De una mujer en el mundo: indicios, colonialismo y trabajo sexual desde el África alemana a la Patagonia ovina

INTRODUCTION More than half the population of early modern Scotland was female. Nevertheless, the status of women in sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century society remains obscure. Often omitted entirely from accounts of the period, women are commonly treated as peripheral and unimportant. Even recent research offers only brief asides about their place in social and economic life. Attempts to render women more visible have concentrated on prominent but atypical members of the upper classes or have simply described women's subordination. This chapter examines the economic, legal, political and cultural status of women in Scottish society between c.1500 and c.1800, concentrating on the middling and lower ranks. The analysis rests on three premises. First, we must understand the common experiences of men and women, more clearly to appreciate those which are distinctive to one gender. This essay seeks to add women to Scottish history, to look at their experience in a predominantly masculine rendering of historical discourse. Despite the presence of certain shared understandings, there is no uniform ‘women's experience’ except at the most reductionist level. Second, the neglect of women in historiography is partly attributable to the lack of documentation on their lives. Women's experiences are subsumed in those of men. Most analyses try, perhaps inevitably, to fit women into the categories and value systems of a society defined by men. The areas in which women functioned and their status appear principally to have been determined by men. Some of the problems of lack of evidence are insuperable.

Translating Race on the French Stage

Reviewed by: Bacteriology in British India: Laboratory Medicine and the Tropics by Pratik Chakrabarti Christoph Gradmann Pratik Chakrabarti. Bacteriology in British India: Laboratory Medicine and the Tropics. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2012. x + 304 pp. Ill. $90.00 (9781-58046-408-6). Medical bacteriology has long been regarded as the most practical among those basic medical sciences that contributed to the laboratory revolution in medicine. Where physiologists’ authority rested on laboratories, bacteriologists impressed with being able to make laboratory science work outside of such places—be it as microbiological diagnosis, inspecting sewage, or fighting tropical diseases. In particular the analysis of campaigns for the control of tropical infections has resulted in a historiography that dwells on the image of bacteriology as a technological resource of colonialism. More recently, tropical medicine has been approached in a different dimension, as facilitating colonial laboratories, places which through [End Page 693] their social, cultural, and biological specificity furthered the development of science in the colonizing countries. Pratik Chakrabarti takes yet another step and inquires less into the implementation of bacteriology in India but into its apprehension by Indians. Existing notions of tropicality got transformed through the application of bacteriology by local scientist into a “a mode of knowledge that combined causation and cure within a single paradigm to provide a new moral force in resolving the myriad of realities of what were known as colonial pathologies” (p. 23). This approach echoes Bruno Latour’s The Pasteurization of France, yet in an openly critical way. The lack of complexity that Latour’s account of European microbiology has been criticized for has, as Chakrabarti maintains, even graver consequences in a colonial setting. Still, Chakrabarti buys into the same basic framework of studying science and society as being connected in a moral regime. The book is so to say Pasteurian in yet another way. It centers on activities of the Indian branches of the Pasteur Institute’s international network. These are followed from the late nineteenth into the mid-twentieth century. This is done in a series of investigations into different activities rather than by employing chronology. The first chapter explores the moral charging of bacteriology as a civilizing force in a colonial setting. It turned out to be more distinct as in Great Britain that is used as a case for comparison. The second chapter takes another step and investigates how a French science became embedded into India. It did so by reinterpreting tropicality. The tropics became somewhat less tropical while bacteriology was charged with the notion of a civilizing force that India needed. The third chapter is devoted to the adaption of a method, animal experimentation. Being a morally contested practice in Europe, it turned out to be less so in a colonial context. Methods traveled, their critics did not. Instead the segregated character of colonial society “sanitized” moral criticism. While some animals became the object of widespread devotion, the use of others in the pursuit of building colonial institutions went unchecked. The following chapter on snake venoms and antitoxins takes up the example of a prominent health issue well suited to market the Pasteurians’ toolbox and antiserum in particular. The fifth chapter explores how India became the stage for a complicated alignment of British and French traditions in vaccinology. The French tradition—favoring live vaccines based on attenuated strains—collided with the British tradition, which relied on anti-infective qualities of blood and killed vaccines. This was further complicated by ideas of stronger immunizing powers of European blood as compared to that of Indians and of tropical nature elevating the dangerousness of germs. The last chapter takes up two interconnected issues: the conception of India as the home of cholera and the strange unpopularity of the very scientific methodology that had defined it as a bacterial infection. It was the Bay of Bengal as the assumed home of cholera that had made India an object of curiosity for European hygiene. Still, Robert Koch’s medical bacteriology, and more specifically the abstract description of diseases that it entailed, turned out to be difficult to align with Indian science and society. It favored a framing of diseases through local conditions rather than through...

Most acculturation research has been conducted in immigrant settings. The present study examined the generalizability of acculturation models and the adaptiveness of acculturation strategies in another bicultural environment — a colonial setting. The sample included 138 girls (M = 13.8 years) and their parents from Hong Kong, a former British colony. Results verified that both Chinese and western acculturation occurred on individual psychological levels and that the bidimensional model was a suitable acculturation framework. Using hierarchical multiple regression, results suggested that acculturation towards Chinese (majority) culture was related to better adaptation in terms of higher academic achievement and positive family dynamics (parental nurturance and closer family relationships). Acculturation towards western (minority) culture was related to poorer adaptation in terms of engaging in greater misconduct and negative family interactions (larger intergenerational value discrepancies and family conflicts). Thus, acculturation towards the majority culture held adaptive implications, whereas acculturation towards the minority culture held maladaptive implications. Consideration of the bicultural composition (e.g., status, prestige, strength of cultural networks of each culture) should be incorporated into acculturation theory to better understand adjustment implications across a wide range of contexts.

This book examines the effects of migrant labour in a southern African labour reserve. Politically independent, Lesotho is acutely dependent on the export of labour to South Africa. Men spend long periods on contract labour in the South African mines, leaving their wives and families at home. This system of oscillating migration is analysed in its historical context - the development of industrial capitalism in South Africa - and with particular emphasis on its contemporary implications. Dr Murray draws on the experience of particular migrants and their families in Northern Lesotho to illustrate the problems which arise where household members move repetitively between home in Lesotho and workplace in South Africa. This monograph on social structure in the rural periphery of southern Africa places the results of detailed anthropological fieldwork in the framework of the post-1970 radical historiography in southern African studies. It offers an account of changing perspectives on migrant labour in the subcontinent.

In the concluding chapter, we reflect on how the choice to migrate and the experiences of migration have affected the young migrants’ life trajectories and how they have intersected with their transition to adulthood. We conclude the theme of transitions focusing specifically on marriage and of alternative ways of becoming an adult woman that emerge in the context of migration. Second, we locate our conclusions in the discussion of how the gender order has had profound effects on the decision, experiences and consequences of migration for the girls and their families in the three case studies. In the chapter, we look specifically at social relations and at gender norms using a life-course and generational analysis. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on whether migration is a good option for girls.

The notion that the spread of Christianity should be primarily credited to intentional, organized missionary efforts has long been predominant in the study of the religion. Migration often finds a more prominent role in historical treatments of Christianity’s expansion after the mid-nineteenth century—given technological advances and other factors that encouraged widespread dislocations of people groups. The changes brought by modern European colonialism and the Reformation have also captured, for good reason, the imagination of scholars who have paid attention to how cross-cultural encounters and migration have helped shape Christianity after the sixteenth century. Coherent and concise assessments of the role of migration in the expansion and diversification of Christianity around the world during the centuries that preceded the Reformation, however, are less common. Although a few scholarly volumes have addressed the development of Christianity beyond the West since its beginnings, Jehu J. Hanciles’s Migration and the Making of Global Christianity fills an important gap in the scholarly literature by addressing the importance of migration in this broader dynamic.Hanciles provides an ambitious sociohistorical study of the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity in which migrants take center stage as agents of Christianity’s expansion and diversification. Hanciles’s choices for showing the continuing significance of migration in global Christianity are broad in scope and geography. From the Roman Empire to Persia and from medieval Europe to Asia and the Mongol Empire, Hanciles narrates, analyzes, and interprets critical moments in the history of Christianity in which migration took center stage not only in Christianity’s spread but also in its theological development. Throughout the history of Christianity, migration was, Hanciles claims correctly, “often a theologizing experience” (118). This migration-informed theologizing was widespread as different people tried to make sense of new social, cultural, and linguistic contexts at different times. Examples abound; they include the discourse of exile in the Hebrew Bible, the incorporation of non-Jewish Christians in the New Testament, numerous Christian leaders who incorporated in their theologies aspects of the transnational lives they lived, and migrant experiences on the ground that influenced people to appropriate and translate top-down Christian messages in different ways.Despite this book’s many historical contributions, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity is not an encyclopedic account of one fact after another. As a matter of fact, the primary contributions of Hanciles’s work may reside in his methodological decisions and outlook. At the heart of Hanciles’s project lies the goal of decentering missionaries as singular, primary agents of Christian expansion and introducing migrant experiences as key to the development of Christian history and theology. He does that without romanticizing migrant encounters and experiences—intra-Christian and otherwise—as necessarily benign. Migration and the Making of Global Christianity reminds us that migration is intertwined with the development of Christianity, often despite or because of uncomfortable phenomena created by particular historical contexts. Diverse contextual challenges encountered by migrant groups and individuals—such as violence, economic struggle, underdeveloped cultural repertoires, linguistic limitations, misunderstandings, power differentials, and narrow theological convictions—were crucial for Christianity’s expansion, diversification, and theological development. By decentering missionaries as primary agents of expansion, Hanciles also questions the sufficiency of what he calls “the empire argument” that traces a strong relationship between political and religious development. For him, “the empire argument distorts historical understanding not only because it places disproportionate emphasis on formal structures, official agency, and state resources that played a minimal role in Christian expansion but also because it minimizes the importance of the recipient societies and the agency of potential converts” (415). Although Hanciles’s take on empire might be read as potentially lacking a robust account of empire in all its forms, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity does engage the issue of conversion and religious appropriation in ways that help qualify arguments that reduce Christian expansion to a function of imperialism.To address sufficiently the different dynamics involved, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity is conversant with several disciplines such as theology, migration studies, and sociology. Hanciles’s approach is, therefore, explicitly historical in general and sociohistorical in particular, but it has strong interdisciplinary elements. Historians judging by the standards of traditional historical practice will notice that Hanciles relies overwhelmingly on secondary accounts. His historical interpretation is often layered on top of other interpretations rather than resulting from vigorous engagement with primary sources. This is understandable considering the ambitious conceptual, historical, chronological, and geographical scope of the book. Yet, Hanciles’s command of sources in different fields is impressive. Migration and the Making of Global Christianity should be read by historians, theologians, and sociologists for its contributions in showing that migration is a core element in the expansion, diversification, and theological development of Christianity. Hanciles’s work is indispensable reading for scholars and practitioners interested in migration studies and world Christianity, and may soon be considered necessary reading in mission studies.

Power, Belonging, and Respectability

This study aimed to understand how social determinants—the economic and social factors that affect health and well-being—are associated with self-reported and biological alcohol and other drug misuse in South Africa among women living with HIV. Logistic regression analyses were performed using baseline data from an implementation science trial conducted from 2015 to 2018 with 480 Black and Coloured women who were living with HIV and reported recent alcohol or other drug misuse. Educational attainment, type of housing, access to running water, food insecurity, and housing instability were examined. Women with higher education had reduced odds of any drug misuse—both biological (aOR: 0.53; 95% CI: 0.33–0.84) and self-reported (aOR: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.22–0.64). Women living in formal housing had increased odds of a positive alcohol screening test (aOR: 1.92; 95% CI: 1.16–3.18) and women with housing instability had increased odds of self-reported alcohol misuse—daily (aOR: 1.99; 95% CI: 1.18–3.35) and weekly (aOR:1.91; 95% CI: 1.19–3.07). Food insecurity was associated with reduced odds of self-reported alcohol misuse (aOR: 0.40; 95% CI: 0.25–0.64) and increased odds of self-reported drug misuse (aOR: 2.05; 95% CI: 1.16–3.61). These findings indicate the complexity of the relationship between social determinants and alcohol and other drug misuse, and may have implications for addressing social and structural determinants as part of multilevel interventions focused on reducing alcohol and other drug misuse among key populations of women in South Africa.

This article investigates women's experiences of gender-based violence (GBV) and migration, using data from a quantitative survey of migrant women in France. Breaking down their life trajectories into three phases-before, during, and after migration, we show how these elements intertwine, and even mutually reinforce one another. First, women who experienced different forms of GBV in their country of origin were more likely to make a more complex migration journey. Second, long journey, requiring multiple means of transportation and crossing multiple countries, in particular Libya, considerably increase the risk. Third, migrant women in France face a high risk of GBV independently of the complexity of their migration journey. Women's experiences of violence and migration can thus be understood as entangled.

This article presents a thorough analysis of the dynamics that developed between the Moroccan makhzen elites and the French Resident General Hubert Lyautey during the period of the French protectorate in Morocco (1912–1956). The article examines how Lyautey, by employing carefully crafted strategies, effectively utilized the Moroccan elite as a pivotal tool for strengthening colonial dominance, all the while preserving the traditional and social values inherent in Morocco. The makhzen elites represent a pivotal component of the traditional Moroccan framework, having wielded considerable administrative and religious authority before the advent of the protectorate, thus justifying their prominent role in this analysis. The article suggests that these elites stood at a crucial juncture, where they had to decide between opposing French dominance and collaborating with the colonial administration to preserve their status and privileges. Lyautey upheld the conventional social and political structure, leveraging this context to advance the execution of colonial policies. As a result, a considerable portion of them chose to engage in collaboration. The article highlighted the "dual cooperation policy" that Lyautey put into practice. He upheld various conventional administrative frameworks, such as the Sharia judiciary and the Emirate of the Faithful, thus presenting himself as a guardian of authentic Moroccan values. This approach ensured the relative stability of the country during that period by striking a delicate equilibrium between the enforcement of French authority and the maintenance of the traditional Moroccan regime's outward appearance. The article says that the makhzen elites weren't just tools of colonial power; instead, they showed that they could negotiate to protect their own interests in a colonial setting. In this light, it's clear that Lyautey’s relationship with these elites was more than just dependence; it was a complex one characterised by mutual interests that overlapped. This research reveals a deep understanding of the complexities of power within the context of colonialism, illustrating how France leveraged local traditional forces to bolster its colonial endeavours while refraining from dismantling or supplanting them. This methodology played a significant role in shaping the distinctive identity of the French colonisation in Morocco.

Reviewed by: Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Repro ductive Practice by Aya Ezawa Yoko Yamamoto (bio) Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Repro ductive Practice. By Aya Ezawa. Lexington Books, Lanham MD, 2016. xxvi, 127 pages. $84.00, cloth; $78.50, E-book. Mothers have been one of the central topics in studies on Japanese families and education. Since the 1970s, middle-class to upper-middle-class Japanese mothers, in their role as "professional housewives," have enjoyed a reputation as a critical agent contributing to family members' well-being and children's healthy and successful development. Over the last few decades, more studies have demonstrated diverse forms of motherhood and mothering, especially by examining working-class mothers whose major responsibilities include contributing to family finances. Nevertheless, studies on Japanese mothers in poverty as well as those outside marital status are still scarce, particularly in English-language literature. The rate of single mothers is relatively low in Japan. However, about 60 per cent of single mothers in Japan live in poverty (p. xii), which is significantly higher than the proportion in other developed nations, even though the majority of them work. Thus, studies on single mothers offer insights into persisting gender hierarchies and inequality that lead to structural and psychological barriers to women in Japan. In Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Reproductive Practice, Aya Ezawa skillfully depicts the "gendered meanings of social class" (p. xii) through her analyses of single mothers' life trajectories, experiences, and perspectives as mothers and working women. Ezawa delves into the variations and diversities among single mothers, especially across generations and social classes, in addition to commonalities in their experiences related to mothering. Her research method focuses on qualitative analyses of life-history interviews with 59 single mothers with preschool-aged children in Tokyo that were collected from 1998 to 2000. In 2004 and 2005, she conducted follow-up interviews with some of the original women and additional mothers with older children. Her research also included ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation at events and meetings providing support for single mothers. She intentionally recruited single mothers who were born in different generations, ranging from the 1950s to the 1970s. In so doing, she was able to capture shifting ideals of family and motherhood in a rapidly changing social and economic environment that powerfully shaped Japanese women's construction of aspirations and life decisions. [End Page 182] Unlike earlier periods when marriage was viewed in relation to patriarchy and women's subordination, during Japan's economic growth period marriage and family consisting of a salaryman husband and a stay-at-home wife and mother became a symbol of a happy life and the norm of the middle class. Around this time, many people, including women, started to perceive stay-at-home mothers as a symbol of status and achievement for women. Ezawa argues that the challenges faced by single mothers came not only from economic conditions and practical issues such as time management and living conditions but also from negotiations of maternal identities and roles. Single mothers, most of whom worked at low-paying jobs, struggled to provide what, in their minds, ideal and happy families had, such as financial stability (provided by a father) and cultural capital (fostered at home). The book consists of five chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion. After describing the overview of this study and the research method in the introduction, chapter 1 provides careful literature reviews on shifts in family systems during the postwar era and on women's life courses, along with the development of professional housewife ideals. This section also describes social policy, economic status, and employment opportunities for single mothers. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on women's life stories based on analysis of the interviews, including their childhood experiences and socialization processes in the prebubble and bubble generations, respectively. Chapters 4 and 5 move on to elaborate women's experiences, views, and attitudes toward childrearing and negotiations of identities as single mothers. These chapters also highlight the challenges facing single mothers, such as structural discrimination and work-life balance. Sometimes, I found it difficult to keep track of some...

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) affects babies born to mothers who consume alcohol while pregnant. South Africa has the highest prevalence of FASD in the world. We review the social determinants underpinning FASD in South Africa and add critical insight from an intersectional feminist perspective. We undertook a scoping review, guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Drawing from EBSCOhost and PubMed, 95 articles were screened, with 21 selected for analysis. We used the intersectionality wheel to conceptualize how the social and structural determinants of FASD identified by the literature are interconnected and indicative of broader inequalities shaping the women and children affected. Key intersecting social determinants that facilitate drinking during pregnancy among marginalized populations in South Africa documented in the existing literature include social norms and knowledge around drinking and drinking during pregnancy, alcohol addiction and biological dependence, gender-based violence, inadequate access to contraception and abortion services, trauma and mental health, and moralization and stigma. Most of the studies found were quantitative. From an intersectional perspective, there was limited analysis of how the determinants identified intersect with one another in ways that exacerbate inequalities and how they relate to the broader structural and systemic factors undermining healthy pregnancies. There was also little representation of pregnant women’s own perspectives or discussion about the power dynamics involved. While social determinants are noted in the literature on FASD in South Africa, much more is needed from an intersectionality lens to understand the perspectives of affected women, their social contexts and the nature of the power relations involved. A critical stance towards the victim/active agent dichotomy that often frames women who drink during pregnancy opens up space to understand the nuances needed to support the women involved while also illustrating the contextual barriers to drinking cessation that need to be addressed through holistic approaches.

Reviewed by: Sex and Control: Venereal Disease, Colonial Physicians, and Indigenous Agency in German Colonialism, 1884–1914 by Daniel J. Walther Martin Kalb Sex and Control: Venereal Disease, Colonial Physicians, and Indigenous Agency in German Colonialism, 1884–1914. By Daniel J. Walther. New York: Berghahn, 2015. Pp. x + 135. Cloth $80.00. ISBN 978-1782385912. The title, focus, and overall objectives of Daniel J. Walther's monograph are intriguing. According to the author, he "takes a biopolitical and comparative approach" (2) when discussing venereal disease, colonial physicians, and indigenous agency in Germany's overseas colonies in Africa, the Pacific, and China from 1884 to 1914. Walther uses "the lens of discourses surrounding health" (2) throughout his analysis, as he aims to expose the disciplinary measures and mechanisms of social control put forward by health professionals. Walther begins by shedding new light onto complex interactions between male sexuality, prostitution, and venereal disease. He discusses a recorded rise in prostitution and venereal disease in the late nineteenth century based on numerous statistics [End Page 428] from that era. The author acknowledges "contemporary criticisms of the statistics" (13) early on in his study and rightfully mentions the need to contextualize such data as moral statistics. In fact, a rise in prostitution and venereal diseases, imagined or real, ultimately became a way to highlight the moral decline of German society overall, a dynamic also apparent in other historical contexts. Walther then explores "male colonial sexuality" (24) in more detail, indicating how "white males often turned to indigenous women for sexual gratification" (25). He concludes that the arrival of Germans in the colonies meant the growth of prostitution, which led to the spread of venereal diseases and ultimately resulted in a call for more medical intervention and stricter disciplinary measures. The author then explores "Venereal Disease in the Colonial Context" (51) of the German empire, including the threat of such illnesses for German colonial authorities more directly. For instance, "venereal diseases reduced the fighting capacity of regular and colonial (both indigenous and German) military forces" (53) during rebellions against German colonial authorities in East and Southwest Africa. As a result, colonial doctors began "assessing the threat statistically" (58), a step that helped collect, label, categorize, and ultimately control indigenous populations "both medically (as 'diseased' individuals) and racially (primarily as either 'European' or 'colored,' and hence as a group)" (73). This important point highlights the intricate nature of mechanisms of social control within colonialism. Walther lastly discusses ways German colonial authorities fought against venereal diseases in the colonies. He contends that German colonial medical staff had a similar training and background, which created a surprisingly coherent medical discourse detectable throughout the German empire. Walther goes on to analyze attempts to implement preventive measures before providing more details on "a disciplinary approach that necessitated more physically invasive and simultaneously punitive practices" (94). It included regular medical examinations of prostitutes and the regulation of bordellos; yet it also, in a way, applied to certain treatment methods. An assessment of these measures follows, as does a discussion of "perceived ongoing challenges" (121). Local colonial authorities addressed the latter with healthcare measures, like setting up a syphilis camp in German East Africa (123). A short conclusion makes broader claims, including that "in the metropole and in the colonies, physicians were agents of modernity" (132); Walther also compares these dynamics to British colonialism, for example, noting that "colonial physicians helped buttress and justify German rule oversea" (135), thus ultimately agreeing with Philippa Levine's assessment for parts of the British empire (Prostitution, Race, and Politics, 2003). This study raises intriguing questions about sex and social control within the colonial context, but it would benefit from the inclusion of more everyday voices. The author nicely utilizes theoretical frameworks and makes some excellent connections and comparisons; he also hints at the benefits or advantages of illegality [End Page 429] (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1977) for colonialism more broadly. At the same time, he falls short when focusing on the everyday person or when trying to directly question the work of those who concentrate "on male elites within society" (6). Historical records from German Southwest Africa are filled with autobiographical works, journals, oral...

Reviewed by: To Swim with Crocodiles: land, violence and belonging in South Africa, 1800-1996 by Jill E Kelly Sibongiseni Mkhize (bio) Jill E Kelly (2019) To Swim with Crocodiles: land, violence and belonging in South Africa, 1800-1996. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press; East Lansing: Michigan State University Press The Valley of a Thousand Hills is famous for its scenic routes and picturesque, rolling hills. It is famous as the route of two major international sport events, the Comrades ultra-Marathon and the Dusi Canoe Marathon. Both events start in Pietermaritzburg and finish in Durban, with the Comrades alternating its start and finish point because, unlike the canoe marathon, it does not rely on gravity. The villages that the local and international athletes and media see and broadcast to the world look serene and the locals often cheer the athletes who run or paddle past their homes on their way to the finish line. It is a magnificent landscape, whose mesmerising views have featured in many postcards and anthropological studies for more than a century. The two rivers, the Umngeni and Umsunduzi, have for centuries been sources of life and economic sustenance to the precolonial and current inhabitants of these areas and to the cities that emerged during the nineteenth century, Durban and Pietermaritzburg. For the residents of these parts of KwaZulu-Natal, those rivers and rolling hills represent key markers of identity and belonging. The scene of the drama that took nearly 150 years to reach its tragic climax is an area on the western side of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, situated at the confluence of Mngeni and Msunduzi rivers, at the centre of which is a mountain called Table Mountain (not to be confused with the famous mountain in Cape Town). Jill Kelly's book, sub-titled Land, [End Page 161] violence and belonging in South Africa, 1800-1996, takes the reader on the meandering historical journey. Unlike some writers of the contemporary history and politics of Natal and the midlands region, Kelly has taken a longer-term view, locating the generational conflict of the 1990s within a historical context. The temptation over the years has been to reduce the conflict of the 1980s and 1990s to ideological contestation between the supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC).1 However, what Kelly has demonstrated is a much more complex picture, including the problematising of the words chiefs and inkosi in colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid contexts. Kelly's book is divided into three parts. Part 1 is preceded by the Introduction. Kelly does a sterling job of situating her study within a broader historical context and describing in detail the concept of ukukhonza in relation to chiefly authority, identity and belonging. Understanding the concept of ukukhonza, which cannot merely be defined as allegiance, is important because it carries a deeper meaning of a social contract between the chief and his subject. Ukukhonza, paid in the form of a fee, gives expectations of land and security on the part of the chief's subjects. Kelly uses ukukhonza 'as a lens to explore the history of the relationship between chiefs, subjects and land' (220). She introduces the readers to chief Mhlabunzima Maphumulo and goes into detail in respect of his relationship with his subjects and how his chiefdom and its authority had been undermined and denigrated by the neighbouring Nyavu based on the fact that the Nyavu claimed to be the original occupiers of the land by arguing that Mhlabunzima's great grandfather, Maguzu Maphumulo, was not a traditional chief but a minor headman who was rewarded with a piece of land by the colonial authorities for his loyalty to them. The names of the two chiefs, when translated figuratively, are illustrative of their difficult heritage, the trials and tribulations of their forebears. Mhlabunzima's name is about the hardships of the land while Bangubukhosi records the contestations for power in his chieftaincy. Part 1–'Violence, allegiance and authority in the making of kingdoms and colony'–has two chapters. This section delves into the heart of chiefly authority, identity formation, claims of originality and pre-colonial existence, and the fluidity...