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Men with Cookers: Transformations in Migrant Culture, Domesticity and Identity in Duncan Village, East London

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  • Leslie Bank

Abstract

This article is concerned with understanding current transformations in migrant culture and identity in South African urban areas. It approaches the topic by revisiting Philip and lana Mayer’s classic study of migrant culture and identity in the Duncan Village township of East London. The article uses the their work as the starting point from which to construct a detailed historical analysis of the tranformations in amaqaba migrant culture in the city from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. The first part of the paper attempts to show that the Mayers greatly underestimated the resilience of this cultural form in the face of far-reaching social and political change in East London. In documenting the survival of amaqaba culture well into the 1980s, it focuses not only on the external forces that shaped migrant responses to change, but also on the internal social dynamics and relations that facilitated cultural reproduction. The second part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of the decline of amaqaba culture as a rural resistance ideology in the city in the late 1980s and its reconstruction as an urban resistance ideology predicated on the defence of particular urban spaces, identities and power relations. The paper concludes by considering the significance of the analysis for the understanding of migrant identity politics in South Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Leslie Bank, 1999. "Men with Cookers: Transformations in Migrant Culture, Domesticity and Identity in Duncan Village, East London," Journal of Southern African Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 393-416, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:25:y:1999:i:3:p:393-416
    DOI: 10.1080/03057070.1999.11742766
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    Cited by:

    1. Coast, Ernestina, 2006. "Local understandings of, and responses to, HIV: Rural-urban migrants in Tanzania," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 1000-1010, August.
    2. Erik Bähre, 2020. "Wealth‐in‐people and practical rationality: Aspirations and decisions about money in South Africa," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 267-278, June.
    3. Dorrit Posel & Daniela Casale, 2003. "What Has Been Happening To Internal Labour Migration In South Africa, 1993–1999?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 71(3), pages 455-479, September.
    4. Phillips, Laura & James, Deborah, 2014. "Labour, lodging and linkages: migrant women's experience in South Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59443, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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