Research Catalog

Title

A bed called home : life in the migrant labour hostels of Cape Town / Mamphela Ramphele ; photographs by Roger Meintjes.

Author

Ramphele, Mamphela

Publication

Cape Town : D. Philip ; Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press ; Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press in association with the International African Institute, 1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Meintjes, Roger

Description

vii, 152 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

In the last three years the migrant labour hostels of South Africa, particularly those in the Transvaal, have gained international notoriety as theatres of violence. For many years they were hidden from public view and neglected by the white authorities. Now, it seems, hostel dwellers may have chosen physical violence to draw attention to the structural violence of their appalling conditions of life. Yet we should not lose sight of the fact that the majority of hostel dwellers are peace-loving people who have over the years developed creative strategies to cope with their impoverished and degrading environment. In this challenging study, Dr Mamphela Ramphele documents the life of the hostel dwellers of Cape Town, for whom a bed is literally a home for both themselves and their families. Elaborating the concept of space in its many dimensions - not just physical, but political, ideological, social and economic as well - she emphasises the constraints exerted on hostel dwellers by the limited spaces they inhabit. At the same time she argues that within these constraints people have managed to find room for manoeuvre, and in her book explores the emancipatory possibilities of their environment. The text is illustrated with a number of black and white photographs taken by Roger Meintjes in the townships and hostels.

Subject

• Lodging-houses > South Africa > Cape Town
• Migrant labor > South Africa > Cape Town > Social conditions
• Migrant labor > Housing > South Africa > Cape Town

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-149) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

A bed for a home -- 2. Tracing the contours of space -- 3. Demographic profile of hostel dwellers -- 4. The quest for wholeness -- 5. Social organisation -- 6. Social relations -- 7. The Hostel Dwellers' Association -- 8. Empowerment and the politics of space -- 9. Conclusion.

ISBN

• 086486227X (Cape Town)
• 0821410636 (Athens)
• 0748604480 (Edinburgh)

LCCN

^^^93019117^//r93

OCLC

• 27811900
• SCSB-10524016

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library