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Our Lives Through Embroidery: Narrative Accounts of the Women's Embroidery Project in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Abstract
The study explores the meanings newly employed women attach to the notion of being "emancipated." It draws on critical feminist and post-colonial theorists to investigate how Black South Africa women (n = 21; age range = 30-55) with experience of oppression and colonialism use embroidery to narrate their personal histories. Three in-depth, individual semi-structured interviews and one focus group were conducted using convenience sampling within the embroidery collective. Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zilber's (1998) narrative data analysis model and Overlien, Aronsson & Hyden's (2005) focus group data analysis were employed to explore key themes of renegotiation of gender roles, racial relations and personal stories stitched into bags that travel the world, re-presenting the women to a global audience. Findings reveal that the embroidery project enabled successful re-negotiation of gendered roles at home and in the community. Perceived proxy control by historically privileged others undermined the sense of empowerment in the women participants.
... Many accept this assistance coming their way because they are in need and struggling. Segalo (2011) has indicated that empowerment should be problematised and issues of power, class and history should be taken into consideration when defining and making meaning of it. Furthermore, it is crucial to problematise the idea of 'empowerment' when women's advancement is embedded in stubborn gendered, classed and racial hierarchies that remain untroubled by the fall of apartheid (Segalo 2011). ...
... Segalo (2011) has indicated that empowerment should be problematised and issues of power, class and history should be taken into consideration when defining and making meaning of it. Furthermore, it is crucial to problematise the idea of 'empowerment' when women's advancement is embedded in stubborn gendered, classed and racial hierarchies that remain untroubled by the fall of apartheid (Segalo 2011). This point is also highlighted by Shulman-Lorenz and Watkins (2001, 22) in their assertion that 'no truly sustainable development can develop out of the repression of silenced knowings'. ...
... In fact, most of the women were familiar with making embroideries/needle-work/sewing and many of them hinted to how they learned the needle-work skill from their parents while they were growing up. By using this art-form as a way to express and tell personal narratives, the women embarked on a journey of revisiting the past and told narratives in an artistic and visual way that allowed for multiple interpretations of their experiences, thereby negating the notion of a single story that does not acknowledge multiple perspectives and contexts (Segalo 2011(Segalo , 2014Segalo, Manoff, and Fine forthcoming). The questions I asked the women were as follows: ...
... Despite this growing evidence base into the potential health benefits of textiles and in particular knitting there appears to be a paucity of research into embroidering as a potential therapeutic activity. Of the three studies identified, one was based in South Africa and focused on an embroidering project which helped emancipate women from a patriarchal society which offered little opportunity for them to gain employment in South Africa (Segalo 2011). A further study analysed an embroidery undertaken in a psychiatric hospital in 1960 (Blakeman et al. 2013). ...
... Our lives through embroidery is a narrative study which recruited three women who had been involved in the project from the beginning to share individual narratives through interview with the researcher (Segalo 2011). In addition, the researcher ran, and later translated one focus group with 18 women engaged in the project. ...
This research evolved from a perceived need within occupational therapy to better understand the therapeutic potential of specific craft activities, to create evidence for reviving their use within contemporary practice. Historically, it was observed that such activities enhanced health but research showing the mechanism was lacking and so their use largely fell out of favour within the profession. With current interest on exploration of the influence of arts on health the investigation focused on embroidering as a contemporary but under-investigated craft. The research question aimed to establish how embroidering can influence meaningful change in relation to a person in the context of their everyday life.
This qualitative narrative inquiry-based study was situated in the United Kingdom and draws on social-constructionist epistemology with a relativist ontology. Theoretical assumptions were further grounded on Occupational Science, occupational therapy as a complex intervention and narrative theory. Discursive data were gathered through unstructured interviews which included examination of embroideries, observation, participation in embroidering and visiting embroidery related events in partnership with five women who regularly embroidered. Data were transcribed verbatim and interpreted through narrative analysis.
The findings suggest that embroidering can promote meaningful and purposeful change in a person's everyday life through an agential companionship involving body, mind and materials. This solitary and reciprocal relationship is intimate, situated, and develops over time and this is proposed as the means for therapeutic potential. In the development of such a close affiliation the person and product become inseparable. Entanglement transpires through deep and sustained engagement with tools and materials.
... 11 See for instance the quilt made by Harriet Powers c.1895-1898 https://collections.mfa.org/objects/116166 12 On community embroidery projects in South Africa see the work of Brenda Schmahmann (2005Schmahmann ( , 2022. See also Puleng Segalo's account of a community embroidery project in a township outside of Johannesburg (Segalo, 2011); and Gille de Vlieg's photographs of sewing collectives in South Africa during apartheid (https://vimeo.com/589867843). 13 https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt 14 Faith Ringgold was born in 1930 in Harlem, New York and has worked as an artist since the 1960s. ...
This article provides a critique of neoliberal feminism and argues for nuanced and critical approaches to the question of what constitutes feminist resistance. It focuses on visual artist Billie Zangewa’s creative practice and positions it within the longer history of how women have made use of traditional crafts, such as quilting and embroidery, as a means of expression and as a form of resistance. It positions Zangewa’s work alongside that of some of her feminist contemporaries who have also used thread and cloth in their work to reveal how the political is woven through the fabric of everyday life. I argue that in order to understand why Zangewa’s seemingly mundane, even bourgeois practice, has been framed and taken up as a form of feminist resistance, it is necessary to read her work through a historical lens that takes colonial dispossession and the brutal history of violence in Southern Africa into account. My readings of Zangewa’s work acknowledge the significance of the artist’s affirmation of care and self-love as resistance, as much as they point to the limits of a politics that valorises (unpaid) domestic work and fails to address the structural violence of capitalism.
... Various scholars have written and researched at the intersection of craft and feminism, for example, exploring knitting and yarn-bombing as activism [10,47,48], feminisms role in craftivism [11,16,53], the utilization of needle work as feminist expression and subversive strategy [9,43], and the performance of the gendered body through craft [14]. Craft can be a medium for expression and was used before, e.g., to tell personal stories and share experiences of oppression and colonialism through embroidery [59], and manifest secrets of strangers into a material artifact, i.e., a quilt, through embroidered QR codes [3,4], and has been used by "several artists in the 1980s [. . .] as means to critique issues of gender, class, materiality, memory, history, nd the everyday and to confront the hegemony inherent in the world of museums and galleries", such as "Judy Chicago's installation, Dinner Party used traditional crafts to symbolize and memorialize the erasure of women in Western civilization" [63 p. 15]. ...
... Indeed, many feminist researchers tend to work within both paradigms as more effective ways of understanding and engaging the social world. Puleng Segalo's work on embroidery as narrative (Segalo, 2011(Segalo, , 2012(Segalo, , 2014Segalo, Manoff & Fine, 2015) demonstrates the importance of exploring women's narratives of self and community to understand the effects of traumatic pasts and histories in present lives. As noted, researchers working with Photovoice tools have also engaged narrative forms of enquiry to understand individuals' lived experiences as well as their social location and positioning within networks of power. ...
In the current study, we examined how culture, gendered roles, and societal expectations shape South African black
African women’s entrepreneurial experiences in male dominated entrepreneurial environments . Utilising a life story
technique approach, we interviewed 12 Black African women entrepreneurs regarding their experiences in diverse South
African male-dominated sectors . Overall, these women perceived three themes to characterise their experiences in a
male-dominated entrepreneurial environment: (i) societal identities and challenges; (ii) entrepreneurship-life balance; and
(iii) the support mechanisms . The women said to experience slow entry into the male dominated sectors due to patriarchy,
culture blockages, and having to continuously upskill . However, the negotiation strategies and support mechanisms were
suggested by the participants to benefit their businesses .
This article considers the intersection of gender, traditional cultural expressions, collaborative innovation, and intellectual property in the Tonga Indigenous community of Zambia. Based on a study of the Tonga rural women basket makers who are organized around craft clubs, the study investigated the collaborative environment that fosters the preservation of the cultural tradition of basket weaving, the impact it has had on empowering the women, and the legal protection options available for the Tonga baskets. The study found that Zambia's 2016 Protection of Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources and Expressions of Folklore Act no. 16 (Traditional Knowledge Act) gives automatic protection to traditional cultural expressions and the option for the protection of traditional cultural expressions under the existing intellectual property laws. Though intellectual property protection may not be practical for the Tonga baskets, the Traditional Knowledge Act is a significant step in recognizing the customary values and governance principles in protecting traditional cultural expressions. Registration, in terms of the Traditional Knowledge Act, could enhance the recognition of the baskets, preserve and promote the cultural heritage, and empower the Tonga women.
In this chapter, I continue the thread of discussion focusing specifically on the relationships between quilting and research. First, I build an understanding of what I perceive to be meaningful action and design processes, building on work that addresses the use of digital technologies in charities and other third sector services. Then, I think through how working towards more just worlds in this space can also relate to the development of a shared praxis of hope where we are able to better care for ourselves, one another, and our planet. After this reflexive writing on theory, I start to bring in examples from the crafting process involved in making The Partnership Quilt—about the porous roles of participants, the importance of relational expertise, and how we can look behind the seams of the quilt to uncover hidden labour involved in research projects.
This book shows how visual narrative methods could not only be used to gather and analyse empirical narratives but also for theory building. For example, the cover image of narrative formations of relational selves is used in the spirit of exploration to think with and through the dialectical tension between (non)being, (not)becoming and (no)belonging to knowledge communities in “post”-apartheid South Africa.
Orientation: This study investigates and analyses the perceptions of soccer club managers based on spectators’ loyalty factors, values and challenges concerning soccer clubs in South Africa.
Research purpose: These results could assist managers of soccer clubs to be able to manage these aspects in order to sustain a competitive advantage.
Motivation for the study: This study could contribute to deeper insight into the role of spectators’ loyalty, value and how it could contribute to the development of soccer partnerships in South Africa.
Research design, approach and method: In the case of this study, qualitative research was done to obtain relevant information from the senior management of the nine clubs with regard to the aspects of loyalty, the role of spectators within the clubs and the challenges faced by club managers to gain loyal spectators. During face-to-face interviews, the senior management were assured that their answers are confidential and would be used for the purpose of this study as a means of ensuring trustworthiness and qualitativeness. Selecting these people was based on their relevance for the study and their status in the senior management. Each club session interview took one and a half hours at a central location convenient for respondents. The same researcher was present during each of the club’s meetings to keep data accurate and consistent. Notes were taken and all sessions were recorded. Respondents in the interview were informed about the aims and procedures of the study.
Main findings: The value of spectators to soccer clubs in South Africa was identified to be commercial value, partnerships value, marketing value and spiritual shareholders value. Marketers need to be aware of their spectators’ needs in order to build the relationship and should focus on commitment, customer satisfaction and customer retention as well as trust and brand identification aspects when developing marketing strategies.
Practical/managerial implications: The challenges faced by managers to sustain loyalty to their clubs were identified as absence of heroes, economic climate, safety and security, marketing and public relations. Managers of clubs need to develop their clubs to surpass their current levels of loyal membership and supporters and establish the brand identity of their clubs to increase the satisfaction of their current spectators and to earn more club money for the players.
Contribution/value-add: As stated above, this study focused on assessing the importance of spectators with regard to soccer clubs in South Africa from a management perspective, which could be utilised to gain competitive advantage.
In recent years, postcolonial and feminist theories have had enormous consequences for how development is conceptualized. In light of this, the present paper explores the intersections between postcolonialism, feminism and development. It does so by, first, reviewing the primary issues underpinning postcolonial approaches to development. Secondly, the paper reviews the emergence of postcolonial feminisms and explores the key areas of debate generated by these approaches within development studies. Thirdly, the paper examines some of the dilemmas and criticisms provoked by these approaches, and concludes by exploring the ways in which postcolonial feminist approaches might continue to make significant advancement in rethinking development.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
The authors introduce four models: holistic-content reading; holistic-form reading; categorical-content reading; and categorical-form reading. They present two complete narratives so that readers can compare the authors' interpretations against the actual text as well as analyze the stories on their own. The subsequent chapters provide readings, interpretations and analyses of the narrative data from the models.