South Africa's Hidden War: Histories of Sexual and Gender-based Violence from Apartheid to the Present

南非的隐秘战争：从种族隔离至今的性暴力和性别暴力历史

• 批准号: MR/Y020189/1
• 负责人: Emily Bridger
• 金额: $ 75.89万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FY020189%2F1
• 关键词: South; Africa; Hidden; War; Histories

Gender-based and sexual violence are some of the most significant issues facing South Africa today, with the country often cited as having one of the highest rates of sexual violence for a society not at war. This violence is often framed in public discourse as a post-apartheid 'crisis' and as something that is consistently worse in the present - more profuse, brutal, and brazen - than it was in the past. Yet such a framing has encouraged historical amnesia about past sexual violence and ignores the longer trajectories of such violence and its impacts. South Africa's Hidden War is a historical research project which explores how gender-based and sexual violence were conceptualised, experienced, and responded to in South Africa across the apartheid and early post-apartheid periods, from the 1940s to early 2000s. In conducting this research, the project also seeks to develop innovative methodologies and ethical best practice for researching violence in the past. The results of this research will be used to bridge existing disciplinary and sectoral divides between those who research and work to prevent such violence in South Africa. The project will foster greater contemporary understanding of women's past lives and experiences and promote greater awareness of the longer histories of South Africa's current gender-based violence problem amongst academics, activists, NGOs, and violence prevention organisations. Due to its prevalence, contemporary sexual violence in South Africa is a popular topic of research amongst anthropologists, psychologists, and scholars of public health, with most scholars focusing on the post-apartheid period and the key question of why men perpetrate violence. In seeking to understand today's high rates of gender-based violence, such work often turns to the past for answers, finding them in the country's long histories of colonialism, racism, and state-sanctioned violence. However, the history of sexual violence itself - how it was understood, experienced, and acted against in the past - remains little explored, particularly over the apartheid period. Rape is consequently seen as a legacy of, rather than something that occurred during, apartheid. Women's voices and experiences are also overlooked in much of this research, which tends to focus on men and masculinity. South Africa's Hidden War responds to these gaps in research by exploring how women themselves narrate and remember past sexual violence in their own lives and communities. This research is conducted through an innovative and interdisciplinary methodology consisting of three main strands: archival research, used to trace how sexual violence has been understood, debated, and addressed by various historical actors over time; oral history interviews with women across multiple generations and communities to explore the meanings they attach to sexual violence within their broader memories of apartheid and its aftermaths; and focus groups and workshops with women to investigate their own conceptualisations of sexual violence, its perpetrators, and means of addressing the problem. This methodology is facilitated by the project's direct collaboration with local NGOs and violence prevention organisations. Addressing the shortcomings of existing research on sexual violence in South Africa is a matter of urgency to ensure that the country's current gender-based and sexual violence 'crisis' is properly historicised and that women's own voices and past experiences are incorporated into scholarship and violence prevention work. Through its planned academic outputs, impact activities, and digital archive, this project will have a lasting impact on how the longer histories of sexual violence in South Africa are understood by historians of gender and violence across the globe, interdisciplinary scholars of violence in South Africa, and individuals and organisations involved in South Africa's contemporary women's movement and violence prevention efforts.

基于性别和性暴力是当今南非面临的一些最重要的问题，该国通常被认为是一个不战争的社会性暴力率最高的问题之一。这种暴力通常是在公共话语中以种族隔离后的“危机”的形式构成的，而现在比过去更糟糕的事情 - 现在更加丰富，残酷和狂热。然而，这样的框架鼓励了历史性失忆症对过去的性暴力行为，而忽略了这种暴力及其影响的较长轨迹。南非的隐藏战争是一个历史研究项目，探讨了从1940年代到2000年代初期的种族隔离和种族隔离早期时期的南非以及种族隔离早期的概念性和性暴力。在进行这项研究时，该项目还试图开发创新的方法论和过去研究暴力行为的道德最佳实践。这项研究的结果将用于弥合研究和努力预防南非这种暴力的人之间现有的纪律和部门鸿沟。该项目将促进当代对妇女的前世和经验的了解，并提高人们对南非目前基于性别的暴力问题的较长历史的认识。由于其普遍存在，南非的当代性暴力是人类学家，心理学家和公共卫生学者中研究的一个流行话题，大多数学者都专注于种族隔离后时期，也是男人为何遭受暴力的关键问题。在寻求了解当今基于性别的暴力率的高率时，这种工作经常转向过去，以寻求答案，在该国较长的殖民主义，种族主义和国家批准的暴力历史中找到它们。但是，性暴力本身的历史 - 过去如何理解，经历和采取行动 - 尤其是在种族隔离时期。因此，强奸被视为种族隔离期间发生的事物的遗产。在这项研究的大部分研究中，妇女的声音和经历也被忽略了，这往往着眼于男性和男性气质。南非的隐藏战争通过探索妇女自己如何叙述和记住自己的生活和社区中的性暴力来应对研究的这些差距。这项研究是通过由三个主要链组成的创新和跨学科方法进行的：档案研究，用于追踪各种历史参与者随着时间的推移如何理解，辩论和解决性暴力的方式；口述历史采访了几代人和社区的妇女，以探讨她们对种族隔离及其后果的更广泛记忆中的性暴力的意义；以及与妇女的焦点小组和研讨会，以调查自己对性暴力的概念，其肇事者以及解决该问题的手段。该方法与当地非政府组织和暴力预防组织的直接合作促进了这种方法。解决南非现有性暴力研究的缺点是要确保该国当前基于性别的性暴力和性暴力“危机”的迫切问题，并将妇女自己的声音和过去的经验纳入奖学金和暴力预防工作中。通过其计划的学术成果，影响活动和数字档案，该项目将对南非的性暴力历史持续持续影响，全球历史学家在南非的性别和暴力历史学家如何理解南非的跨学科研究学者以及参与南非的当代妇女运动和暴力的人的行动和暴力行动和组织的涉及的个人和组织。