A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in
fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / The thesis attempts to illuminate the process through which identitities, apparently strongly
"ethnic", are constructed by migrant women, and to examine how these differ from the
equivalent identities constructed by men.
The focus is upon northern Transvaal migrancy, and special emphasis is given to the central
role played by musical performance - particularly that of the style called kiba - in constituting
migrant associations. Men and women form separate dance associations: the thesis is
concerned particularly with migrant women, and sets the dance groups in the broader setting
of female migrancy in southern Africa. This is a phenomenon which has been neglected in
the literature. The thesis criticises the adaptive emphasis of earlier Writings on migrant
association, and the lack of "local knowledge" in Marxist accounts,
Performers of the genre emphasise that the music is "traditional",and their lyrics legitimate
the present experiences of contemporary composers by juxtaposing them with the past
experiences of older ones. They view the roles they play in relation to their family members both living dependents and deceased forebears - in terms of stereotypes laid down by Sotho
custom. But these independent migrant female performers of the genre, in contrast to their
rurally-domiciled and. dependent counterparts, are women whose disrupted and geographically
mobile upbringing has led them to seek out modernity and progress rather than an adherence
to the ways of "traditionalists". They are primary breadwinners for their natal families.
Custom and tradition provide an idiom in terms of which, while retaining affiliations to men's
kiba sufficient to ensure their continued access to a performance space and an audience, they
enunciate an identity as relatively autonomous and emancipated migrants in an urban context. / Andrew Chakane 2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/25417 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | James, Deborah |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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