Dr. Thembi Mutch | SOAS University of London (original) (raw)

Papers by Dr. Thembi Mutch

Journal of Southern African Studies, May 4, 2018

Venda kingdom Ha Ramabulana, under the leadership of Makhado, and from 1895 under his successor M... more Venda kingdom Ha Ramabulana, under the leadership of Makhado, and from 1895 under his successor Mphephu, continuously resisted land dispossession and eventually managed to keep a substantial power base. Braun gives a detailed account of a decades-long struggle in which the colonial power first aimed to deprive the king of his heartland, the Soutpansberg mountain range, and later to confine him to a small, delimited location on the mountain. Both Makhado and Mphephu particularly resisted colonial attempts at defining their power territorially, to limit it to a specific territory and the people living there. Instead, they insisted that their rule stretched wherever their followers were. Still, in the long run the Ha Ramabulana kings lost their independence and, by the end of the 19th century, their influence seemed more or less restricted to the boundaries of a surveyed location. The process of land alienation resulted in what Braun describes as a constellation of disconnected landscapes: ‘notional land’, which was surveyed and discernible as part of a landscape category within the geographical archive, and those lands that remained under African influence, among them Mphephu’s location in the Soutpansberg, the boundaries of which were not defined nor surveyed until 1916. Even then they remained, in fact, cartographic illusions, since there was no fencing and almost no adjoining settler farms. Braun concludes the discussion of the Transvaal case study by arguing that Mphephu ultimately managed to create a kind of shadow state: places and social networks that became meaningful to Venda and conceptually sidestepped the restrictions imposed by new boundaries and white ownership of land. Overall, Braun’s book is an unconventional social and political history of two rural areas in South Africa narrated along the lines of the colonial constitution of a seemingly hegemonic cadastral landscape. A particular strength of the book is the detailed reconstruction of the complex process of negotiation that produced idiosyncratic landscapes in the period up to 1913. Braun pays careful attention to details, and highlights the to and fro of surveying. While this approach conveys a textured sense of historical contingency and the specificities of time and place, it produces a cumbersome narrative that feels, at times, hard to read. The numerous maps reproduced in colour are helpful for orientation, particularly for readers who are less familiar with the regions discussed. It is deplorable, though, that the details of many maps, in particular the overview ones, cannot be deciphered, since they have been scaled down in order to fit one book page. Braun’s work contributes to a history of cartography beyond positivism. Particularly commendable is his inclusion of maps that remained pure fantasy, given that they depict a territorial order that was never implemented. It reminds historians of the need to treat geographical archives with the utmost care and remain sceptical of maps as privileged archival objects.

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Routledge, Nov 10, 2016

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Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, 2012

This paper examines the different perceptions of work for women in Zanzibar. Life in Zanzibar is ... more This paper examines the different perceptions of work for women in Zanzibar. Life in Zanzibar is dominated by highly gendered geo-spatial constructs, inextricably linked to private and public space. There are complex and layered perceptions about what is appropriate behaviour for women in public and private, thus work — particular work in the public space — is problematic for them. The central hypothesis is that for working women there is a fundamental tension between old and new: between traditional ideas of appropriate behaviour, and notions of modernity; and between what is situated and constructed (locally) as a traditional Zanzibar (‘Islamic’) idea of womanhood, and the actual performativity of this, which involves an engagement with modernity. The paper explores the influence of what can loosely be called ‘modernity’, and traditional ideas of selfhood. This is set against the backdrop of a society dominated by notions of ‘umma’ (‘community’ and ‘not standing out’), corruption ...

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Journal of Southern African Studies, 2018

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New Scientist, 2005

A journalist who has worked a great deal in Africa, Thembi Mutch paints a portrait of Ethiopia th... more A journalist who has worked a great deal in Africa, Thembi Mutch paints a portrait of Ethiopia that raises serious questions about government integrity in that country. She writes: &quot;After 14 years of living and working in Africa, I have mixed feelings about aid, although you can never generalise on the experience of one country. Ethiopia undoubtedly is hampered by unfair trade agreements and the restrictions of having a hugely under-developed infrastructure. The solution is not simply aid, but better human rights, the promotion of free speech, and crucially, local and international structures that promote equality. This includes the protection of local and international journalists. If we are to send British aid money and skilled British people to work in Africa, then the host country must value us, in the same way, as it must start valuing all of its citizens. At the very least we need to listen to local, African experts, journalists and commentators, who often speak from more informed, critical and realistic perspectives... It is not enough to &quot;feed the starving&quot;: we have to know that the poor, the vulnerable, wherever they are, are getting the food and money we give and their human rights and have not become merely political pawns to their own governments. Here in Britain, it&#39;s time to face up to some unpalatable truths about the regimes we support.&quot;

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Unlike cultural studies, media and communication studies is yet to make big strides in critiquing... more Unlike cultural studies, media and communication studies is yet to make big
strides in critiquing global knowledge production that is skewed in favour
of the North and imbues Northern narratives with implicit superiority
(Tomaselli 1998, 2005). Willems (2014) argues systematically and clearly
for the need to go beyond the idea of making the Global South more rep-
resentative empirically and to centralize the theoretical perspectives of the
periphery which have long been introspective and created alternative tax-
onomies that challenge Eurocentrism. For example, feminist literatures—
from the Global North and South—have offered comprehensive critiques
of the Northern colonial male gaze but not looked at how media usage
compounds and augments de!nitions of gender (Mohanty 2013; Columpar
2002; Mahmood 2006; Moore 1998, 2013). I argue that gender studies
literature is very helpful in understanding how media is used in everyday
life as media usage is gendered and so are media themselves. Drawing on
ethnographic literature from Africa and Europe, gender studies and the
postcolonial canon, this chapter examines where agency is manifest, and
moves away from (Northern academic) normative, prescriptive dialogues of
what agency ‘should be’. Instead, I discuss what role old and new media play
in the ‘everyday’ (Sabry 2010; Asad et al 2009; Bayat 2010) lives of women
in Zanzibar. Applying a feminist post-colonial lens (Mahmood 2006; Spivak
1988; Hill-Collins 1999; Mohanty 2013), and carrying out an intersectional
reading (Crenshaw 1991) of empirical work conducted in Zanzibar, I exam-
ine the extent to which ‘new’ media shift the balance of power to female
consumers of media in formations and iterations of their own agency. New
media change the nature of agency for ‘ordinary’ women and allow them to
adopt new ways of communicating with each other, and negotiating exte-
rior spaces. Women as consumers, users and audiences of new media have
blurred and now adopt multiple roles, thereby changing and adapting new
media to !t their private worlds and renegotiating public spaces.