Morgan Centre Seminar: Divorce Practices and Forms of Femininity at the End of a Customary Marriage
| Dates: | 1 October 2014 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 16:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Elena Moore |
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Abstract
This paper explores women’s practice of compliance and resistance of oppression built into the racialised and gendered social structure of customary marriages in South Africa. By focussing on the relational aspects of gender hierarchies, the paper emphasises how new forms of femininity are being constructed upon the dissolution of a customary marriage, specifically in relation to local and regional patterns of masculinity. I argue that new forms of femininity constructed at the local level, in interaction with husbands, paternal families and natal kin, may have the capacity to overwhelm dominant patterns of regional masculinities. Building on Connell’s work on emphasised femininity, I outline three additional forms of femininities: ambivalent, altered and re-worked. By analysing how these forms of femininities are constructed in the face of strong patriarchal alliances and new legal rights to marriage equality, the article demonstrates an emerging democratic gender politics at the intersection of race, class and gender.
Biographical Description:
Dr. Moore is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology (University of Cape Town) and a senior research fellow with the Centre for Social Science Research at UCT. She is a sociologist, specialising in the sociology of the family with a Master’s degree in Applied Social Research and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin. Her principal research interests lie in the field of personal life, gender, intergenerational relations, divorce, family law and policy, feminist theories, biographical methods and mixed methods. She is currently completing a co-authored manuscript on customary marriage, divorce and succession. Dr. Moore currently teaches courses on: the sociology of the family; social theory; research methods; the analysis of qualitative data. To read and access some of her articles, see https://uct.academia.edu/ElenaMoore
Speaker
Elena Moore
Organisation: University of Cape Town
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2nd Floor Boardroom
Arthur Lewis Building
University of Manchester
Bridgeford Street
Manchester
