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SUMMARY:‘Women use our Strength in the House’\; Savings Clubs and Soci
 al Mobility In South Africa  - Professor Deborah James\, LSE
DTSTART:20150216T170000Z
DTEND:20150216T183000Z
UID:TALK56981@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Judith Weik
DESCRIPTION:This Talk is part of the Centre of African Studies Lent term S
 eminar Series: Gender in Africa \n\nIn 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 - wh
 ich mediate\, or are mediated by\, new inequalities and dependencies. Chan
 ging gender dynamics and challenges to patriarchal authority\, arising fro
 m apartheid-induced relocation and later the expansion of a somewhat gende
 r-skewed state-grant system\, now find expression in the relative autonomy
  enjoyed by some female civil servants and informal traders. More than sim
 ply ‘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. Cl
 ubs occupy a point of intersection between two trends. One comprises moder
 n roles and concerns associated with upward mobility in post-democratic So
 uth Africa. The other is evident in pockets of apparent informality and cu
 stomary mutuality\, where egalitarian sociability predominates. Setting ou
 t an arena linked to but discrete from that of capitalism\, the clubs help
  members alternately accommodate and defy capitalism’s imperatives\, whi
 le also fending off demands made by poorer relatives\, neighbours\, and th
 ose with too few resources to belong to clubs.
LOCATION:Seminar Room S1 Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridge
  CB3 9DT
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