioeconomic realities of female dependency and difficulties with extracting maintenance support from fathers and husbands through the Court, a lack of housing alternatives, high unemployment, and nonexistent state welfare for low or no-income wives with children older than seven makes survival for many women and their children outside of marriage or common law relationships precarious, if not impossible. While the protection order pays lip service to the concept of “sanction,” few cases proceed to prosecution and in most instances only a fine is levied. Legally and culturally, men as husbands face few sanctions for beating their wives and more generally find justification in cultural beliefs and practices that define female sexuality, desire, movement, and subjectivity as threatening to the gendered construction of family life. Finally, although two temporary shelters for women in Chatsworth were recently opened, there are no long-term housing alternatives for women leaving violent relationships, especially for those without independent incomes. Kin often are unable or unwilling to offer “sanctuary,” and in various ways in-laws are complicit in fomenting violence against wives. Indeed, for housewives with children and without an income in a context of high unemployment, what are the options for supporting a household without a “breadwinner”? 336 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While on paper, women in South Africa have constitutional and legal rights unacknowledged and denied for decades,1 6 5 there are nonetheless notable structural tensions between a political emphasis on formal equality and the government’s adoption of neo-liberal economic policies. It is ironic that although during apartheid, women’s legal rights were severely curtailed, economic opportunities such as factory work in conjunction with the state’s maintenance system made it possible for some low-income and working class Indian women to survive economically without male support. In post-apartheid South Africa, the expansion of legal rights has been accompanied with the erosion of social security benefits for Indian and Coloured women, placing increased pressure on low-income women as caregivers and enforcing dependency. To the extent that the gendered structures of power within the family are in flux and undergoing transformation through the new discourse of political rights, economic conditions and constraints are simultaneously re-inscribing traditional gender hierarchies in Chatsworth, whereby without other options for income generation or housing, women are increasingly dependent on male partners for economic and residential resources. 1 6 5 South Africa’s constitution is one o f the most progressive in the world. It provides for social, economic, political, and cultural rights and explicitly bars discrimination on the grounds o f gender, sexual orientation, marital status, and pregnancy, among other things. In addition, South Africa is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination o f Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. The government has established the Commission on Gender Equality, the Human Rights Commission, the Office on the Status o f Women, and a Parliamentary Committee on the Quality o f Life and Status o f Women. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Significantly what often keeps women living with violence “in place” are the everyday tensions between a political discourse of rights and the economic realities of need, between their own desires and those of their children, between a cultural, historical, and religious inheritance that valorizes female sexual passivity and women’s roles as mothers and wives and the emergence of women as subjects who are challenging previous hierarchies of man and wife historically buttressed by cultural beliefs, apartheid family law, and housing practices. Mapped onto female bodies in Chatsworth is a tension between tradition and modernity and dis-ease with the rapid cultural changes set into motion by, among other things, apartheid spatial practices and housing policies. In the post-apartheid context, these changes have largely been viewed through the prism of cultural loss and moral decay, assuming the language of gender and generation. 338 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION Both in material and symbolic terms, the past decade of transition in South Africa has brought tangible reversals of power and place. Provincial and municipal boundaries have been redrawn; cities and streets have been renamed; residential communities and resources once defined by racial exclusivity have been and are being de-racialized. Women have gained legal rights denied until the end of the 20th century and affirmative action and black economic empowerment have become part of the new discourse on race. Every day old structures and new configurations collide and collude to produce change and resistance, bringing renewed questions of identity, power, and place to the fore. In a country as diverse and divided as South Africa, it should be expected that a prolonged process of transition would be experienced by variously situated persons and communities as displacement and loss, as familiar worlds have been challenged by a new political system of rights and a macroeconomic context of fiscal austerity. Moreover with the transition to democratic governance has come a sudden opening of national borders and boundaries as economic and cultural globalization are simultaneously amplifying social divisions and inequality (Mhone & Edigheji, 2003) as 339 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. well as presenting new possibilities of self-invention through the politics of global consumption. Importantly, the twin developments of democracy and economic liberalism are not without their cultural effects. Among many Chatsworth Indians, particularly but not exclusively among the older generations, political and economic liberalization, have become associated with social excess and moral decay, a loss of culture, and concerns that “Westernization” and “modem” life have eroded traditional norms of social control, respect, and hierarchy in social relationships. Interspersed with contemporary political-economic complaints of being racially stuck are heightened concerns that the “Indian community is losing its culture.” To the extent that the apartheid era was defined by policed and spatialized socio-political controls and boundaries, meaning that you knew who you were and what was yours as long as you stayed within the lines, for many Chatsworth residents post-apartheid South Africa is in contrast a world turned upside down, defined by cross-border spillage and excess, whereby familiar certainties and hierarchies have been replaced by political change and uncertainty at the level of the everyday. As Sharon remarked one day as we sat chatting in her living room, “Anyone can buy a gun now. It’s so free.” There is the sense that with political freedoms have come moral dangers, that life has become too modem, too Western. According to Asiya, a Chatsworth clerk in her late twenties, in post-apartheid South Africa restraint and respect in social relationships have been replaced by excess and decay. 340 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Muslim people are influenced by the Western culture, and we try to keep our culture. The entire world is experienced by the Western culture especially because of the television. People are becoming more and more modem, wearing less and less.. . . Now after our country became a democratic country and the intermingling among the races. I don’t know if it’s the freedom, the intermingling among races, learning from your friends, but after South Africa became democratic there has been a big change in promiscuity. It has increased dramatically among school kids. It’s not just the promiscuity. It’s the d ru g s, the alcohol abuse, the disrespect. When we were at school, there was good teacher-pupil relationships. Nowadays you don’t see much respect for the teachers.. . . I don’t know what exactly. I don’t know whether it’s a moral decay or what’s caused this change but it’s a big change. The intersection of political with cultural change and concern about intruding outside influences is similarly elaborated in Sharon’s comments. . . . Ok they [ANC government] promised free education. Is the education free? The Blacks themselves when you hear them talk they are complaining, they say Mandela offered free education and yet the children have to pay. And now they got children’s rights. If you in Standard 7 too you can leave school now—it’s not compulsory for you. Now tell me you think that’s right? The child has more rights than the parents. I think because of overseas they brought all that (laughing) because overseas do all this, am I right? As these examples illustrate, the sense that everyday life has gotten worse with post apartheid democratic governance, that “it was better under the white man” does not simply reference experiences of economic displacement and political marginality within the body politic of a new democratic South Africa. It also reflects anxieties about cultural changes that are reflected and being negotiated in the realms of family and community, changes animated by apartheid forced removals and township 341 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. housing built upon a nuclear model of family life, but more recently intensified as globalizing cultural and economic forces are being experienced in the every day. In post-apartheid South Africa (the narrative might read), “children control the parents,” wives flagrantly challenge their husbands, and youth like those at the Throb nightclub die tragically while drinking, dancing, and taking drugs. Indeed embedded within a discourse of deteriorative post-apartheid change is a tension between old world and new world, between modernity and tradition. Nested within criticisms about political and economic liberalism are anxieties about cultural change expressed in the language of gender, generation, and time. Telling Moments February 21,2001. I am attending a meeting with the staff and director of the Durban Association of the Aged (DAFTA) previously an “Indian” and now a non-racial service organization focused on the needs of the elderly. Seven of us are sitting in a large circle in a hot airless office in the Croftdene Shopping Center. I am asking questions and scribbling in my notepad as we circumnavigate various issues: de-racialization and transformation, DAFTA's expanded work in informal settlements and rural areas, economic constraints and funding lapses, and increasing requests for institutionalizing the elderly, particularly among Indian families. I cannot help but probe its significance. It is a product of "Westernization" and "modernization," I am told, the desire for social and personal mobility and the necessity of two-earner households. Indeed the director laments, “The Indian community has become less caring.” May 11,2001. Realizing that I have spoken with few Muslim residents in Chatsworth, I intentionally seek out the Islamic Dawah Care Center for its Islamic emphasis. I am warmly greeted at the door of the home-based community center by two cloaked and smiling women. The director, Rasheid Suleman, greets me and we climb up a long narrow staircase to his office. Suleman's colleague, a self-proclaimed Sai Baba devotee who also attends mosque, joins us. At first confused by the additional presence, I am later informed that Suleman does not usually receive female guests without the 342 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. presence of his wife or another party, lest there be allegations of sexual impropriety. Again, I am told that the Indian community is losing its culture. Lamps are no longer lit in most Hindu homes and Indian culture is stagnating due to the Western influences of television and soap operas. Indeed, Suleman exclaims, ten or fifteen years ago, it was a “disgrace” for an Indian woman to be divorced, but today married women walk down the road, shamelessly holding the hands of their boyfriends. Only toward the end of out conversation do I realize that I have been talking with an executive member of PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs), a vigilante organization in South Africa known for taking the law into its own hands. October 18,2001. I am visiting with schoolchildren and educators at a Chatsworth secondary school, after having attended a recent school performance entitled "Night of a Thousand Stars." The performance fascinated me in its cultural fusions of local and global film, television, and musical influences (Hollywood, Bollywood, Indian classical dance, Hip- Hop/Rap, Oprah Winfrey, Eastern Mosaic, Phat Joe) and its in-your-face MTV sexuality. A remarkable cultural production dominated by sexually suggestive dance performances, I organized to meet with the teacher who directed and choreographed the youth, as well as the students themselves. The youth, animated by having an embodied American in their midst, talk avidly above and on top of each other about music and youth cultural preferences. Two-thirds speak excitedly about rap, hip hop, rave, R&B, and kwaito and the pleasures of consumer consumption (Soviet, Fubu, Diesel, Levis, Sabego). A smaller contingent, all female, identifies with "Eastern" music and films. Reflecting a minority position, one young woman explained, "We feel that we Indian so we prefer to stay close to our roots." Like the young woman, most teachers and educators I speak with are less sanguine about the “Americanization” and cultural preoccupations of local youth. Recalling the poverty of families as he was growing up in Chatsworth, one male teacher shakes his head with dismay as we discuss the post-apartheid generation. The youth of Chatsworth are “out of control.” As the above vignettes suggest, concerns that the “Indian community” is losing its culture, that is has become too “Western” and that children are “out of control” refers to the ideological construct of family as a moral unit and concerns that previous hierarchies of identity along axes of generation and gender (elders/children, husband/wife) are being reversed, challenged, and equalized in the post-apartheid 343 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. context. To the extent that female bodies in Chatsworth continue to metaphorically represent culture and family, gender violence on a symbolic level speaks to attempts at arresting political and cultural change within the realms of family and household. Simultaneously, to the extent that racial and gender identities intersect and are mutually constitutive, anxieties of race, place, and identity are expressed through the language of gender. Significantly the common articulation of Indianness as a political place of raced and classed in-betweenness, of being stuck, imprisoned, and immobilized finds parallel in the narratives of gender violence elaborated in the previous chapter. The vulnerabilities of in-betweenness are layered and multiplicitous—simultaneously raced, classed, and gendered—as well as amplified by particular configurations of inequality. Gender violence in Chatsworth, I have labored to underscore, is historically produced and situated, enlivened not only by the gendered spatial displacements and disruptions of apartheid forced removals but also transformations in family relationships spurred by the modernizing discursive practices of township housing. Anxieties over cultural change, I wish to emphasize, are inextricably tied to this historical process, as well as mapped and projected onto female bodies. The preoccupation with female mobility, sexuality and place that surfaces in the narratives of gender violence finds its roots not only in cultural and religious belief systems but also in apartheid legislation and spatial technologies that sought to pin racial identities through the control of space and movement. Regulating gender and sexuality 344 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. spatially through discursive practices associated with family, marriage, and housing was central to creating and maintaining racial difference. Consequently, gender violence can be read not only as a crisis of masculine authority, but also of racialized identity. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty, and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; That only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex, or belief; And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together, equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter; And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won. Preamble of The Freedom Charter, 1955 345 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Promising a better life for all, so begins the utopian national narrative of the South African Freedom Charter adopted at the Congress of the People in June of 1955. Punctuated with subheadings such as “The People Will Govern!” “All National Groups Wills have Equal Rights!” and “The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth,” the once popular ANC manifesto proposes lofty ideals of self-determination and collective well-being. It propels an inspiring vision of justice and equality that is compelling in its abstraction. All too often however there are substantive differences between rhetoric and reality, and such expansive political projects, when empowered, find themselves contained by the economic contingencies and competing interests of governance. No single master narrative of progress or decline could possibly capture the complexities and contradictions of post-apartheid South Africa. Given its historic complexity and divisions, it would in fact be naive to expect post-apartheid South Africa, not to be riddled with contradictions. I use the word “riddle” here intentionally for there are no obvious solutions to questions of post-apartheid nation- building, governance, and equity. Add and mix the uncertainties of poverty, globalization, and jobless growth, the swirl of political change and economic struggle can at times be volatile. My emphasis on post-apartheid complexity and contradiction, I do not want to be misinterpreted as naysaying pessimism. When friends and colleagues in the United States, for example, ask me about South Africa, I often begin by talking about 346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the dynamism of the post-apartheid context—the remarkable changes, the sense of possibility, the pleasure of having been immersed in a historical process that is truly monumental. For it is true that from the vantage point of analytical, spatial, and temporal distance, my eyes still glisten for what South Africa can be and its utopian vision continues to inspire the activist in me. Enamored with the exuberance of liberation and ten years of democracy. I, too, want to wave the multi-colored South African flag and joyously shout “Simunye!” (We are one). And after a decade of post-apartheid governance, there are real accomplishments that deserve to be noted and celebrated. Apart from a myriad of legislative achievements, the post-apartheid state has made important strides in improving access for some of the poorest households in the country, particularly in the rural areas. The ANC government has approved more than 1.9 million housing subsidies, supplied water to more than 3.7 million additional households, and expanded electricity connections from 32% to 70% of households (The Presidency, 2003). Yet this narrative of success is only one strand of a multilayered story and my passion-filled excitement for South Africa is also tempered by other equally compelling stories, such as increasing income inequality, high unemployment, the everyday normality of violence, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic which continues to claim too many lives. The UNDP’s South Africa Human Development Report 2003, for one, cites a decline in the Human Development Index for South Africa from .73 in 1995 to .67 in 2003, and a recent Medical Research Council report reveals that South 347 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Africa, based upon 1999 data, has the highest reported rate of femicide in the world— 8.8 per 100,000 females over the age of 14 (MRC Policy Brief, 2004). These are sobering statistics indeed and as Mare (2003), has persuasively demonstrated the transition from the apartheid regime to the post-apartheid state has been marked by both dramatic ruptures and unsettling continuities. For this reason it is not surprising that in academic circles as well as everyday discourse, the significance of the descriptive “post” in post-apartheid and the nature of the transition have, directly and obliquely, become a subject of debate. This is an important mark of democratic citizenship, and in the interest of a vibrant democracy, the spectrum of perspectives from applause to strident critique need to be heard and respected. Yet, while a renewed interest in questions of class and capitalism are re- emerging at steady pace in post-apartheid South Africa, especially as affirmative action and black economic empowerment are producing a new entrepreneurial class of color while the majority of South Africa’s poor appear to be getting poorer, gendered analyses of the apartheid and post-apartheid states are still few and far between. For if we understand the inequalities of race, gender, and class in South Africa to be intersecting, why is it that gendered perspectives are so frequently omitted from the equation? How does the elision of gender enable a certain politics and constrain others? How does the narrative shift when the “margin” is placed in the “mainstream” (Okihiro, 1994)? 348 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As I stated in my introduction, one of the goals of this ethnography has been to challenge the resurgent association of Indianness in post-apartheid Durban with illegitimate privilege typified in the specter of the exploitative, alien, and masculinized merchant, the powerful image summoned in Ngema’s song “Amandiya.” In a context of growing class inequality and economic struggle, this stereotypical construct has particular strategic utility in absorbing and focusing political discontent. As illustrated in Chapter 2, the resilient construct of Indianness as alien otherness has circulated within South Africa for over hundred years and so wields a historical power that far exceeds its contemporary manifestation. By emphasizing gender violence, my goal has not been to replace one stereotype with another but rather to argue for complexity and nuance, to expand the parameters of the debate about race, place, and identity in post-apartheid South Africa through a distinctly gendered lens. Indeed, how does the dominant association of Indianness with privilege become destabilized when displacement, inequality, violence, and a history of forced culture change are thrown into the mix? Where the polarizing language of oppression and liberation, of “comrades” and “apartheid spies” still circulates and is used to quell dissent, I have narrated a different kind of historical legacy, where the stark contrasts of black and white are complicated by varying shades of grey. Rather than a site of power, I have emphasized Indianness as a gendered place of peculiar vulnerability and conflicted hybridity. It is this layered historical complexity and ambiguity that post-apartheid South Africa has yet to 349 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reckon with. If there is to be a place for all South Africans in the new South Africa, these are the kinds of stories that must be told, retold, and in the final analysis heard. 350 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. GLOSSARY Azan—call to prayer at mosque Biryani—savory rice dish (meat, fish, or vegetable) cooked in layers Braai—grill outdoors, barbecue CMT—cut, make, and trim clothing factory Dagga—marijuana Dorp—town or village Fluke—flirt Jhanda—small Hindu flag with either an Ohm symbol and/or image of a deity (Lord Shiva or Hanuman) hoisted atop a bamboo pole and erected in a household’s yard during particular religious prayers Jol—party, flirt [colloquial, slang] Kavady—ten-day South Indian festival celebrated twice a year for Lord Muruga. It is accompanied by fasting, penance, and vow taking (i.e., for health, employment, success) and includes ritual body piercing and trance. Madrasah—religious school for Muslim children to study the Koran, Arabic, Urdu, and Islamic history. Main building—principal house on a residential site Mandrax—sedative similar to Quaalude or Valium. It was initially manufactured and sold in South Africa as a pharmaceutical drug but is generally consumed by crushing and smoking with marijuana through a broken beer bottle. 351 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Matric—refers both to matriculation class and examination written in the last year of high school with exemptions needed for university entrance Mealie—maize Muthi—African medicines, spells, and herbs, used either for healing or witchcraft Outbuilding—small building or house built usually behind the principal property on a site Parattassi—thirty day prayer observed from September 17th through October 17th for Govinda, also known as Lord Krishna and Vishnu. During this month long prayer, observing Hindus are expected to refrain from meat, sex, alcohol, and other practices that would compromise the purity of the household and prayer. Pavilion—upscale suburban shopping mall near Durban, designed with neo-Victorian grandeur. Phoenix—Indian working class township to the north of Durban; construction began in the 1970s (as Chatsworth was being completed) to meet the Indian housing shortage Porridge Prayers—prayers for health and well-being to Mariammen; called after sour porridge that is prepared as an offering and eaten Roche—name of a pharmaceutical manufacturer used by schoolchildren in Chatsworth to refer to Rohypnol a prescriptive sedative popular among youth; can induce amnesia in users and talked about as a “date rape” drug Rock—cocaine Satyagraha—non-violent resistance, truth or soul force Shebeen—establishment, often home-based, from which liquor is sold illegally; historically run by African women in South Africa Thanksgiving—Christian prayer service usually held at home to give thanks; often held the night before a wedding, after a funeral, in conjunction with a birthday celebration, or for any other reason such as illness or sickness Tot—off-track betting for horse races 352 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Tuck shop—small retail shop usually selling foodstuffs and everyday items; often home-based Ubuntu—humanity Umma (h)—universal community of Muslims Zol—marijuana 353 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY General Abu-Lughod, L. (1993). Writing women’ s worlds. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. Adam, H., & Giliomee, H. (1979). Ethnic power mobilized. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Adam, H., & Moodley, K. (1986). South Africa without apartheid: Dismantling racial domination. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Adam, H., Van Zyl Slabbert, F., & Moodley, K. (1998). Comrades in business: Post liberation politics in South Africa. Utrecht, the Netherlands: International Books. Adam, K. (2000). The color o f business: Managing diversity in South Africa. Basel, Switzerland: P. Schlettwein Publishing. 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Creator Chandan, Upjeet (author)

Core Title A place-in-between: narratives of gender, violence and identity in a South African township

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Anthropology

Degree Conferral Date 2004-12

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anthropology, cultural,history, African,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Hoskins, Janet (committee chair), Bender, Jerry (committee member), Chin, Soo-Young (committee member), Cooper, Eugene (committee member), Kondo, Dorinne (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-566135

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Identifier 3155389.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-566135 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3155389

Dmrecord 566135

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Chandan, Upjeet

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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