Rethinking home in KwaSwayimane: Homescaping as an act of refusal.

Abstract

A homescape is a space that is laboured for, similar to the labour of the women that inspired this research in the practices that they have employed. In this research, I will engage with the practice of homescaping in KwaSwayimane by women who employ this practice as an act of refusal. Thinking through the legacies of the devastating 1913 Native Land Act and other restrictive laws that sought to restrict Black people from occupying land in South Africa.I ask: What is a space for displaced women? What is a home for a displaced woman? How do displaced women create spaces for themselves? I examine the manner in which aesthetics may be presented to embody notions of homescaping as well South African visual artists Lerato Shadi and Dineo Bopape who tackle the question of land in their works. I look to scholars in South Africa and the Global South when meditating on themes of re-memory, Black women’s geographies and homes. Keywords: Homescaping, KwaSwayimane, South African land ownership, South African Black feminist acts of refusal, Black South African women’s geographies, Lerato Shadi, Dineo Bopape