Posts by Emily Elder

Emily Elder was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. In 2005, she completed a BA in Women's Studies and History at the University of British Columbia, with an exchange at the University of Hong Kong. She then worked with marginalized youth in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and as an anti-racist/anti-gender-based-violence educator and counselor in both Calgary and Vancouver. In early 2009, she moved to Cape Town, South Africa to pursue a graduate degree in Diversity Studies, an interdisciplinary program focused on post-apartheid social justice. Her thesis - "From Cradock with Love" - examined substantive post-apartheid citizenship for small town women of colour. Emily is now one of the two First Year Class Presidents at the McGill Faculty of Law. Outside of the academy, she is a knitter, a committed friend and family member, and a poet.

Guest Contribution: “It Doesn’t Make you Feel Right”: Failings of Rights-Based Citizenship for Women of Colour in a South African Small Town

Where do women fit in public life in post-apartheid South Africa? In what ways must traditional conceptions of ‘the citizen’ expand to encompass the historically specific circumstances fifteen years into South Africa’s democratic project?  How, if at all, must these expansions consider women?  While South Africa famously has one of the world’s most progressive Constitutions, women of all ‘racial’[2] groups find themselves caught between the post-apartheid transformation imperative and continuing deeply-entrenched patriarchy.  These values clash to produce a paradoxical relationship between women and South African public space.  As du Toit (2005) and Moffett (2009) argue, South Africa’s epidemic levels of sexual violence illustrate this paradox.

This study explored these tensions, drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with twelve voting-age women of color[3] in Cradock,[4] Eastern Cape, South Africa, during the month of July 2009.[5]  

Knowledge of, and Ability to Engage with, Rights

The research design began with a traditional definition – that citizenship rests on both the knowledge of and ability to claim rights. As expected, gender, geographic marginality, and the continuing challenges of post-apartheid transformation do combine to alienate women in Cradock – differentially along ‘race’, ‘class’, and age lines – from both aspects of their democratic rights.  Findings also, as we shall below, showed this approach is insufficient for a full understanding of women’s lived experiences of the transition to a new, democratic South…

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