Research Articles (Gender Studies)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10413/7199

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Enacting masculinities: Pleasure to men and violence to women.
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge)/UNISA Press., 2013-05-02) Naidu, Uma Maheshvari.; Ngqila, Kholekile Hazel.
Feminist anthropologists have shown how women’s bodies have been appropriated and rendered ‘docile’ by so called cultural or traditional practices, as well as by discourse. The compelled docility of African women (as that of other women in the global south), is perhaps especially visible within subtly coerced performances within a context of ‘traditional’ masculinised practices, such as unprotected sex, that leave many African women vulnerable and forced to negotiate a host of health concerns around sexually transmitted diseases and of course HIV/AIDS. This is to be seen as a form of violence perpetrated by men against their female partners. However, in probing condom use through a qualitative study with a small group of women, we notice that it is not simply a case of discerning patterns of hegemonic masculinities in relation to condom use or non-use, and that masculinities are also propped up and held together by the relational configurations of practice formed by (mutual) gender relations.
Indian women in marriage: When the sacred marriage thread becomes a noose.
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge)/UNISA Press., 2011) Naidu, Uma Maheshvari.
Violence against women is a worldwide problem that transcends all boundaries – cultural, geographic, religious, social and economic. However, it is maintained that there are also added particular cultural ‘dynamics’ or constraints inherent in specific cultural groups. This focus attempts to sketch out the features of a category of Indian women who are assumed as being compelled by particular systemic cultural constraints or familial pressures to ‘play the dutiful wife’ at the expense of enduring sustained emotional and physical trauma. While there is extensive, even sensational reporting of violence within Indian families and against Indian wives in (predominantly Indian) tabloids, there is conversely less scholarly attention on this category of women and the dynamics and conflicts within Indian households. This piece focuses a narrow scrutiny on the Indian wife within abusive marriages. It looks at what is referred to as ‘culturally systemic’ violence and a certain commonality of marital discord and abuse experienced by Indian wives who live in extended families, and pays attention to the presence of the mother-in-law within the living arrangement.
‘Topless’ tradition for tourists: Young Zulu girls in tourism.
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge)/Unisa Press., 2009) Naidu, Uma Maheshvari.
This study works through the ethnographic narratives of two young girls who perform in a tourist cultural village, and probes how certain cultural constructions of ‘Zulu girl’ or maiden are enacted in the context of cultural tourism. The article demonstrates that the girls live with a certain level of cultural discordance between their own experiences as young Zulu-speaking girls and how they are positioned in tourism consumption as 'Zulu maidens'. The study situates the narratives of the two performers, Zodwa and Pumi [pseudonyms] alongside the perceptions of a group of Zulu-speaking girls as an outside audience and how they see the dancers.
Wrestling with standpoint theory… some thoughts on standpoint and African feminism.
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge)/UNISA Press., 2010) Naidu, Uma Maheshvari.
This essay attempts to probe the theory of standpoint feminism, and the charge of epistemic privilege associated with the theory. Standpoint theory itself can be seen to have emerged in the context of feminist critical theory attempting to explain the relationship between the production of knowledge and practices of power (Harding, 2004: 1). The essay attempts to probe the efficacy of a standpoint epistemic within the framework of the various asymmetries embedded in the lived experiences of women in African contexts. The essay works through the notion of ‘entanglement’ (Nuttall, 2009) which refers to the meshed and particular historical connections of an individual or group. It explores, through ethnographic insights, whether standpoint epistemology is able to offer a theoretical understanding of Black African women who are likewise ‘entangled’ within a particular archive of local socio-cultural and economic specificities.

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Browsing Research Articles (Gender Studies) by Author "Naidu, Uma Maheshvari."