Voice, Silence and Gender in South Africa's Anti‐Apartheid Struggle: The Shadow of a Young Woman
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In Voice, Silence and Gender in South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Struggle, Rachel Johnson presents an unconventional biography of a little-known South African anti-apartheid activist named Masabata Loate, who was born in 1961 and, after almost a decade of involvement in the liberation struggle, was murdered in 1986.By choosing to write about Loate's life and death, Johnson deliberately selected a historical figure about whom very little information is available in the archive(s), hence the book's subtitle, The Shadow of a Young Woman.However, Johnson deploys the concept of 'shadow' to convey not only the limits of her knowledge about Loate but also the idea of darkness as a space of creativity that offers the potential for finding a 'full sense of self' (148).The result is both a poignant meditation on Loate's short life and a critical assessment of the gendered ways we know about the past.
Source: Gender & History
Author: Susanne M. Klausen
Institution: Pennsylvania State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7127046682
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