Politico-Religious Systems and African Women’s Power

Urbanizing social reproduction: (Re)thinking the politics of care in capitalist urban development

“…In this colonial model, cities and spaces of production were male, and homelands and rural areas were female (Achebe and Robertson, 2019; Eshiet, 2008). The segregationist model divided the economy into two complementary spatial realms.…”

“…In this model, where men with work permits could live or have access to work in the cities, women’s access to the city was predominantly through their relation to men—for example, providing domestic or sexual service to men—an access dependency that positioned women in subordinate positions and often subjected them to violence (Barnes, 1999; Hansen, 1984). Such segregation in sites of production and social reproduction by gendering of space was not unique to the apartheid moment in South Africa (Achebe and Robertson, 2019; Eshiet, 2008).…”