Research Catalog

Title

Like family : domestic workers in South African history and literature / Ena Jansen.

Author

Jansen, Ena

Publication

• Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2019.
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 359 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

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.

Uniform Title

Soos familie. English

Alternative Title

Soos familie.

Subject

• Women, Black, in literature.
• Black people in literature.
• Household employees in literature
• South African literature > History and criticism
• Afrikaans literature > History and criticism
• South African literature (English) > History and criticism
• Household employees > South Africa > History
• Women household employees > South Africa > History
• Afrikaans literature
• Household employees
• South African literature
• South African literature (English)
• Women household employees
• South Africa

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Language (note)

• An updated and reworked translation of Soos familie: stedelike huiswerkers in Suid-Afrikaanse tekste.

Contents

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.

Call Number

ReCAP 19-22154

ISBN

• 1776143515
• 9781776143511
• 9781776144594
• 1776144597
• 9781776143535 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781776143528 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781776143542 (canceled/invalid)

OCLC

1078173941

Author

Jansen, Ena, author.

Title

Like family : domestic workers in South African history and literature / Ena Jansen.

Publisher

Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2019.

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Language

An updated and reworked translation of Soos familie: stedelike huiswerkers in Suid-Afrikaanse tekste.

Research Call Number

ReCAP 19-22154