Abstract
This chapter is based on narratives by migrant women on how they become active agents in (re)constructing and (re)articulating their own identities. The chapter makes room for the voices of thousands of Zimbabwean migrant women in South Africa through what Abu-Lughod (1991: 149) refers to as ethnographies of the particular interweaving the location of migrant women through matrices of power discourse. In other words, these narratives give a voice to migrant women in their roles as “actors of change”, rather than “subjects of change”. As such, the chapter puts migrant women centre stage in assessing how migration impacts on their lives to negotiate and renegotiate their gender identity, specifically in a host milieu. The chapter is theoretically grounded in Judith Butler’s claim on the notion of gender performativity in a more localised, ethnographic accounts of migrant women living in South Africa. It reconnoitres the relevance and applicability of Butler’s theory on the lived experiences and everyday realities of the migrant women within a Pentecostal religious context. The chapter therefore focuses on how gender identity, within a glocalised community of Pentecostal migrants, is prompted by obligatory norms to be one gender or the other, and how the reproduction of gender is thus always a negotiated process.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter, I use the terms migrant and immigrant interchangeably, although cautiously. Rouse (1995: 357) argues that within much popular and academic discourse about migration, “immigrant” suggests a process of unidirectional movement. “Migrant”, on the other hand, suggests a process of movement back and forth, one in which individuals remain oriented to their place of origin. I agree with his observation that “matters have rarely been that simple and they have grown steadily more complex under transnational conditions”.
- 2.
I am cognisant of the fact that transnationalism explores the dynamic interactions between home and adopted countries and reveals the social, economic, political and cultural fields that span borders and boundaries. However, in this chapter, I am interested in and focus on the lived experiences of im/migrant women in the receiving country, or what Nolin (2006: 123–124) refers to as the “points of attachments” in the reworking and constitution of new identities. According to Glick Schiller et al. (1992), transmigrants are described as social actors who, while clearly influenced and constrained by political and economic hegemonies of both countries, are actively involved in developing and maintaining multiple, layered, fluid identities and relations—familial, cultural, economic, religious, organisational and political—that span the borders of several societies (Basch et al. 1994). A transnational conceptual framework seeks “to examine relations between displacement and ethnic identity” (ibid.: 106) and must be situated economically and politically within the changing global capitalist system and arenas of political conflict, best attempted in a historically and politically informed ethnographic context.
- 3.
Attention in migration research is turning to the transnationalisation of migrants’ lives or the ways in which immigrants, migrants and refugees negotiate the multiple realities of places of origin and places of migration or settlement. A transnational optic enables researchers to explore both the causes and effects of migration, how lives change throughout the process of migration, the conditions that affect those who migrate and those who remain behind, and the ways in which gender relations are transformed by policies, actions and movements (Nolin 2006).
- 4.
I use the term transnational as defined by Glick Schiller et al. (1992), that is, those social fields that immigrants build linking together their country of origin and their country of relocation.
- 5.
Although gender is no synonym for women, the latter must be given specific attention since it is their contributions to migration processes that are still largely ignored (Anthias and Lazaridis 2000), and since women provide a unique entry point in the analysis of issues that might otherwise have been left unexplored. In addition, the idea of women’s agency into migration theory in the context of structural and institutional influences has become necessary to avoid seeing women as victims of circumstance (ibid.).
- 6.
All pseudonyms in this chapter are capitalised, as are words that participants emphasised in our interview conversations.
- 7.
This pseudonym was suggested by the author and accepted by all participants as they did not want the real place mentioned because of the immigration status of most participants. There were fears that should the research findings fall in the hands of the Department of Home Affairs, officers might be sent and swoop on the church looking for “chapters”. Roosevelt City is a composite of 32 suburbs located in north-western Johannesburg. The town has been dubbed the “garden city” because of the lushness of the area, especially those sections that are well cared for like the many recreational parks in the area. The garden city title may also refer to the fact that there are no heavy industries or major factories in the region. It consists mainly of light industries, small engineering companies and hundreds of small to medium-sized businesses.
- 8.
I use the ethnic lens as a unit of analysis rather cautiously as I am fully aware that it is problematic. It has been criticised by scholars such as a Nina Glick Schiller (2008) as an expedient descriptive tool because of the increasing fragmentation of ethnic groups in terms of language, place of origin, legal status and stratification which produces too much complexity for analysis. Other researchers have contested the facetious use of concepts of “ethnic community” and detailed the institutional processes through which ethnic categories and identities are constructed and naturalised (Brubaker 2004; Çaglar 1990, 1997; Erikson 1994; Glick Schiller 1977, 1999; Glick Schiller et al. 1987; Hill 1989; Rath and Kloosterman 2000; Sollors 1989). However, as Vickerman observed, “transnationalism, by orienting immigrants back to their homelands, strengthens ethnicity and slows the process of assimilation” (2001: 220).
- 9.
Birgit Meyer (1998) presents a detailed discussion of Pentecostalism “making a complete break with the past”, especially with its emphasis on the “born-again” experience, particularly the past of African indigenous religions and cultures.
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Chimbidzikai, T. (2018). (Re)negotiating Gender Identity Among Zimbabwean Female Pentecostal Migrants in South Africa. In: Hiralal, K., Jinnah, Z. (eds) Gender and Mobility in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65783-7_4
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