Full Access
Gender Awareness in Migration Theory: Synthesizing Actor and Structure in Southern Africa
Caroline Wright,
Caroline Wright
Caroline Wright: is a lecturer in gender studies, sociology and anthropology at the University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK, where she co-ordinates the undergraduate Gender Studies degree programme. Her research interests are in gender and development, with a particular focus on southern Africa. This article is based on doctoral research.
Search for more papers by this authorCaroline Wright,
Caroline Wright
Caroline Wright: is a lecturer in gender studies, sociology and anthropology at the University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK, where she co-ordinates the undergraduate Gender Studies degree programme. Her research interests are in gender and development, with a particular focus on southern Africa. This article is based on doctoral research.
Search for more papers by this authorABSTRACT
Recent developments in migration theory mirror two concerns writ large across the development literature, namely the attempt to reconcile structure and agency and the importance of gender. Using the specific context of southern Africa, this article analyses the development of migration theory over the last forty years and the dialectic between gender and the structure-agency dyad. It is argued that gender is an essential tool for unpicking the migration process and that a gender perspective has enriched and been enriched by a model of migration allowing analytical space for both the agency of migrants and the structures which surround them. Juxtaposing the various theories which have been brought to bear on migration in southern Africa also reveals the extent to which new models and classificatory systems have developed on the basis of agendas set by preceding conceptual frameworks, distinctions between competing models rarely being as clear-cut as the mode of scholarship would have them appear.
REFERENCES
- Arrighi, G. (1970) ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the Proletarianization of the African Peasantry in Rhodesia’, Journal of Development Studies 6: 197–234.
- Ashton, H. (1952) The Basuto. London: Oxford University Press.
- Bach, R. and L. Schraml (1982) ‘Migration, Crisis and Theoretical Conflict’, International Migration Review 16(2): 320–41.
- Barnes, T. A. (1992) ‘The Fight for Control of African Women's Mobility in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1900–1939’, Signs 17(3): 586–608.
-
Beinart, W. (1982) The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860 to 1930. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
10.1017/CBO9780511558757 Google Scholar
- Bonner, B. (1990) ‘ Desirable or Undesirable Basotho Women? Liquor, Prostitution and the Migration of Basotho Women to the Rand, 1920–1945’, in C. Walker (ed.) Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 221–50. London: James Currey.
- Bozzoli, B. (1983) ‘Marxism, Feminism and South African Studies’, Journal of Southern African Studies 9(2): 139–71.
- Bozzoli, B. with M. Nkotsoe (1991) Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa, 1900–1983. London: James Currey.
-
Bryceson, D. F. (1980) ‘The Proletarianization of Women in Tanzania’, Review of African Political Economy
17: 4–27.
10.1080/03056248008703411 Google Scholar
- Buijs, G. (1993) ‘ Women Alone: Migrants from Transkei Employed in Rural Natal’, in G. Buijs(ed.) Migrant Women: Crossing Boundaries and Changing Identities, pp. 179–94. Oxford: Berg.
- Bundy, C. (1979) The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. London: Heinemann.
- Byerlee, D. (1974) ‘Rural-Urban Migration in Africa: Theory, Policy and Research Implications’, International Migration Renew 8: 543–66.
- S. Chant (ed.) (1992) Gender and Migration in Developing Countries. London: Belhaven Press.
- Cliffe, L. (1978) ‘Labour Migration and Peasant Differentiation: Zambian Experiences’, Journal of Peasant Studies 5(3): 326–46.
-
Cohen, I. (1989) Structuration Theory: Anthony Giddens and the Constitution of Social Life. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
10.1007/978-1-349-20255-3 Google Scholar
- Cohen, R. (1987) The New Helots: Migrants in the International Division of Labour. Aldershot: Avebury Press.
- Cooper, D. M. (1982) ‘ An Interpretation of the Emergent Class Structure in Botswana: A case study of Selebi-Phikwe Miners’. DPhil dissertation, University of Birmingham.
- Crush, J., A. Jeeves and D. Yudelman (1991) South Africa's Labor Empire: A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines. Oxford: Westview Press.
- Drakakis-Smith, D. W. (1984) ‘The Changing Economic Role of Women in the Urbanization Process: A Preliminary Report from Zimbabwe’, International Migration Review 18(4): 1278–93.
- Eades, J. (1987) ‘ Anthropologists and Migrants: Changing Models and Realities’, in J. Eades (ed.) Migrants, Workers and the Social Order, pp. 1–16. London: Tavistock.
- Eldredge, E. A. (1991) ‘Women in Production: The Economic Role of Women in Nineteenth Century Lesotho’, Signs 16(4): 707–31.
- Frank, A. G. (1967) Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. London: Modern Reader Paperbacks.
- Gaitskell, D. (1982) ‘ “Wailing for Purity”: Prayer Unions, African Mothers and Adolescent Daughters, 1912–1940’, in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds) Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa, pp. 338–57. London: Longman.
- Gaitskell, D. (1990) ‘ Devout Domesticity: A Century of African Women's Christianity in South Africa’, in C. Walker (ed.) Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 251–72. London: James Currey.
- Giddens, A. (1976) New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies. London: Hutchinson.
- Giddens, A. (1977) Studies in Social and Political Theory. London: Hutchinson.
-
Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. London: Macmillan.
10.1007/978-1-349-16161-4 Google Scholar
- Giddens, A. (1987) Social Theory and Modem Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Gilbert, A. and J. Gugler (1992) Cities, Poverty and Development: Urbanization in the Third World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Gilbert, A. and J. Kleinpenning (1986) ‘Introduction to the Special Issue, Migration, Regional Inequality and Development in the Third World’, Tijdschrift voor Econ. en Soc. Geografie 77(1): 2–6.
- Gluckman, M. (1975) ‘ Anthropology and Apartheid: The Work of South African Anthropologists’, in M. Fortes and S. Petterson (eds) Studies in African Social Anthropology, pp. 21–39. London: Academic Press.
- Guy, J. (1982) ‘ The Destruction and Reconstruction of Zulu Society’, in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds) Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa, pp. 167–94. London: Longman.
- Guy, J. (1990) ‘ Gender Oppression in Southern Africa's Precapitalist Societies’, in C. Walker (ed.) Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 33–47. London: James Currey.
- Hansen, K. (1984) ‘Negotiating Sex and Gender in Urban Zambia’, Journal of Southern African Studies 10(2): 219–38.
- Harries, P. (1982) ‘ Kinship, Ideology and the Nature of Pre-Colonial Migration: Labour Migration from the Delagoa Bay Hinterland to South Africa, up to 1895’, in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds) Industrialization and Social Change in South Africa, pp. 142–66. London: Longman.
- Houghton, D. H. (1964) The South African Economy. London: Oxford University Press.
- Hughes, H. (1990) ‘ A Lighthouse for African Womanhood: Inanda Seminary, 1869–1945’, in C. Walker (ed.) Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 197–220. London: James Currey.
- Izzard, W. (1982) ‘ Rural-Urban Migration in a Developing Country: The Case of Women Migrants in Botswana’. DPhil dissertation, Oxford University.
- James, W. G. (1992) Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970–1990. London: James Currey.
- Johnstone, F. A. (1976) Class, Race and Gold. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Kibble, S. (1989) ‘ The External Role of the South African State: The Case of Labour Migration from Malawi’. PhD dissertation, University of Leeds.
- Kimble, J. (1983) ‘ The Proletarianisation of Women: Some Thoughts’, unpublished paper, ‘Women in Southern African History Seminar Series’, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
- Kimble, J. (1985) ‘ Migrant Labour and Colonial Rule in Southern Africa: The Case of Colonial Basutoland 1890–1930’. PhD dissertation, University of Essex.
- Legassick, M. (1975) ‘ South Africa: Forced Labour, Industrialisation and Racial Differentiation’, in R. Harris (ed.) The Political Economy of Africa, pp. 229–70. New York: John Riley.
- Little, K. (1973) African Women in Towns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Mackintosh, M. (1977) ‘Reproduction and Patriarchy: A Critique of Claude Meillassoux's Femmes, Greniers et Capitaux’, Capital & Class
1(2): 119–27.
10.1177/030981687700200106 Google Scholar
- Marks, S. and R. Rathbone (1982) ‘ Introduction’, in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds) Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa, pp. 1–43. London: Longman.
- Mbilinyi, M. (1989) ‘ Women's Resistance in “Customary” Marriage: Tanzania's Runaway Wives’, in A. Zegeye and S. Ishemo (eds) Forced Labour and Migration: Patterns of Movement within Africa, pp. 211–54. London: Hans Zell.
- Meier, G. M. (1989) Leading Issues in Economic Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Meillassoux, C. (1972) ‘From Reproduction to Production: A Marxist Approach to Economic Anthropology’, Economy and Society 1(1): 93–105.
- Meillassoux, C. (1981) Maidens, Meal and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Meillassoux, C. (1983) ‘The Economic Bases of Demographic Reproduction: From the Domestic Mode of Production to Wage Earning’, Journal of Peasant Studies 11(1): 50–61.
- Molyneux, M. (1977) ‘Androcentrism in Marxist Anthropology’, Critique of Anthropology 3(9/10): 55–81.
- Moore, H. (1988) Feminism and Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Moroney, S. (1982) ‘ Mine Married Quarters: The Differential Stabilisation of the Witwatersrand Workforce’, in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds) Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa, pp. 259–69. London: Longman.
- Murray, C. (1981) Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Murray, C. (1987) The Comparative Sociology of Migrant Labour: Two Regional Case Studies. Draft paper for UNBU Project on Global Aspects of Human Migration.
- Nelson, N. (1992) ‘ The Women Who Have Left and Those Who Have Stayed Behind: Rural-Urban Migration in Central and Western Kenya’, in S. Chant (ed.) Gender and Migration in Developing Countries, pp. 109–37. London: Belhaven Press.
- R. Palmer and N. Parsons (eds) (1977) The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa. London: Heinemann.
- Parnwell, M. (1993) Population Movements and the Third World. London: Routledge.
- Parpart, J. L. (1986) ‘The Household and the Mine Shaft: Gender and Class Struggles on the Zambian Copperbelt, 1926–1964’, Journal of Southern African Studies 13(1): 36–56.
- Peil, M. and P. O. Sada (1984) African Urban Society. Chichester: Wiley.
- Pinchbeck, I. (1985) Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution. London: Virago.
- Richards, A. (1939) Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia: An Economic Study of the Bemba tribe. London: Oxford University Press.
- Roberts, P. (1984) ‘Feminism in Africa: Feminism and Africa’, Review of African Political Economy 27/28: 175–84.
- Schapera, I. (1947) Migrant Labour and Tribal Life. London: Oxford University Press.
- Stichter, S. (1985) Migrant Laborers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Walker, C. (1990) ‘ Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System c. 1850–1930’, in C. Walker (ed.) Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 168–96. London: James Currey.
- Wilkinson, C. (1985) ‘ Migration in Lesotho: A Study of Population Movement in a Labour Reserve Economy’. PhD dissertation, University of Newcastle.
- Wilson, G. (19412) ‘ An Essay on the Economics of Detribalisation in Northern Rhodesia’. Parts 1 and 2, Rhodes-Livingstone Papers 5/6.
- Wolpe, H. (1972) ‘Capitalism and Cheap Labour Power in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid’, Economy and Society 1(4): 425–56.
- Wood, C. (1982) ‘Equilibrium and Historical-Structural Perspectives on Migration’, International Migration Review 16(2): 298–319.
- Wright, C. (1994) ‘ Unemployment, Migration and Changing Gender Relations in Lesotho’. PhD dissertation, University of Leeds.
- Yudelman, D. and A. Jeeves (1986) ‘New Labour Frontiers for Old: Black Migrants to the South African Gold Mines, 1920–1985’, Journal of Southern African Studies 13(1): 101–24.
