Labour, Lodging and Linkages

Migrant Women's Experience in South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID2137751
AuthorsLaura Phillips (0000-0001-6427-4818, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author), Deborah James (0000-0002-4274-197X, University of the Witwatersrand)
Year2014
Volume73
Issue3
Pages410-431
Publication date2014-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrican Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-0184 • E-ISSN: 1469-2872
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00020184.2014.962875
OpenAlexW2151063243
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited48

This historiographical overview examines the literature on women migrants in South Africa, arguing that it is important to consider domestic struggles and their impact on women's urban experiences within and beyond the workplace in order to understand the unfolding of the migrant labour system in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Looking at writing on pre-1994 migrancy, it highlights women's experiences in the workplace, in the residential spaces they occupy, and in their associational life. We also draw out some of the major trends in the post-1994 period, focusing in particular on scholarship that considers HIV/AIDS. Migrant women, we argue, are neither simply home-based nor town-linked; rather their experiences and struggles provide the means to accommodate both while also transforming these polarities

Economic growth · Historiography · Lived experience · Migrant workers · Order (exchange · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Gender Studies · Legal Issues in South Africa · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · South African History and Culture