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.

基于性别的暴力和性暴力是南非当今面临的一些最重要的问题，该国经常被认为是非战争社会中性暴力发生率最高的国家之一。这种暴力经常在公共话语中被描述为种族隔离后的“危机”，并且被认为是目前比过去更加严重、更加残酷和无耻的事情。然而，这样的框架助长了人们对过去性暴力的历史遗忘，并忽视了此类暴力的长期轨迹及其影响。南非的隐性战争是一个历史研究项目，探讨从 1940 年代到 2000 年代初期，南非在种族隔离期间和后种族隔离早期时期如何概念化、经历和应对基于性别的暴力和性暴力。在进行这项研究时，该项目还寻求开发创新方法和道德最佳实践来研究过去的暴力行为。这项研究的结果将用于弥合南非从事预防此类暴力行为的研究和工作人员之间现有的学科和部门分歧。该项目将促进当代人们对妇女过去的生活和经历有更深入的了解，并促进学术界、活动家、非政府组织和暴力预防组织对南非当前基于性别的暴力问题的悠久历史的认识。由于其普遍存在，南非当代性暴力成为人类学家、心理学家和公共卫生学者的热门研究课题，大多数学者关注后种族隔离时期以及男性为何实施暴力的关键问题。在寻求了解当今基于性别的暴力的高发率时，此类工作常常转向过去寻找答案，在该国漫长的殖民主义、种族主义和国家认可的暴力历史中寻找答案。然而，性暴力本身的历史——过去如何理解、经历和反对性暴力——仍然很少被探讨，特别是在种族隔离时期。因此，强奸被视为种族隔离的遗产，而不是种族隔离期间发生的事情。在这项研究中，女性的声音和经历也被忽视，这些研究往往关注男性和男性气质。南非的《隐藏的战争》通过探索女性自己如何叙述和记住自己生活和社区中过去的性暴力，来回应这些研究空白。这项研究通过创新和跨学科的方法进行，包括三个主要方面：档案研究，用于追踪不同历史行为者随着时间的推移如何理解、辩论和处理性暴力；对不同世代和社区的妇女进行口述历史采访，探讨她们在对种族隔离及其后果的更广泛记忆中对性暴力的理解；与妇女一起举办焦点小组和研讨会，调查她们对性暴力的概念、施暴者以及解决问题的方法。该项目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的实施。当务之急是解决南非现有性暴力研究的缺陷，以确保该国当前的性别暴力和性暴力“危机”得到适当的历史记录，并将妇女自己的声音和过去的经验纳入学术和暴力预防中工作。通过其计划的学术成果、影响力活动和数字档案，该项目将对全球性别和暴力历史学家、南非暴力跨学科学者如何理解南非性暴力的悠久历史产生持久影响以及参与南非当代妇女运动和暴力预防工作的个人和组织。