New Things after Independence

Gender and Traditional Authorities in Postcolonial Namibia

Bibliographic Data

ID3142457
AuthorsHeike Becker (0000-0002-8079-9152, University of the Western Cape, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume32
Issue1
Pages29-48
Publication date2006-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070500493753
OpenAlexW1974852703
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited1

This article is concerned with gender and traditional authorities in postcolonial Namibia. Drawing on fieldwork in four rural localities, I argue that the widely-noted resurgence of chieftaincy in post-apartheid southern Africa is linked to shifts in local gender discourses and practices, which have re-imagined global and national gender discourses and have resulted in partial transformations of the institution. While these recent developments are uneven, the re-making of local gender discourses and practices testifies to the ability of chiefs and ordinary rural people to continually reinvent the political institutions in their communities. I argue that the recent gender politics of traditional authorities, in their various forms, are a product of local agency as well as a reaction to exogenous forces while building on local forms and histories. Thus, they (re-)fashion local, gendered modernities

Institution · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Gender Studies · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology

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