Like family : domestic workers in South African history and literature /
Jansen, Ena,author.
More than a million black South African women are domestic workers. These nannies, housekeepers and chars occupy a central place in South African society. but it is an ambivalent position. Precariously situated between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, white and black, these women are at once intimately connected to and at a distant remove from the families they serve. "Like family" they may be, but they and their employers know they can never be real family. The author shows that slavery at the Cape shaped South African domestic worker relations, establishing social hierarchies and patterns of behavior and interaction that persist in the predicament of black female domestic workers today. The author examines the representation of domestic workers in a diversity of texts in English and Afrikaans. Authors include André Brink, JM Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Elsa Joubert, Antjie Krog, Sindiwe Magona, Es'kia Mphahlele, Sisonke Msimang, Zukiswa Wanner and Zoë Wicomb. She uncovers wry and subversive insights into the "madam/maid" nexus, capturing paradoxes relating to shifting power relationships.
"From 1658 to the present"--Cover.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Acknowledgements -- Note for readers. Introduction: searching the archive -- representations of domestic workers -- Enslaved women at the Cape: the first domestic workers -- Migrant women and domestic work in the city -- Legislation and black urban women -- Domestic workers in personal accounts -- Oral testimonies, interviews and a novel -- Domestic workers and children -- Domestic workers and sexuality -- Domestic workers in troubled times -- Domestic workers in post-apartheid novels by white authors -- Domestic workers in post-apartheid novels by black authors -- Domestic workers bridge the gap. Notes -- Artists and photographers -- Bibliography -- Index.
More than a million black South African women are domestic workers. These nannies, housekeepers and chars occupy a central place in South African society. but it is an ambivalent position. Precariously situated between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, white and black, these women are at once intimately connected to and at a distant remove from the families they serve. "Like family" they may be, but they and their employers know they can never be real family. The author shows that slavery at the Cape shaped South African domestic worker relations, establishing social hierarchies and patterns of behavior and interaction that persist in the predicament of black female domestic workers today. The author examines the representation of domestic workers in a diversity of texts in English and Afrikaans. Authors include André Brink, JM Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Elsa Joubert, Antjie Krog, Sindiwe Magona, Es'kia Mphahlele, Sisonke Msimang, Zukiswa Wanner and Zoë Wicomb. She uncovers wry and subversive insights into the "madam/maid" nexus, capturing paradoxes relating to shifting power relationships.
Household employees in literature.
South African literature
Afrikaans literature
South African literature (English)
Household employees
Women household employees
Afrikaans literature.
Household employees.
Household employees in literature.
South African literature.
South African literature (English)
Women household employees.