'Women use their strength in the house': savings clubs in an Mpumalanga village

James, Deborah ORCID: 0000-0002-4274-197X (2015) 'Women use their strength in the house': savings clubs in an Mpumalanga village. Journal of Southern African Studies, 41 (5). pp. 1035-1052. ISSN 0305-7070

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Abstract

In settings of increased inequality, where rising prosperity for some spells penury for others, savings clubs enable new types of communality to be created – especially by women - which mediate, or are mediated by, new inequalities and dependencies. Changing gender dynamics and challenges to patriarchal authority, arising from apartheid-induced relocation and later the expansion of a somewhat gender-skewed state-grant system, now find expression in the relative autonomy enjoyed by some female civil servants and informal traders. More than simply ‘loose ends’ of apartheid’s homeland system, women’s savings clubs are being woven together into new fabrics of intensified solidarity. But not everyone can benefit equally from these sociable arrangements. Clubs occupy a point of intersection between two trends. One comprises modern roles and concerns associated with upward mobility in post-democratic South Africa. The other is evident in pockets of apparent informality and customary mutuality, where egalitarian sociability predominates. Setting out an arena linked to but discrete from that of capitalism, the clubs help members alternately accommodate and defy capitalism’s imperatives, while also fending off demands made by poorer relatives, neighbours, and those with too few resources to belong to clubs.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjss20
Additional Information:	© 2015 The Author
Divisions:	Anthropology
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Date Deposited:	19 May 2015 15:01
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2024 17:17
Projects:	RES-062-23-1290
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/62017

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