Abstract
The 1840 gospel of Luke as translated by Moffat presents us with the cultural and imperial surveillance performed by a patriarchal system through the institutionalisation of motherhood and womanhood (bosadi). Motherhood or womanhood (bosadi) as a patriarchal institution has been a space in which patriarchal discursive practices have been realised through an act of politicising motherhood or womanhood. At the centre of this act of politicisation of motherhood or womanhood (bosadi) is the ability to carry and bear children (pelegi). The institution of motherhood or womanhood has facilitated a binary between motherhood (bosadi) and bareness (moopa). The womb/popelo as a symbol of fertility becomes the space of mothering women, of labelling, categorising and naming women that the system locates as moopa or barren. The article seeks to reread the narrative on childbearing in the 1840 gospel of Luke from a decolonial framework. I will argue that childbearing, as a patriarchal institution, has been a space in which the gaze of patriarchy has been produced to subjugate women through cultural and imperial masculinist gaze. I will also argue that there is a need to decolonise and liberate such a space (womb) as not a determinant of motherhood.
Highlights
The 1840 English–Setswana gospel of Luke was translated into a culture that was governed by its rules and norms
Motherhood as an institution of power and a social hierarchy within the space of wifehood has led to the labelling and stigmatisation of childless women
I will argue in the article that the institutionalisation of motherhood as a performance of power resides in knowledge production
Summary
The 1840 English–Setswana gospel of Luke was translated into a culture that was governed by its rules and norms. The biblical narratives of birth-prophecy stories illustrate the gender politics of surveillance performed through discursive practices constructed within the Judaic culture expressed in imperial mythologies. As these stories were told, men aimed at performing power over female bodies They functioned as constructors of the institution of motherhood within the discursive practices of patriarchal gaze. Motherhood is an institution that affords one entrance into a social hierarchy that is exclusively reserved for women who have borne children Did these stories address the question of bareness or the fulfilment of prophecy, but they performed disciplinary power in the construction of gender. She further maintains that this is similar to AndréeBlouin who thought that her political activism performed the same strategy of de-patriarchalising motherhood as the space for masculinist gaze (Renée 1997:198–199)
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