• Full and active citizenship continues to be a conditional and elusive right for women in many African countries. The effects of neo-liberal globalisation have proved to affect many women negatively, while other women have taken advantage of the new political openings that occurred in the1990s. However, women’s citizenship has been increasingly problematic in the context of the unequal conditions not only between women and men, but also between the rich and poor, and in the Southern African urban context, between residents of the formal city and those persisting in poverty in peripheral peri-urban areas. This paper focuses on women’s crafting of citizenship in George, a peri-urban area of Lusaka, drawing from longitudinal research undertaken there over forty years, from 1968 to the present. While the original studies explored everyday life in relation to housing and urban policies. The paper presents a revised analysis of interviews and field note observations using the concept body politics to better understand individual women’s crafting of citizenship in their homes and neighbourhood. The first section of the paper shows how over time, both at national and local levels, policies have restricted rather than strengthened women’s citizenship and how women in the community and at national level have struggled for access to the public sphere and the political world. The second section sows, by employing the concept of body politics, how restrictions to an active citizenship are rooted in private life.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

body politics

citizenship

Africa

gender

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)