Spatiality in the Construction of Identity: African Women and Political Violence in Kwazulu-Natal

Abstract

This paper explores two themes through a case study of Mpumalanga, Kwazulu-Natal. Firstly it is interested in asking how the political territorialisation of space shapes the political identities of the people living in those spaces. Secondly it suggests that the particularities of those spaces, for example household or street are important in understanding the relationship between spatiality, identity and the way in which gender colours identity. The paper argues that as political violence marks out and then destabilises already gendered spaces, so the political identities created through the violence are also gendered.