Women’s Voices and Historical Silences in South Africa

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An examination of South Africa’s liberation struggle focused on the voices and work of women.  
This book examines the history of South Africa’s liberation struggle through the lens of speech and silence, showing what that can reveal about the gendered dynamics of anti-apartheid political action, state repression, and history writing. Following the political lives of two young black women, the activists Sibongile Mkhabela and Masabatha Loate, from 1976 to the early 2000s, the book explores the gender dynamics of youth anti-apartheid activism and the politics of talking during and about the struggle. It uses archival records of political trials, human rights testimony, and autobiographical writings to analyze the moments and spaces within which these individuals and their contemporaries chose or were compelled to speak publicly of their politics and actions or to stay silent. In reconstructing what was sayable about political participation, the book offers a way of conceptualizing the relationship between what we know and how we know what we know which has profound effects on the shape and limits of the historical record. Rachel E. Johnson is assistant professor in modern African history at Durham University, UK.
 

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