Labour, lodging and linkages: migrant women's experience in South Africa

Laura Phillips and Deborah James

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This historiographical overview examines the literature on women migrants in South Africa, arguing that it is important to consider domestic struggles and their impact on women’s urban experiences within and beyond the workplace in order to understand the unfolding of the migrant labour system in the 20th and 21st centuries. Looking at writing on pre-1994 migrancy, it highlights women’s experiences in the workplace, in the residential spaces they occupy, and in their associational life. We also draw out some of the major trends in the post-1994 period, focusing in particular on scholarship that considers HIV/AIDS. Migrant women, we argue, are neither simply home-based nor town-linked; rather their experiences and struggles provide the means to accommodate both while also transforming these polarities.

Keywords: gender; historiography; migrancy; women; housing; apartheid; associational life; informal work; domestic work; factory work; HIV/AIDS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-11-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pr~, nep-iue, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in African Studies, 6, November, 2014, 73(3), pp. 410-431. ISSN: 0002-0184

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:59443

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