Constructions, negotiations and performances of gender and power in lobolo: an African-centred feminist perspective

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how gender is constructed, negotiated and enacted in the customary practice of lobolo. Lobolo, sometimes incorrectly referred to as bridewealth or dowry is a practice that centres around the transference of wealth from the groom or a groom’s family to the bride’s family towards the formalisation of marriage. Framed within an African-centred feminist approach I analyse, through narrative discursive analysis, how 27 men and women ages 27 -71, from Johannesburg and Cape Town account for gender and power dynamics in their narratives of participating in lobolo. The African-centred feminist approach I employ critically engages with historical as well as present-day reproductions of patriarchy, capitalism, heteronormativity and other mechanisms of exclusion that are perpetuated through the cultural practice of lobolo. I show how masculinities and femininities are constituted, negotiated and disputed in the narratives of men and women who have participated in lobolo. By employing an African-centered feminist approach I show how gendered dynamics within the practice are shaped by historical and contemporary social, political and economic factors which enable and constrain the exercise of power in various ways. By exploring lobolo through an African-centered feminist narrative approach I demonstrate how the process is more than simply a transference of wealth but rather a complex practice that is used as an apparatus to exercise and expand power in the different stages of the lobolo process. Within this African-centered feminist approach, I argue that lobolo functions to legitimise particular gender positions that can be adopted through marriage; but it can also be used to challenge and contest these roles. The findings of this study suggested that the different stages and process of lobolo reflect a gendered script, which determines the position that men and women are able to adopt, and that this script sets the parameters for the ways in which these roles may be enacted. I find also that the meanings and descriptions of lobolo are embedded within, and reproduce gendered identities but that these identities are not fixed but rather are constantly renegotiated. I conclude that lobolo is not only a custom for formalising marriages but also a tool used by men and women to perform a range of sometimes contradictory functions, including at times establishing and strengthening hegemonic masculinities and femininities but at other times challenging and dismantling these.