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Demobilisation and the Civilian Reintegration of Women Ex-Combatants in Post-Apartheid South Africa

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Demobilisation and the Civilian Reintegration of Women Ex-Combatants in Post-Apartheid South Africa Demobilisation and the civilian reintegration of women ex-combatants in post-apartheid South Africa: The aftermath of transnational guerrilla girls, combative mothers and in- betweeners in the shadows of a late twentieth-century war By Siphokazi Magadla Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political and International Studies at RHODES UNIVERSITY December 2016 Supervisor: Professor Paul-Henri Bischoff Acknowledgements We think and write in community. Indeed, intellectual work is village work. I wish to thank the village that has supported me through the years of this thesis project. I wish to start by thanking the women combatants who participated in this research. I am thankful for your time and the honour of listening to your life histories. I sincerely hope that the pages of this thesis reflect something that you recognise of yourselves. I am thankful to my supervisor, Professor Paul Bischoff, for his unwavering support. You challenged me to revise and constantly clarify, while also giving me the space to own my voice, intellectual and political positions. I have appreciated your steadiness in the times that I have doubted my abilities. I can only hope that I will show up for my students the way you have done for me. In the many family events that I missed in the duration of this project, one of them includes a Christmas away from home for the purpose writing. I am thankful for my mother, Zodwa Tom Magadla, who is my oldest companion. Everything I know is because of you, MamQwathi. I’m thankful for the courage of my aunt, Nozuko Mato, and the independence of my other aunt, Nomavo Magadla. I thank my father, Thanduxolo Magadla, for his support. Thank you to utata omdala no mama omdala, Jongilizwe Magadla and Nokwamnkele Magadla. I thank my brothers, Gcobani “Magesh” Magadla and Lisolamadzana “Comrade Jamaica” Magadla, for their humour, good cooking and general ‘coolness’. I also wish to thank my cousins, Nomveliso Magadla, Ntombomso Magadla, Bomkazi Magadla, Qaqamba Magadla and Anathi Mato, and my niece and nephew, Oyama Ndamase and Sihle Matinise. Although they are nolonger with us, I carry the teachings of my grandmothers, Evelyn Macetshane Magadla and Agnes Nozici Tom. I am thankful for the guidance and protection of my ancestors, ooDzana namaQwathi, who continue to walk ahead of me. I am thankful for the fellowship of friends who are the heartbeat of my intellectual, political and social community. You make me believe that the unimaginable is possible: Gcobani Qambela, Dr Babalwa Magoqwana, Bose Maposa, Mathe Ntsekhe, Athambile Masola, Lerato Makate, Professor Nomalanga Mkhize, Corinne Knowles, Lieketso Mohoto, Noluxolo Nhlapho, Zimbini ii Ogle, Sabelo Mncinziba, Dr Nosiphiwe Ngqwala, Samkelo Mjali, Sisanda Madwantsi, Pelokazi Madyibi, Lihle Mancoba, Judy Sikuza, Welcome Lashivha, Moagisi Sibanda, Sibulele Mayekiso, Nadia Amadou, Mbongeni Magubane, Professor Janine Jones, Professor Puleng Segalo and Juliana Jangara. I am thankful to the feminist cohort of the SSRC’s Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa programme that funded this research: Dr Lindiwe Makhunga, Yaliwe Clarke and Simangele Mayisela. I also thank Tom Asher and Natalie Reinhart for co-ordinating this important SSRC programme. I wish to thank the leadership of Amabutho, who enthusiastically connected me to several participants. I wish to especially thank Siphiwo James and Mbuyiseni Jam. I wish to thank Dr Theresa Edlmann for her friendship and for opening her home to me, where I spent a couple months of writing. I thank Theresa and Janine Jones for their comments in chapters of this thesis. Thank you to Professor Pamela Maseko for her socio-linguist skills that assisted me in translating some difficult isiXhosa words from the interviews. Thank you to Professor Raymond Suttner who assisted with contacts of women combatants in Gauteng. Thank you to my colleagues, and IR comrades, Dr Mike Mavura, Shingirai Mtero and Yvonne Phyllis, who taught my coursework while I was on academic leave. I also wish to thank colleagues, Dr Sally Mathews and Mlamuli Hlatshwayo, for their support. I am thankful for the administrative assistance and understanding of Odette Cumming, Lukhona Mdluli and Lumka Mqingwana. I am also thankful to my former boss, Professor Cheryl Hendricks, for her continued mentorship. I am thankful to past and present students that I have taught in the last six years. Our engagements in the classroom have enriched my thinking and kept me on my toes. I am thankful for the understanding and enthusiasm of my Masters students, Ndapwa Alweendo and Lihle Ngcobozi. I also thank Zikhona Valela and Danielle Bowler for their assistance in transcribing the interviews. I am thankful for the sensitive proofreading skills of Genevieve Wood. I wish to thank Rhodes University Director of Research, Jaine Roberts, for her support and for facilitating the academic leave that made completing this project possible. ii i This research was made possible by support from the Social Science Research Council's Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Felloswhip Program, with funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. iv Ab st r a c t This study examines the state assisted demobilisation and civilian reintegration of women ex­ combatants in post-apartheid South Africa. The study is based on life history interviews conducted with 36 women who fought for Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) and Amabutho Self-Defence Unit. There is agreement across the literature that the armed struggle against apartheid falls within the category of guerilla warfare, fought in multiple terrains, that blur conventional distinctions of civilian and combatant, homefront and battlefront, as well as the domestic and transnational. Located within feminist International Relations theory, the study argues that the formal process that led to the integration of statutory and non-statutory forces to form the South African National Defence Force, which facilitated the demobilisation process, was framed in ways that did not reflect the unconventional nature of the armed struggle against apartheid. The few women who participated in this process were the transnationally trained combatants of MK and APLA. The majority of women who participated in the multiple and overlapping sites of the domestic and international apartheid battlefront were left out of this process. It is argued that women’s roles in the armed struggle were shaped by various factors, such as age, space and period of struggle. Three categories, guerilla girls, combative mothers and the in-betweeners, are introduced in order to demonstrate the different spaces from within which women fought, and the methods they used, all of which were central to the success of the People’s War strategy. In this regard, the venerated transnationally trained woman combatant, like their male counterpart, is argued to be an exception, as the majority of women were thrust into the armed struggle without military training. Furthermore, it is argued that conservative feminist readings of black women’s relationship with nationalism in the anti-apartheid struggle have misrecognised and undermined women’s combatant contributions, by inscribing their forms of resistance as maternal, and outside the war effort. The study shows that the majority of women combatants have transitioned to civilian life without formal state recognition and assistance. The erasure of women’s role as combatants also means that they are excluded from the current legislative framework facilitated by the Department of Military Veterans to support the welfare of former combatants. As such, the study builds on Jacklyn Cock’s (1991) pioneering study on war and gender in South Africa; it v is the first study that exclusively focuses on women ex-combatants’ experiences in post­ apartheid South Africa. De d ic a t io n For my mother, Zodwa, and my aunts, Nozuko and Nomavo v i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................... ii Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... v Dedication....................................................................................................................................vii List of figures............................................................................................................................... xii List of tables................................................................................................................................xiii List of abbreviations and acronyms........................................................................................xiiii Chapter One:................................................................................................................................16 Introduction..................................................................................................................................16 1.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................16 1.2 Research questions and objectives...................................................................................... 27 1.3 Thesis outline...................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter Two:............................................................................................................................
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