This research strives to reveal how ideologies of race, class, and gender manifested in the the social, physical, and material landscapes of pre-emancipation colonial Saba, Dutch Caribbean. Race,... Show moreThis research strives to reveal how ideologies of race, class, and gender manifested in the the social, physical, and material landscapes of pre-emancipation colonial Saba, Dutch Caribbean. Race, class, and gender serve as facets and vectors for ideology. By viewing them as processes, their capacity to express such through their social and material environments inextricably tied to their particular temporal and spatial contexts. Through comparisons of the social and material environments of multiple, contemporaneous social contexts within Saba, common social and material vectors among these ideological facets can become apparent. In particular, this concerns: • How tensions between the “incomplete hegemony” of colonial authorities and plantation agriculture with Saban residents resulted in a dialectic between local landscapes, materiality, and ideologies of race, class, and gender. • Differentiating between slavery, free poverty, and low class in the archaeological record. • The dialectic between scale, locality, and perspective in defining and situating class and poverty. Show less
This study examines the mobilisation of South African women into trade union activities between the period 1973 and 2003. Firstly, it underscores the role of South African women in fighting for... Show moreThis study examines the mobilisation of South African women into trade union activities between the period 1973 and 2003. Firstly, it underscores the role of South African women in fighting for workers’ rights in the workplace and their contributions in the building of the labour movement at the national level. In explaining the mobilisation of women, this research focuses on their social biography. It explores women’s experiences in society, the family (or personal relationships), the workplace and trade unions. It is shown that women’s experiences within all these different social settings are interconnected and influence their consciousness. Based on these observations, I argue that the activism of South African women takes place at the level of race, class and gender. Secondly, the study focuses on the participation of women trade unionists in the South African transition. It argues that women the struggles of women in the trade unions and the workplace have contributed significantly to the proposals adopted by the Women’s National Coalition which were subsequently incorporated into political negotiation process during the transition and ultimately into the constitution. Show less
